Cellar Of Rats

Dark ambient project. Best known as a composer of original soundtrack for the video game "Scratches" (2006).
Also created music for the feature film "Ray of Darkness" (2005) by Realms Entertainment.

Released albums:
2006 - Ye Frozen Tunes of Leng
2006 - Electric Universe

All soundtrack works:
2005 - Ray of Darkness (horror/suspense movie, original music)
2006 - Scratches (horror adventure game, music and special sound effects)
2007 - Scratches Director's Cut (horror adventure game, music and special sound effects)
2007 - Whisper Canyon (short thriller movie, music)
2007 - Place (Miejsce) (short thriller movie, music and sound design)
2008 - Pieces of Eight (suspense adventure game, music and sound design)

Also produced and published the unofficial sound effects package for the "Enigma" 2007 video game.

"Cellar of Rats is actually the artistic name of Vlad K., sound designer and composer. It is also one of the origins of all that hideous piping and grinning, whining and dismal echoing, malevolent musing, of which dear H. P. Lovecraft so often wrote just about every time an eldritch horror is about to present itself to a poor soul that ventured into seas of utter horror and dismay of the elder and forbidden magickal lore. Indeed those sounds are hard to describe, but being a composer and sound designer I dare not and must not recall them lest I leave my sanity on the scoring pad; the poor thing twitching and screaming from the hideous malevolence those sounds and notes tend to produce in fragile scoring pads.... Poor thing. Alas, the sounds I've heard! Oh, my, my...."

"Cellar of Rats had his first contact with music more than 15 years ago and has worked professionally in the music industry, playing and composing for various instruments in many bands, mostly of underground nature, gaining performance and composition experience. A perfectionist by nature, he puts a great care in his work and is an invaluable asset to any project he's involved in.

His main interests, and what mostly motivates him, are horror movies, or those which have a mysterious feel to it, and anything related to H.P. Lovecraft. According to his own words, his source of inspiration are big, ancient and rusty machines, quiet and forbidden places, abandoned ruins guarding archaic secrets, endless halls covered with mould, dusty dungeons and, of course, damp cellars with the occasional rats.

These are incidentally some of the imagery conjured by his music, which transcends the boundaries of Dark Ambient to turn into a singular concept - rather than common ambient soundscapes, Cellar of Rats' music has a dramatic movie-like feel to it, which makes it fit better as a soundtrack. But a soundtrack of gloomy landscapes and otherwordly monstruosities.

Perhaps a better way to transmit the feeling Cellar of Rats evokes would be to imagine a trip in a creaky boat crossing infinite rivers, escorted by impossible creatures diving under its dark waters, or a descend into a black void, an endless pit deep inside the twisted mind of the man behind the music. Who knows what unspeakable horrors Cellar of Rats has in store for us there.

Review by Agustin Cordes"