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NONE OF THIS IS REAL by DJ Rozwell
April 30, 2023
In the world of music, nothing gets pretentious nerds like myself going more like concept albums. It’s like writing a novel with sounds, using your knowledge of the medium to effectively convey theme and narrative within the work. A good concept album is the mark of an exceptional musician. NONE OF THIS IS REAL by DJ Rozwell is a creative and well executed take on a concept album.
DJ Rozwell is no stranger to messing with media crossovers. He’s associated with the weird and wonderfully executed multi-media ARG known as “Erratas”, the scope of which goes far beyond this review. If you’re of the morbidly curious sort, there’s plenty of analysis and explanation to be found on Youtube.
According to the description on the Bandcamp page, the music contained within NONE OF THIS IS REAL was recovered from a series of disks in an abandoned apartment in the bygone age of 2001, described as “the first fantasy audio hip-hop rougelike tape”. It is a collection of over 50 tracks, ranging in length from a few minutes to under 30 seconds, with varying style and tone. For clarity’s sake, I’ll be using the version of this album available on Spotify as reference, as the tracks have proper titles. Note that several of the shorter tracks in the Bandcamp version have been appended to others, reducing the overall track count in the Spotify version.
The first track, aptly titled “INSTRUCTIONS”, sets the tone for the whole album. To a backdrop of nostalgic, 8-bit melody, the digitized voice of the wizard speaks: one must experience this album on shuffle, with a crossfade of five or six seconds between tracks, “or thou shalt be smited”. In what is probably a clever business decision, this makes buying the album on a service like Bandcamp and playing it through a third party media player the best option, as most free playback features of music streaming services are limited. However, so far I’ve experienced no ill effects from simply listening through it in order on Spotify. (Good luck wizard, I’m behind 7 proxies!)
To put the concept behind this concept album into words, it is music designed with the sensibilities of a rougelike video game. For those unfamiliar with the rougelike genre, the key elements are randomly generated levels, items, enemies, etc. each time you play, creating experiences that are unique and exciting. The tracks seem purposefully engineered to take full advantage of the intended method of listening. The resulting audio journey is, as advertised, different every time.
The music is constructed with an eclectic mixture of nostalgic computer sound card noises, samples from various other music, films, and documentaries, and distorted, reverb-y synth beats. The unique combination of high fantasy, supernatural horror, retro soundfonts, and classic hip-hop writes an out-of-this-world epic novel in your mind. Imagine if your average doomer Soundcloud artist got transported to a dark ages fantasy setting, and there were also aliens for some reason. That’s this album in a nutshell.
Rozwell makes extensive use of samples, allowing them to guide the tone of whatever song they’re a part of. Track 4, “SOUNDS FROM HELL”, uses a very specific sound that’s also used in the soundtrack for Final Doom on the Playstation. It’s a high-pitched sound with the cadence of the call of a bird of prey. It sends a chill through your veins, like hearing some weird noise out in the woods at night.
On the topic of creepy samples, Track 13, titled “It Looked At Me”, makes fantastic use of the old Sims horror stings, the creepy music that would play when a burglar approached or a fire started. The bloodcurdling nature of these sounds is embraced and exemplified, creating a song that feels downright oppressive and groovy at the same time.
“LIFEFORCE (POTION QUEST)” and “I’VE NOT SEEN SUCH BRAVERY” sample voice lines from the classic arcade game Gauntlet, furthering the connection to old-school gaming. Combined with the myriad of clips from old fantasy adventure films, it feels like an audio version of something like Ultima or The Elder Scrolls: Arena.
Amidst the fantasy B-movies are samples from supernatural-themed movies, broadcasts, and documentaries. Tracks like “Spectral Dog” and “Aledecerre (Castles N Crypts)” give this journey an extra turn into the weird, probably haunted abandoned lots just outside town.
The final three tracks (not counting the 2 shorter ones at the end) of the album are a comparatively tranquil trilogy of ambient noise tracks. The journey is over, and you’re left to reflect on what you’ve seen and heard, what you’ve learned, in the ‘Caves of Time’.
The most fun thing about this album, in my experience, is the way it re-frames the way I think about and experience music. In addition to a rougelike, this album is possibly more akin to a tabletop roleplaying game, such as Dungeons & Dragons. Rozwell has created three “expansion packs” for N.O.T.I.R, further cementing the symbolic link to video games and providing listeners more stuff to play around with. The most basic rules and setting are there, but those are merely guidelines. You can add or remove whatever you please to make the experience your own. You could add any other music to your randomly generated music adventures, and you’d still be playing the intended way. In a way, that’s true of any experience of art. You bring just as much to the table as the art does, and that creates experiences as unique as you are.
NONE OF THIS IS REAL, as well as the expansion packs, are available for listening and purchase on Bandcamp.