BY ALEX GIBSON
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
VENUE: KOLA, PORTSMOUTH, UK
DATE: 5/04/2026
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX GIBSON
Beneath clinking glasses and moody electric candle-lights, wizard hats and Renaissance dresses sway to the descending Korg staccatos of ARCANE OUBLIETTE. This magician, hunched over his synthesizer in resplendent red robes, transforms this lively Portsmouth dungeon into a glittering, mesmerising tavern.
Attendees chatter in low, excited voices, bobbing and teetering as Arcane Oubliette enchants the room, one wavering sawtooth chord at a time. Mellow arpeggios trickle up and down against ambient blasts of synthesizer organs. It is a curious blending of medieval ruins and twentieth century videogame OSTs, simultaneously comfortingly nostalgic and daringly unfamiliar — the halcyon days of long summers, fantasy RPGs, and make-believe. He beckons us to join him on this adventure.
From time to time, this dungeon master triumphantly raises Easter eggs above his head. The sword in the stone parallel is not lost on this crowd, who cheer in excitement each time an egg is raised. For a lot of attendees, Arcane Oubliette is their introduction to the vast, sprawling world of dungeon synth. And what better introduction than one which hurls Easter chocolates across an ecstatic crowd, their arms up in cheer, their fingers splayed.
PORTCULLIS, a one-man fellowship of keyboards, guitar synthesizers, and drums, usurps Arcane Oubliette to draw us further into the mysticism of fantasy synth. As Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 Lord of the Rings animation projects onto the backdrop, Portcullis leads the audience in chants and cheers, bellowing a ‘HEY!’ into the crowd, who – their voices canyon-deep and their fists tightly clenched – reply with a ‘HO!’. The audience might as well be a brotherhood of dwarves egressing their subterranean domain.
Between pounding drumbeats and enchanting refrains on his oddly-shaped guitar synthesizer, Portcullis’ call to adventure is a tranquilising contrast to the epic ambience of Arcane Oubliette’s atmospheric electronica. Here, audiences sway to instrumental odes on gentle seaside life, Tolkien’s Shire, and the South Coast’s own Hiorne Tower, projected in fantastical raven’s view behind the master musician. As Portcullis strolls up and down the synth fretboard in gentle, mesmerising licks, we can almost hear the lapping of waves against the shore, or the lackadaisical dancing of grass blades beneath Gothic towers.
Lowering the drawbridge into ruins of ancient magic is Australian dungeon-synth sorcerer QUEST MASTER, a warlock of dark ambience and textual synths. Quest Master ensnares the audience in a swirling cauldron of N64-era Korg keyboards, imitation cathode ray graphics, and dark fantasy-inspired harmonies. Oscillating between the sepulchral and the sylvan, Quest Master’s setlist strides confidently through a nostalgic fantasy land, from ‘Holy Glass Monolith of Rose River Canyon’ to ‘The Radiant Glow of the Submerged Temple’ (both on his 2021 album The Twelve Temples).
Where many other dungeon synth maestros – including the UK’s own Arcane Oubliette and Portcullis – incorporate robes or crowns or on-stage roleplay into their repertoire, Quest Master enchants the room with his epic instrumentals alone. Like the most pensive wizard, he is silent in this darkened stronghold. One moment, the crowd sways with shut eyes to the crystalline, plinking keyboard drip-drops of a cascading waterfall. The next, they rock out to epic organ drones, led by hand and horse through crumbling cathedrals and cursed towers.
In between these epic juxtapositions of serenity and noise, the crowd chatters. Quest Master is not merely a musical moment but an enveloping experience. The audience themselves, enrobed in wizard hats and medieval dresses, understand dungeon synth as a soundtrack to their own lives. This is their tavern — as Quest Master warps through his blending of PlayStation cyberspace and Nintendo RPGs, they drink, debate, and dance.
In these mellow interims between dark wizards and elven crusades, the audience take each other’s hands and twirl. Others pump their fists to the pounding dungeon drumbeats. No two people dress the same. All dance together. This is dark magic. This is dungeon synth.
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