Grol the Goblin
In the world of underground genres, there is bound to be weird and interesting offspring from time to time… And Grol the Goblin is definitely one of them. Bred and created in the once “isolated” soil of murky dungeon and moody vintage synth music, the revolting and nauseating slimy sound of goblin synth was bound to happen. We hate goblins right? Too small to notice while creating havoc and mayhem, small and irrelevant small creatures of chaos that you just want to smash to a pulp! A small cousin/version of orcs (if you please!). There´s even a smaller cousin to Goblins in the world of Warhammer called Snotlings (Bloodsport), but that is another story! And we are not just talking about a goblin who stays in one place, we are talking about the short that deal in beer-drinking synth, future/cyberpunk mod, dungeon noise, ambient winter moods and martial almost 8-bit sound mayhem! Rumors also have it that this little pest of a Goblin has stirred moments of tension in the dungeon synth duck pond. So yes, I of course then decided to headhunt this little vermin down once-and-for-all for a face-to-face interview. So here we go!
Q: First of all, who is Grol the Goblin?
It is me! I'm Grol Gragson, a goblin born and raised in the Goblin Pits. It is said that I'm descended from the ancient goblin king, but there's no proof of this as of yet! I like to drink my brew, smoke my leaf, raid my trade caravans and play me some goblin synth!
Q: Blood-related to the elf-like Norwegian/Swedish
Goblin Mortiis by chance?
Nope. Mortiis is an entirely different breed of goblin! Some goblins will even argue that it isn't true goblin synth, but this is of course up for discussion.
Q: What is the background/inspiration for this project?
It was living here at the goblin pits that made me create my goblin synth. Especially as a lower raiding class goblin, I know that we goblins need us some light-hearted entertainment! Musically I draw inspiration from a lot of lo-fi DS such as Ranseur, Chaucerian Myth, Tyrannus and Erdig, but my music is also heavily inspired by traditional goblin folk music!
Q: I´ve noticed collaboration with Olof (Erdig), a chance of you two doing something together?
As of now, there is no musical collaboration planned or even discussed. He gave me a logo for me to use out of what I can only assume is kindness and perhaps a hope to see my handwriting less and a proper logo more. I think however this was a very kind gesture and thank him very much for it. Though when it comes to chance you ought never to ask a goblin as these concepts confuse us, so who knows what there is a chance of!
Q: Plans of doing physical releases?
Why of course! Tapes and CDs of all my albums are planned and will be released as soon as possible! If anyone wants to print vinyl though then feel free to contact me.
Q: You have been quite productive with this project, will we continue to witness more releases with this in the future?
As long as there is blood left in this little goblin body of mine then there will be goblin synth! I plan many releases and have no intention of stopping, so lay thine eyes upon my discography and thou shalt see that it is growing!
Q: How/Why some people react´s in a negative way regarding dungeon-noise? (Regarding your latest post that your stuff offended some)
When it comes to dungeon noise I guess some people like their music hi-fidelity and clean. Dungeon noise does have heavy noise elements as One might think, but this is of course in general not viewed as a good element in music. I like the harsher, rawer and noisier elements to DS, but I think it might suit goblins better than elves so to speak. Regarding my latest post about offending people, I can tell it has nothing to do with my noise elements though. A bunch of humans on the dungeon synth facebook group thought that my very existence was some bizarre form of trolling, and contacted higher up members to make sure my intentions were pure so to say. I think this is outrageous and want to point to the fact that I have never attacked anyone and I have followed the rules and guidelines to the DS group with no exception!
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