Nox Arcana is the American neoclassical dark wave, dark ambient musical project of Joseph Vargo. It was founded in 2003 as a duo with William Piotrowski, who left in 2008 to pursue a career in film score composing but still acts as its studio engineer whereas Vargo continued on as a solo act under the name. According to the Nox Arcana biography, the name is derived from two Latin words that roughly translate to "mysteries of the night."[1][2][3][4][5]
All of Nox Arcana's music is released independently on the Monolith Graphics label, a publishing company owned by Vargo. With their third album, Nox Arcana became a Billboard Top Ten charting artist in the holiday genre.[6]
In addition to the storytelling aspect of each album, hidden puzzles and interactive quests are incorporated into the album artwork and into the music itself. Beginning with the Blood of the Dragon CD in 2006, Vargo began a tradition of incorporating a quest or adventure within the album artwork and sometimes leaving clues in his narratives. He later went back and did the same for some of the earlier CDs. Now more than half of Nox Arcana's CDs contain some sort of hidden puzzle, which is left to the listener to discover.[12][13]
In 2018-2019 Joseph Vargo's lifelong love of puzzles was the impetus for creating the adventure-puzzle video game The Cabinets of Doctor Arcana followed by The Cabinets of Doctor Arcana (Game Soundtrack) by Nox Arcana.[14][15]
Musical style
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.
Their music is generally classified as dark neoclassical or dark ambient, "sometimes sandwiched into the gothic music genre" [16] and aptly labeled "atmospheric gothic."[17] The moods associated with Nox Arcana music describe it as ominous, romantic, lush, epic, otherworldly, menacing, spooky and eerie, Nox Arcana's music covers a broad range of subgenres within the rock and alternative music categories.[18]
Joseph Vargo explained Nox Arcana's style to a blogger from Gnostics.com: "Our music is mainly classically based instrumental, although we do incorporate chanting choirs and spoken narratives for dramatic effect to achieve a blend of darkly haunting melodies that encompass the complete gothic spectrum the romantic, the mysterious, and the horrific. We utilize a variety of instruments such as piano, pipe organ, violin, acoustic guitar, drums and tolling bells to achieve symphonic orchestrations. Our concept has always been to create moody and melody-driven gothic soundscapes that take the listener on a musical journey through various dark realms of fantasy."[1]
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 choirs.[19] Enforcing the theme and the narrative are the use of sound effects, such as a door creaking or a pendulum swinging on the Poe-inspired Shadow of the Raven.[20] Their trilogy of winter holiday-themed albums feature a range of ethereal-style choirs, Gregorian-style chanting, classical music, and Celtic new-age instrumentation,[20] giving a darker overtone to music for the Christmas and Yuletide holidays. Three albums, Blood of Angels, Zombie Influx, and House of Nightmares were recorded as side-projects with other artists or vocalists. William Piotrowski released his first solo film soundtrack with Crimson Winter. Joseph Vargo wrote and recorded solo for later albums, Blackthorn Asylum, Winter's Eve, Theater of Illusion, The Dark Tower, Winter's Majesty, Legion of Shadows, Gothic, Season of the Witch, and Ebonshire, which has become a series of holiday music EPs released each year, culminating in 2018 with the full collection.
Billboard charts
Nox Arcana's Christmas album Winter's Knight peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Top Holiday Albums chart in 2006 and again in 2007.[6]
In 2022, Nox Arcana's Halloween-themed EP Darkfall debuted at No. 13 on Billboard's Classical Crossover chart.[21] It was followed in 2023 with Darkfall, Volume 2 which also debuted on the Classical Crossover chart at No. 9.[22]
Joseph Vargo's cover art for Nox Arcana's Transylvania album was featured as a full page in LIFE magazine's October 2021 issue, Vampires: Their Undying Appeal.[25][26]
In 2013, a young Corsican filmmaker Ariakina Ettori won first place in the L'Institut Régional du Cinéma et de l'Audiovisuel (IRCA) with her modern version of "Little Red Riding Hood" inspired by Nox Arcana's song "Night of the Wolf." The film school credits Joseph Vargo and Nox Arcana for their unconditional support.[29]
William Piotrowski wrote the score for a local production entitled Ghosts of Ohio, a video documentary about Mary Ann Winkowski, a real-life medium who inspired the CBS television show Ghost Whisperer.[30] In 2013, William wrote and performed the motion picture soundtrack for the vampire film Crimson Winter.[31]
Nox Arcana's music is used by theme parks such as Busch Gardens, Six Flags, Knott's Scary Farm, Kennywood Park and Universal Studios during Halloween for scenes and haunted houses based upon their album themes.[9][32] Nox Arcana's music is featured exclusively on the TV show America Haunts for the Travel Channel, which has aired throughout the Halloween weekend each year since 2009.[33][34][35] Music from Nox Arcana's Transylvania album was featured on the FOX TV show So You Think You Can Dance.[36]
In 2016, Nox Arcana's musical composition "Night of the Wolf" from their Transylvania album is the centerpiece of a live performance for Cirque des Voix, a show that combines orchestral and choral music with contemporary circus acts.[37]
Work with other music acts
Nox Arcana's sound has been used by other performing artists to introduce their albums or live shows. Joseph Vargo recorded the vocal Intro for the 2008 album Witchtanic Hellucinations by Acid Witch.[38] He also provided the intro music and vocals for Legion of the Damned albums Cult of the Dead (2008) and Decent Into Chaos (2011). LOTD also opened their 2010 "Slaughtering" tour with Nox Arcana's song "Circus Diabolique" from their album Carnival of Lost Souls.[39][40] In 2013, Blood on the Dance Floor opened their Bad Blood tour with "Essence of Evil" from Nox Arcana's Blackthorn Asylum album.[41]
Monolith Graphics
Monolith Graphics publishes and distributes Nox Arcana music worldwide. The publishing company is owned by Joseph Vargo, who became world-renowned[42] as a gothic-fantasy artist in the early 1990s with work ranging from album covers and books to posters and other products.[43] Before forming Nox Arcana in 2003, Joseph Vargo produced two albums for Midnight Syndicate[44][45] but left the band in 2000 to co-write Tales from the Dark Tower,[46] a book that follows the exploits of a vampire during the First Crusade. Over the next 8 years, he published Dark Realms magazine, released a best-selling card deck, The Gothic Tarot,[47] and wrote a book based on his original story for Nox Arcana's debut album, Darklore Manor.[48] In 2011, Vargo released, Beyond the Dark Tower,[49] a sequel to Tales from the Dark Tower along with The Dark Tower album based on his book series.
Related Research Articles
Midnight Syndicate is an American musical duo that has been working primarily in the genre of neoclassical dark ambient music since 1997 and is based in Chardon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
Darklore Manor is the debut album by neoclassical darkwave musical duo Nox Arcana. It released on December 15, 2003 on the Monolith Graphics label. 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 to his founding of Nox Arcana.
Winter's Knight is the third album by gothic duo Nox Arcana. The album peaked at #8 on Billboard Magazine's Music Charts for Top Holiday Albums of 2006 and 2007.
Blood of the Dragon is the seventh album by Nox Arcana, incorporating an interactive puzzle. The music is mainly instrumental, with a classical, symphonic, and at times tribal Celtic sound. The music is interspersed with brief narrations and sound effects that relate a tale of high fantasy.
Necronomicon is the second album by Neoclassical darkwave/dark ambient musical duo Nox Arcana published by Monolith Graphics on October 10, 2004. The music is inspired by the stories of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and is a tribute to the Cthulhu Mythos.
Transylvania is the fourth album by gothic duo Nox Arcana. This album is a musical tribute to Bram Stoker's Dracula. The duo employs their musical storytelling concept to take their listeners through chapters of the classic novel—beginning with Jonathan Harker's voyage into the Carpathian Mountains, a ride in Dracula's ominous black coach, arriving at Castle Dracula, a rendezvous with Dracula's brides, and a foray into a gypsy encampment, and finally into the lair of the vampire.
Carnival of Lost Souls is the fifth album by Dark ambient musical duo Nox Arcana, loosely based on the novel Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. On this album, Nox Arcana performs a style of music that is indicative of a late 19th-early 20th century circus or Vaudeville act, albeit with a darker, more sinister tone and effect.
Realm of Shadows is the third studio album by American band Midnight Syndicate, released March 6, 2000 by Entity Productions. Musically keeping with the band's blend of dark instrumental music and horror-influenced soundscape, the theme of the album centers around a cursed and abandoned village.
Grimm Tales is the ninth studio album by gothic musical duo Nox Arcana. 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 wind and percussive instruments, which serve to establish the intended theme. In keeping with the dark fairy tale theme, ominous narrations from a "Witch Queen" and the deep, resonant voice of her male counterpart are featured on several tracks, as well as the raspy voice of an aging Crone as she invokes a magical spell.
Phantoms of the High Seas is the tenth album by dark ambient duo Nox Arcana. The theme of the album is pirate lore and stories of ghost ships. Instrumentation includes deep bass horns, pounding drums, string instruments, and narration by Joseph Vargo telling the tale of a doomed pirate vessel called The Tempest. The instrumentals are accompanied by sound effects that include a howling wind and the snap of sails, the sound of creaking as of a wooden boat left derelict at sea, an eerie yet alluring chorus like that of a siren calling sailors to their doom, male voices of the ship's crew as they call out to the beat of a dirge while rowing, and thunderous sounds of cannon fire.
Blackthorn Asylum is the eleventh album by dark ambient duo Nox Arcana. 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. Lovecraft as they did with their second album Necronomicon, stating "We set Blackthorn Asylum in the 1930s and revisit the dark domain of H.P. Lovecraft. The plot builds upon Lovecraft’s short story "From Beyond" and adds some creepy new twists." And, as with almost every other album this band has released, this album conceals a puzzle, along with a storyline that expounds upon Lovecraft's story.
Blood of Angels is a musical collaboration by Michelle Belanger and Neoclassical dark wave musical duo Nox Arcana. It released over label Monolith Graphics on October 13, 2006. This album is also the sixth release by Nox Arcana and also their second release in 2006.
Theater of Illusion is the fourteenth album by musical duo Nox Arcana's. Its theme is that of an old theater haunted by a masked magician. The album is a popular source of music for professional illusionists.
Winter's Eve is the thirteenth studio album and second Christmas-themed album by Nox Arcana. It was released in 2009 on Monolith Graphics. Apart from traditional music for the Christmas season, the theme of this album evokes a medieval or pagan Yuletide celebration typical of the winter solstice.
House of Nightmares is a collaboration album by Joseph Vargo of Nox Arcana and Jeff Hartz of Buzz-Works. It is the fifteenth release from Nox Arcana. The theme of the album is that of an old manor house next to a cemetery haunted by the spirits of the dead whose presence is most evident on October 30, the Devil's Night, and Halloween night.
The Dark Tower is the sixteenth concept album by Nox Arcana, released as the soundtrack for The Dark Tower book series by Joseph Vargo.
Winter's Majesty is the seventeenth album by Nox Arcana, concluding their winter-themed trilogy, which also includes Winter's Knight (2005) and Winter's Eve (2009).
Legion of Shadows is the eighteenth album by Nox Arcana, marking their 10-year anniversary. The album was announced as a dedication to their fans, and was one of two albums that Nox Arcana released in 2013 on Halloween — the second being Crimson Winter , William Piotrowski's first solo project and score for the vampire film Crimson Winter.
Ebonshire is the 27th album released by Nox Arcana. It is a collection of songs from 5 earlier volumes in a series of winter holiday EPs inspired by Nox Arcana's holiday music trilogy: Winter's Knight (2005), Winter's Eve (2009), and Winter's Majesty (2012), which are each set in a fantasy realm called Ebonshire. This full-length release includes 4 new tracks.
Season of the Witch is the 25th album released by American musical project Nox Arcana on October 1, 2017. The theme centers around a coven of witches that gather each Halloween night at place called "Raven's Hollow", which is a setting mentioned in the book series The Dark Tower by Joseph Vargo. The first track features a narration that sounds like an old woman casting a spell, which continues later in the bonus track. The music features piano, harpsichord, drums, symbols, tolling bells and violins, with vocal choirs.
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