UNDEAD MAGIC USER - WHILE THE LIVING SLEEP
You are interacting with the Information Superhighway on your Computing Machine, when suddenly you discover there is a new album by Undead Magic User, called "While the Living Sleep". It appears to be completely free to stream, but, even more tantalisingly, completely free to download as well, although you can't help but notice that you are able to pay for it if you wish. What do you do?
Roll 1d6:
1) You ignore the post you're reading on Experimental Melbourne and go back the way you came - you don't need to hear these synthesised drones or immersive atmospheres. Life is fine the way it is. You check your Facebook and forget all about it.
2) You're intrigued by the oddly self-referential post on Experimental Melbourne, and interested in the unusual imagery - you click on the link at the bottom of the post. Suddenly, your browser reveals a shadowy Bandcamp page, and there, right in front of you, is the album that you were promised, in all its six-tracked glory. With titles like "Cave of Dismal Intentions" and "Elf Stare", you enter the album, cautiously, your mouse-finger ready to release you from this website should things go awry. Tentatively, you stream the first track...
3) "Undead Magic User"? You like the sound of that! Without any further thought, you dive straight in, letting the long-form improvised dark ambient synthscapes wash over you like some kind of Drowish Magick. Within the first few moments of the opening track "Contemplation of the Magic User", you're so hooked that you find yourself pressing on the "Buy Digital Album" button, almost without thinking, and purchasing the album for maybe 3 or 4 dollars. "Why not?" you wonder, "when the artist has so clearly toiled over this album's creation so very diligently? It takes a lot of time and effort to generate art in a society so ambivalent about culture, 3 or 4 dollars is really not that much - and I do so want to support the local experimental music scene." You download the album to your collection and enjoy the rich and warm feeling of becoming a patron of the dice-ambient role-core musickal arts.
4) You rush your browser straight over to Undead Magic User's Bandcamp Portal, and, in a berserker frenzy, buy not only the new album "While The Living Sleep", but every single release, from "And Upon That Terrible Throne" right through to "Encounters on the Journey"! So overwhelmed by the magick of this dark-ambient dice-core solo project from Australia are you that you even chase down the very first album, "Master of Dungeons", released on Rotten Shape records in America! With your swag full of improvised drones and synthesised soundscapes, you return home, your adventure an amazing success.
5) You buy it all. But you don't stop there. No, this is a project that moves you so greatly that you must share it with all your friends, your family, your workmates - you even find yourself calling up your exes and stopping random strangers in the street to share your glorious discovery! You can hardly believe it's true, but here it is - Undead Magic User is the musickal project your soul has been yearning for all these years. You are finally complete.
6) You give it a listen. It's okay. But it's got no real melody or rhythm, and after trying a few songs - if they're even actually proper "songs" - you find it all a bit samey. Drones, drones, blah blah blah. You shut the tab and never think of Undead Magic User again.
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