Nox Arcana
Encyclopedia
Nox Arcana is an American dark ambient
musical group, formed in 2003
by Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski. Nox Arcana specializes in concept albums based on gothic fiction and classic horror
literature. Such literary references include: H. P. Lovecraft
, The Brothers Grimm, Ray Bradbury
, and Edgar Allan Poe
. Some of their albums also make reference to medieval themes and ancient mythology
.
Their Winter's Knight album, released in 2005
, ranked as high as #8 on the Billboard chart for Top Holiday Albums. Their music is used by theme parks such as Busch Gardens
, Knott's Scary Farm and Universal Studios during Halloween for scenes and haunted houses based upon Nox Arcana album themes. Nox Arcana's music was featured exclusively on the television show America Haunts for the Travel Channel throughout the Halloween weekend 2009.
, classical
, ambient music
, rock music
, and film soundtracks
, citing other composers such as John Carpenter
, Danny Elfman
, AC/DC
, Wojciech Kilar
, Enya
, Loreena McKennitt
, Beethoven
, Jerry Goldsmith
, and Hans Zimmer
.
Nox Arcana's music is melodic and moody, focusing on a dominant melody line. Instrumentation varies with each album as appropriate to the theme or time period of the album concept, and typically includes piano, bells, violin, pipe organ, harpsichord, timpani drums and other percussion. Some albums also include cymbals, lutes, acoustic guitars, bagpipes and glockenspiel, depending on the theme of a given album. Enforcing the theme and the narrative is the use of sound effects, such as, for instance, a door creaking or a pendulum swinging on the Poe
-inspired Shadow of the Raven
. Vocals and narratives are also used sparingly to help relate a story or serve as introduction to a musical piece, for example, the voice of "Jonathan Harker" and whispered female voices of "Dracula's brides" that beckon to the listener, a carnival barker with the indistinct sounds of an audience in the distance, or "Edgar Allan Poe" and a voice calling out from the grave after being prematurely buried, the gravelly voice of a "witch" casting a spell, and a variety of low Gregorian-style chanting and ethereal choirs.
but left the band in 2000 to co-write Tales From The Dark Tower, a book that follows the exploits of a vampire
during the First Crusade
. He later published Dark Realms magazine and released a best-selling card deck, The Gothic Tarot. William Piotrowski had previously written the score for a video production entitled "Ghosts of Ohio", a video documentary about Mary Ann Winkowski, a medium who inspired the CBS television show Ghost Whisperer
.
Dark ambient
Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music that features foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones. Although it had its roots in the 1970s, Dark ambient emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of newer, smaller, and more affordable Effects units, synthesizer and sampling technology...
musical group, formed in 2003
2003 in music
-January:* January – following an investigation by The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and London detectives, police raids in England and the Netherlands recover nearly 500 original Beatles studio tapes, recorded during the Let It Be sessions. Five people are arrested...
by Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski. Nox Arcana specializes in concept albums based on gothic fiction and classic horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
literature. Such literary references include: H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
, The Brothers Grimm, Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
, and Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
. Some of their albums also make reference to medieval themes and ancient mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
.
Their Winter's Knight album, released in 2005
2005 in music
-Events:*During the year 2005, 12 rock music albums scored number 1 in the USA. This was the first time even ten albums have scored number 1 since 1996.-January:...
, ranked as high as #8 on the Billboard chart for Top Holiday Albums. Their music is used by theme parks such as Busch Gardens
Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream Tampa Bay
Howl-O-Scream is an annual Halloween event which takes place at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay in Tampa, Florida.The event takes place during select nights in October . The event places focus on haunted houses, "Scare Zones," and shows that pertain to a specific theme. The haunted houses are enclosed...
, Knott's Scary Farm and Universal Studios during Halloween for scenes and haunted houses based upon Nox Arcana album themes. Nox Arcana's music was featured exclusively on the television show America Haunts for the Travel Channel throughout the Halloween weekend 2009.
Musical characteristics
Nox Arcana is influenced by New AgeNew Age music
New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
, classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, ambient music
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
, rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, and film soundtracks
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
, citing other composers such as John Carpenter
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
, Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman
Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...
, AC/DC
AC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band, formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Commonly classified as hard rock, they are considered pioneers of heavy metal, though they themselves have always classified their music as simply "rock and roll"...
, Wojciech Kilar
Wojciech Kilar
Wojciech Kilar ; b. 17 July 1932 in Lwów, Poland) is a Polish classical and film music composer.-Biography:Wojciech Kilar is one of Poland’s esteemed composers. Born in 1932 in Lwów . His father was a gynecologist and his mother was a theater actress...
, Enya
Enya
Enya is an Irish singer, instrumentalist and songwriter. Enya is an approximate transliteration of how Eithne is pronounced in the Donegal dialect of the Irish language, her native tongue.She began her musical career in 1980, when she briefly joined her family band Clannad before leaving to...
, Loreena McKennitt
Loreena McKennitt
Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM, OM, is a Canadian singer, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. McKennitt is known for her refined, clear soprano vocals...
, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
, and Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including critically acclaimed film scores for The Lion King , Crimson Tide , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , The Dark Knight and Inception .Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the...
.
Nox Arcana's music is melodic and moody, focusing on a dominant melody line. Instrumentation varies with each album as appropriate to the theme or time period of the album concept, and typically includes piano, bells, violin, pipe organ, harpsichord, timpani drums and other percussion. Some albums also include cymbals, lutes, acoustic guitars, bagpipes and glockenspiel, depending on the theme of a given album. Enforcing the theme and the narrative is the use of sound effects, such as, for instance, a door creaking or a pendulum swinging on the Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
-inspired Shadow of the Raven
Shadow of the Raven (album)
Shadow of the Raven is Nox Arcana's eighth full-length album in four years. This time the composers Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski honor Edgar Allan Poe, the author of "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Fall of the House of Usher, "The Tell-Tale Heart" and...
. Vocals and narratives are also used sparingly to help relate a story or serve as introduction to a musical piece, for example, the voice of "Jonathan Harker" and whispered female voices of "Dracula's brides" that beckon to the listener, a carnival barker with the indistinct sounds of an audience in the distance, or "Edgar Allan Poe" and a voice calling out from the grave after being prematurely buried, the gravelly voice of a "witch" casting a spell, and a variety of low Gregorian-style chanting and ethereal choirs.
Discography
| Date of release | Title | Label | Billboard peak Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003-12-15 | Darklore Manor Darklore Manor Darklore Manor is an album released by gothic horror musical group Nox Arcana on Monolith Graphics in 2003. It features a style of music that bears a similarity to Joseph Vargo's earlier work on the album Born of the Night with Midnight Syndicate, a group that he helped to establish in 1998 prior... |
Monolith | |
| 2004-10-10 | Necronomicon | Monolith | |
| 2005-07-10 | Winter's Knight Winter's Knight Winter's Knight is an album released by Nox Arcana on Monolith Graphics in 2005. The music is predominantly instrumental with a darker medieval flair, and is one of the Top 10 Gothic Christmas or Solstice albums.... |
Monolith | 8 |
| 2005-10-21 | Transylvania | Monolith | |
| 2006-06-06 | Carnival of Lost Souls Carnival of Lost Souls Carnival of Lost Souls is an album by Nox Arcana, loosely based on the story "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury. On this album, Nox Arcana performs a style of music that is indicative of tunes associated with an late 19th-early 20th century circus or Vaudeville act, albeit with a... |
Monolith | |
| 2006-10-13 | Blood of Angels | Monolith | |
| 2006-11-27 | Blood of the Dragon Blood of the Dragon (album) Blood of the Dragon is a musical album incorporating an interactive puzzle. The music is mainly instrumental, with a classical, symphonic, and at times tribal Celtic sound... |
Monolith | |
| 2007-08-20 | Shadow of the Raven Shadow of the Raven (album) Shadow of the Raven is Nox Arcana's eighth full-length album in four years. This time the composers Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski honor Edgar Allan Poe, the author of "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Fall of the House of Usher, "The Tell-Tale Heart" and... |
Monolith | |
| 2008-04-30 | Grimm Tales Grimm Tales (album) Grimm Tales marks Nox Arcana's ninth full-length album in four years. Like several of their other albums, this music is also inspired by classic literature. In this case, the folktales of the Brothers Grimm. Instrumentation includes piano, violin, cello, acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, and various... |
Monolith | |
| 2008-10-13 | Phantoms of the High Seas Phantoms of the High Seas Phantoms of the High Seas is Nox Arcana's tenth full-length album in just under 5 years. The theme of the album is pirate lore and stories of ghost ships... |
Monolith | |
| 2009-06-21 | Blackthorn Asylum Blackthorn Asylum Blackthorn Asylum is Nox Arcana's eleventh full-length music album. The musical theme is described as being "set in an abandoned sanitarium for the criminally insane where the doctors conducted horrible experiments on the inmates." Nox Arcana once again pays homage to H.P... |
Monolith | |
| 2009-09-15 | Zombie Influx Zombie Influx Zombie Influx is a collaboration between Nox Arcana and Jeff Hartz of Buzz-Works. The theme of this album centers around a zombie invasion with the use of frantic emergency news broadcasts reminiscent of H.G... |
Monolith/Buzz-Works | |
| 2009-11-27 | Winter's Eve Winter's Eve Winter's Eve is Nox Arcana's thirteenth full-length album and second christmas themed album.-Tracks:# "The Messenger" — 1:18# "Frozen Memories" — 2:45# "Magic and Moonlight" — 3:25# "The Rose of Winter" — 2:24# "Enchanted Realm" — 2:35... |
Monolith | |
| 2010-07-15 | Theater of Illusion Theater of Illusion Theater of Illusion is Nox Arcana's fourteenth full-length music album. Its theme is that of an old theater haunted by a masked magician.-Tracks:# "Abracadabra" — 1:40# "Cobwebs" — 2:40# "Nostalgia" — 2:24# "Forgotten Dreams" — 4:17... |
Monolith | |
| 2010-10-01 | House of Nightmares House of Nightmares House of Nightmares is a collaboration between Joseph Vargo of Nox Arcana and Jeff Hartz of Buzz-Works. It is the fifteenth release from Nox Arcana... |
Monolith/Buzz-Works | |
| 2011-09-30 | The Dark Tower | Monolith |
History
Joseph Vargo is a renowned gothic-fantasy artist who has created an extensive portfolio of work ranging from album covers and books to posters, music cds, and other products that are distributed through his publishing company Monolith Graphics. Before forming Nox Arcana in 2003, Joseph Vargo produced two albums for Midnight SyndicateMidnight Syndicate
Midnight Syndicate is an American musical group that has been working mainly in the genre of gothic music since 1997 and is based out of Chardon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland...
but left the band in 2000 to co-write Tales From The Dark Tower, a book that follows the exploits of a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
during the First Crusade
First Crusade
The First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...
. He later published Dark Realms magazine and released a best-selling card deck, The Gothic Tarot. William Piotrowski had previously written the score for a video production entitled "Ghosts of Ohio", a video documentary about Mary Ann Winkowski, a medium who inspired the CBS television show Ghost Whisperer
Ghost Whisperer
Ghost Whisperer is an American television supernatural drama, which ran on CBS from September 23, 2005 to May 21, 2010.The series follows the life of Melinda Gordon , who has the ability to see and communicate with ghosts...
.
Interviews
- Halloween Center, January 4, 2009
- Halloween Database, August 2007
- Parallel Perspectives, May 2007
- Music Street Journal, September 2006
- The Perch, May 2006
External links
- Official website
- MySpace profile
- [ Allmusic profile]