11
BASH Co. – DUNGEON
Bash Co’s “Dungeon” is all about the rather disturbing notion of being trapped by the very emotions which are meant to be liberating. It’s a song released on 22 August 2026 which looks at love as a form of imprisonment rather than a source of freedom. It’s a very claustrophobic take on the subject of love. The very simple melody is a great contrast to the depth of the subject matter and the whole thing is full of metaphor. Rather than go into every emotion you end up with a sense of disorientation, of a broken soul in a cage of its own making.
One of the most powerful things about “Dungeon” is its treatment of silence, agony and emotional entrapment. The image of silence as deafening agony is a very effective one in terms of encapsulating the paradox of suffering which is simply impossible to put into words. Iron becomes a symbol of an unbreakable wall of pain. There’s a real psychological dimension to the piece which goes well beyond a simple piece on love. The lyrics are deliberately obscure, designed to make you think about the feeling of being imprisoned in something which should have been a source of comfort. It’s drawn from an informed perspective rather than a first hand experience, but the themes are very much ones that we can all identify with.
Recording decisions also go a long way to establishing the atmosphere of the single. It started life as a series of chords on an acoustic octave guitar but took a very different turn as a result of the sheer difficulty in getting a good recording. Ironically that very frustration led to a more claustrophobic approach, with the subsequent decisions all being made to try and capture the inner layers of a self which is just consumed with agony. It was all recorded in a home studio with guitars and programmed drums (the drums being created via MIDI keyboards and Ableton) and the whole thing was produced and mixed completely on its own.
“Dungeon” is even more interesting in the context of ‘Velvet’ which is the other side of the same coin. One looks at love as a form of imprisonment, the other at it as a form of liberation. They’re a great philosophical piece in themselves, a real dialogue about freedom, confinement and the nature of emotional attachment. On its own “Dungeon” is a very interesting piece on the psychology of entrapment, and in the context of ‘Velvet’ it’s even more significant.
