Avada Kedavra by Dispell

A statement:

This project was initially an attempt to troll dungeon synth purists back in 2017 when it was initiated (same as it ever was...), wherein I created the first demo (Crucio) in about 4 days with the intent of not taking the music too seriously, invoking dungeon synth tropes and the darker sides of the Harry Potter universe. But any attempt to create music 'as a joke' usually breaks down in the process, and working under these weird and slightly hostile circumstances freed me to try some experiments that fed their way back into my 'serious' work. I still think "Bellatrix" is one of the best things I've ever composed, and of course it has taken on the role of an unhealed splinter in my discography, as the author of the franchise has repeatedly demonstrated her increasingly virulent transphobia.

But I was drawn to finish the cycle rather than let it fizzle out, officially concluding the project with an album of dark and ritual ambient and dungeon synth modeled after the final Unforgivable curse. "Avada Kevadra," rather than exploring the ability of magic to end life, is a celebration of the so-called "Death of the Author", the ultimate reduction to the level of meaninglessness of the author's relevance to the reader. I'm convinced that there's better fantasy out there for every age of reader. But if this franchise must be engaged with, do so knowing that wherever the author's pettiness and bigotry appears, whether in sometimes thinly coded form in the books, or elsewhere in her public life, that there is a spell of withering power ready to stand against it.

Until and beyond its dying breath, Dispell stands against transphobia and the slow crawl of fascism, no matter how neatly it is dressed up.