The Synthetic Dream Foundation - The Witch King (1st Movement)

Brett Branning is the solo mastermind behind The Synthetic Dream Foundation, a multi-genred electronic project that fuses neo-classical sound with anything from EBM to psytrance to IDM. Based in Tampa, Florida in the United States, Branning formed TSDF in 2005 never wanting to be restricted by genres; rather, he's the type who sees electronic music as a gateway to an infinite and endless amount of possibilities. And I think that statement goes very, very well according to his EP series, "The Witch King". 

As stated by Branning himself, "My style and techniques seem to shift so rapidly, that if I work on a collection of 10 or more songs, by the time I think I'm finished with the tenth song I already want to make more edits to the first song or two." 

And, so, "The Witch King" series was born. Three separate EPs will be released throughout the next couple of months, with each having a two month gap in between them. Since the first release is simply subtitled in parenthesis "1st Movement", I can only imagine the next two EPs will be titled "2nd Movement" and "3rd Movement" respectively, but that may always change at a further time. 

Either way, if you pre-order the EP now (for a mere two dollars, I might add), you will be able to download all three tracks available on the EP before the May 29th release date. And that's exactly what I did. 

'In the Realms of the Unreal' kicks off the album and plays greatly with symphonic instruments and epic, fantasy ridden medieval-like choirs. That is all backed by touches of pure bass and some IDM elements scattered about; they aren't as dominant as the other sounds, but they sure as hell can put a pretty good twist on the song. 

'The Human Harvest' completely breaks from the previous song and serves up a dancey, EBM song laced with trance elements and more medieval choirs in the background. While the vocals weren't really shocking, as I have heard this style of digitalized vocals on a millions other different songs, the beat itself was quite wonderful. 

The final and third track, 'In Letters of Black Night' definitely allowed IDM to take center stage among the symphonic sounds and choir. I would have liked to see the two separate genres work better together in harmony, but, nonetheless, the addition of a harp in the song and the once again epic sound shoveled out the bad, and allowed me to enjoy the song in full. 

Branning really did a swell job with this EP, allowing his big and epic sounds to trickle in and play with electronic music in all different forms. My only advice that I can really give is that he change up his vocals a bit for next time, make them unique (I would honestly think that this man would have a good set of clean vocals to go along with his music), and just work the music more to make it flow better together. Other than that, he's doing a fucking fantastic job and I have high hopes for the next installment in "The Witch King". 
May 17 2015