Down The Road Again

A real retro roundup this time, I was thinking of things I've been listening to recently and wound up landing on another sorta Synthwave selection. I've mentioned in the past how I don't dive into that world much anymore as there was a time when anything vaguely synthwave was a dime a dozen - but after going back to some old Kavinsky records a little while ago, I'd be lying if I said I didn't quite like it a bit. So today I've rounded up some of my other recent favourites both new and old, let's have a look.

Peter Alexander - Ceanothus (2001)

Starting with the new (or new-ish) with a bit of the soundtrack to Road 96, which first came on my radar due to folks talking about the soundtrack. I was sort of surprised to see The Toxic Avenger on there, I hadn't heard that name since the remix heyday of the electro house era. And actually you can hear that influence on Home Call, it shares much more in common with Kavinsky's brand of Electro than it does your average Synthwave, which for me does wonders when it comes to evoking that nostalgia that Road 96 is going for. That intro is divine.



Hitting up Mitch Murder next, I've always described his take on the whole retro electronic sound as very honest, and that's very true for his early releases. The After Hours EP from 2009 was actually Mitch's first, the version on his Bandcamp is quote "slightly remastered" and with redone cover art that is more in line with Mitch's now established look. I've posted bits and pieces from it before but honestly every track on here is very well done - I've gone with Bertone's Theme this time around, a much poppier take on the sound than you might be used to. In keeping with that retro theme, it almost sounds like a DMX Krew track at times with that funky undercurrent. I gotta echo what one of the reviews says on the Bandcamp page, even from this early release you can tell the man has an ear for this kind of thing. And as I say so often on this page, if you like this, you would do well to check out all of MM's output - a lot of his early releases are Pay What You Want so you can scoop them for free if you'd like.



And finally, I can't talk early synthwave without bringing up Perturbator - perhaps one of the biggest names attached to the genre. It's not hard to see why, the covers for these early albums and EPs lean hard into the 80's sleaze and cheese: dripping with images recalling the satanic panic, slasher flicks, sci-fi and sofcore porn. I put the albums back into rotation after a long absence, they're still excellent examples of the genre for sure (my favourite still being The Uncanny Valley) and I've found myself liking the slow jams on them more and more this time around. Last Kiss being one such example, following a very cinematic structure, it takes its time building an atmosphere before lavishly laying on the synths come the 2 minute mark. A complete 180 to the previous track Complete Domination featuring another synthwave heavyweight Carpenter Brut - that one is all about instant intensity whereas Last Kiss is a much more of a mood piece. Maybe it's my soundtrack side taking over, but these bits have been the definite highlights of my revisit.



And that'll be all for today, I hope you've enjoyed this very brief dip into the world of retro electro, there's a whole lot more out there to get stuck into but I think I did a decent job of showing some variety here, especially if you've not encountered any of these artists before. I'll be back soon enough. with more but until next time, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Same Name Game

Claudio Bravo - Coke Love (1971)

Following through on an idea I had years ago and could have sworn I'd already done a few times - wherin I post duets of tunes that have the same titles. Naturally, the ammo you have for this sort of post only increases with time, and amongst my thousands of tracks there was bound to be some crossover. The real challenge comes from finding ones that are readily available to stream from BC though, I've managed to get all of them on there this time though.

Let's start off with a little bit of a easy one - two Berlins from Moderat and Modeselektor respectively. Of course, Moderat is made up of Modeselektor and Apparat so perhaps cheating a bit, but interesting to see the two different takes from each. We'll start with Moderat's Berlin as it was the first of the two to be released - a surprisingly sedate number from the otherwise minimal and glitchy tones of tracks before and after it. Now of course you all know I am a complete sucker for any and all ambient interludes and this one is no different, it's a gorgeous little breakwater that ushers in the final quarter of the album. Apparat's influence is very clear to hear on this one, especially in the final ten seconds or so, which use almost exactly the same tone of synth as on Over And Over from Apparat's Walls some years prior.



A stark contrast to Modeselektor's Berlin - a bombastic slice of electro house from that era that wastes no time in getting going. The album it's from, Monkeytown, is probably my favourite of the bunch that the 'Selektor boys have put out - but I'm more than willing to admit that a big part of that is a sort of nostalgia for the time when it came out, it was an incredible year for this brand of high energy releases: Teenage Bad Girl's Backwash, Rustie's Glass Swords among others leading the charge. Looking over the track list now, I'm hard pressed to pick out any weak points, the whole album is pretty tightly produced - don't be dissuaded by the amount of 'Featuring' credits on it, each one is finely selected and runs the full gamut from Thom Yorke to Busdriver. Perhaps a little short at 11 tracks but that's nothing when they're all so good. Berlin is one of the high points though for all the reasons I mentioned above, I just love the sound that Modeselektor had around this time, and this one (and really the whole album) are absolutely coated in it.



The theme of contrasts continues with the next two - partially inspired by my last post where I revisited Graeme Norgate's OST work. We'll flip the format this time and hit up the uptempo one first with the opening track from Perturbator's The Uncanny Valley. Perturbator's brand of synthwave is one of my favourites, I was aware of them in passing but like so many others out there I only really took a closer look after the Hotline Miami soundtrack introduced me in full, and what a perfect fit Peturbator's sound is, perfectly at home in the slightly psychedelic ultra-violent world of Hotline Miami. The Uncanny Valley continues that trend, much more cinematic feeling than previous releases, but that's to be expected if you read into the background lore of the album: all about a technological cult in the year 2112. With Neo Tokyo as the opening track it'd be easy to assume this is all full power synthwave for the full runtime but there are some real nice downtempo bits nestled in there too - my favourite of which being Femme Fatale. Tune in and log on, get a load of this.



And finally, another bit from Norgate. His NeoTokyo is a very different beast to Perturbator's and takes more than a few cues from Blade Runner (which to be fair, the level itself did as well if the '2019' date on it didn't make it clear enough). The past few times I've talked up Norgate's work it's been upbeat ones but the man certainly knows how to set an atmosphere - tracks like this and the Siberia theme do a fantastic job of setting the tone for the levels in question. Again quite cinematic actually, not bad for the soundtrack to what is on paper an arcade FPS. Having said that it does suffer a little from being a mite cliché at times with the stock samples used to create that kind of generic 'eastern' feel, but in my case the nostalgia overpowers that. Still, even so I think it has a charm to it, the non-sample contributions are as good as ever, though for the complete effect you'll need to play some ambient rain sounds in the background to match how it is in the game!



And that will be all for this time around, I have another couple lined up but they probably won't use the Bandcamp players so I've put them to one side for a potential sequel along with any others that I might come across in the meantime. This one took a little longer than I expected but that's purely down to me meandering a bit, I wanted to finish it up last night but it was one of those Murphy's Law kind of nights you know? Anyway, you don't come to the blog to hear me vent so I'll call it here. Hope all of you folks in the USA have a good Thanksgiving weekend and as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

One o' them days

Remember back in May where I did a real super short post as a change of pace? I thought it might be a more common feature than it actually turned out to be - it was this one right here, the one with the bit of a soapboxy rant that in hindsight was a bit out of leftfield and potentially ill-advised? Yeah, that one! Well, today I'm feeling that kind of vibe again, though a lot less wordy this time. In summary: people are shit.

Dora Maar - Double Portrait (1930)

I actually put togetehr this tracklist before getting the link to the old one, only to find I'd picked stuff from pretty much the same albums as last time for you fans of serendipty out there. They're a bit more consistnet this time, there's no left turn into techno town at the very end, though we do get a bit IDM with a touch of melodic grit from Clark's Totem's Flare instead. It would have been last in the list but I moved the Perturator album down one as it has the uncensored cover on the Bandcamp page and I thought I'd give you a heads up before you scrolled into it (though I guess it might already be on your screen depending on how big it is) - might be alright becuase it's thumbnail sized but you may want to save this one for when you're on a network that's not monitored by your school/employer or whatever!









And finally as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

What a Week

The title says it all really. As someone in Europe and in Education the week was already tumultuous from the get go and it's only escalated from there. For context I originally sat down to write this post on Wednesday and have just been a combination of busy and agog at the state of things to really apply myself (and celebrating slightly when it comes to yesterday's developments but that's a topic for another day). But I'm here to wrap it up now!

Charles Sheeler - American Landscape (1930)

So what have I been listening to in this eternal week? Well, the majority of my Phone is still fit to bursting with Eurobeat as it remains my go-to genre for instant energy injection, but I've also been stretching my Punk legs a bit with the charmingly named Diarrhea Planet - though, while badass as hell, isn't really suitable for this electronic space.

On that same note I have fallen back in with Zamilska again. I've not really gone deeper than the Undone album (and I really should one of these days), but even on the relatively short 7 tracks of the album she displays an absolute mastery of building tension. The entire LP is fantastically built, really nailing that slightly oppressive and claustrophobic feel that's only compounded as more and more layers get introduced. Just when you think we've settled into a groove, another layer of sound crashes into the mix to spice things up once again - my favourite being around 2:50-ish. if I had one complaint it would be that the track just kind of fizzles out, I'd have liked one final explosion of noise to ring in the end like on some of Clark's tracks, but that's a moot point as the overall experience is brilliantly executed.



On that same note I dug out the Adult Swim Fever Dreams compilation again, it's a real who's who of Synthwave and general retro electronic but also has a ton of artists I'd never have found otherwise on it. A track I always forget about and then fall back in love with is Stratos by Majeure. As is the tale with so many tracks on compilations, I kinda wrote it off for a while because after a whole album of similar stuff I just kinda lumped it in that 'retro electronic' pile. And the intro kind of betrays it in that sense, I can see why I made that assumption but man oh man was I rewarded for sticking with it - the first of those key changes around 1:30 just sent me. It's not the first track to do so, and I'm not even sure I'm using the right terms there but I just adore whenever that kind of progression crops up (which to be fair, probably explains a lot of my love for Eurobeat as well). It's still not available to stream anywhere other that Adult Swim's site so apologies if you're reading this in the future and the player is broken and apologies if you're reading it now for the bigger than I would like embed.



And finally a tune I meant to talk about when it first came up, but forgot to/couldn't because all the sources weren't official. HEALTH make their first appearance since the NYE post, I'm still in that honeymoon period with DEATH MAGIC since I put it back into rotation and almost picked another track from it, but today we're talking BODY/PRISON instead. A collaboration between HEALTH and Perturbator on paper sounds almost perfect, the kind of sound HEALTH have since their more electronic adventures with DEATH MAGIC has some synthwavy bits to it anyway, so this match up is ideal. I did have some concerns going in about it being too much though, it's very easy to overdo it when it comes to that sound. But when it comes to the end result, Perturbator's touch seems to have been very light and I don't mean that negatively, they've done a very good job of merging their styles which makes it come across as a true collaboration and not just a Perturbator remix of HELATH.

Granted, I haven't really kept up with Perturbator since the release of The Uncanny Valley so I'm not sure if his sound has changed that much, but if you're a big fan of the style of that album and their previous, just manage your expectations going into this one. I've yet to check out DISCO4 as a whole but the couple singles I heard in the run up were really nice - here's looking forward to Part II.



And that'll about do it for this week (or however long it takes until I post again), I hope you are all doing well and that maybe you'll find something you like in these selections. I know for definite I need to check out Majeure's other work for starters. And as always: Stay safe, and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Electric Futures 2020

NOTE: Hi there! I'm going through the backcatalogue and re-publishing all the posts I can find. I'm re-posting them as new articles too just so there is visible content going up. This post is originally from January 2017.

Enjoy,
-CVF

Horacio Garcia-Rossi - Couleur Electrique Lumière (2000)

Kicking off with a slight electro slant this time, I was picking apart my look over Perturbator's LP The Uncanny Valley and seeing if my opinion had changed much. I don't think it has to be fair, the album is still mastered incredibly loudly (or at least my copy is, for good and bad, depending on the situation). But I did manage to find some things I hadn't put in my original post. Assault didn't really grab me first time through, it's not helped by having a real generic title for one, and secondly if you've listened to as much Perturbator as I have it's standard fare at this point. That is until you get to 2:30 of course, somehow I'd forgotten in the time past that there's a massive switch up from a slow and deliberate synthwave tune to more much aggressive feel as befitting an artist featured in Hotline Miami.



I recently put the Half Life 2 soundtrack back into my collection after a long absence, I've gotten to know them pretty well in the decade plus they've been around. Still though, there are little pieces that I will forever adore, one of which being Sector Sweep from Episode 2. That pulsating intro is a joy to listen to and perfectly captures the track's title, I especially enjoy it being used as a basis for the rest of the elements to be built around, it's not often you see a soundtrack have so much symbolism with the media it's accompanying.



And we can't be talking futuristic soundtracks and not give nod to perhaps my favourite opening theme of all time, Inner Universe. Ironically enough after speaking about soundtrack symbolism, Inner Universe nails it also, the contrast between the electronics and Origa's unique vocal contributions matches the world of Ghost In The Shell incredibly well. It's been a long time since Stand Alone Complex ended, and Origa herself passed sometime ago now, bet her work and the world of Ghost In The Shell will be forever entwined.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Electric Futures

Horacio Garcia-Rossi - Couleur Electrique Lumière (2000)

Kicking off with a slight electro slant this time, I was picking apart my look over Perturbator's LP The Uncanny Valley and seeing if my opinion had changed much. I don't think it has to be fair, the album is still mastered incredibly loudly (or at least my copy is, for good and bad, depending on the situation). But I did manage to find some things I hadn't put in my original post. Assault didn't really grab me first time through, it's not helped by having a real generic title for one, and secondly if you've listened to as much Perturbator as I have it's standard fare at this point. That is until you get to 2:30 of course, somehow I'd forgotten in the time past that there's a massive switch up from a slow and deliberate synthwave tune to more much aggressive feel as befitting an artist featured in Hotline Miami.



I recently put the Half Life 2 soundtrack back into my collection after a long absence, I've gotten to know them pretty well in the decade plus they've been around. Still though, there are little pieces that I will forever adore, one of which being Sector Sweep from Episode 2. That pulsating intro is a joy to listen to and perfectly captures the track's title, I especially enjoy it being used as a basis for the rest of the elements to be built around, it's not often you see a soundtrack have so much symbolism with the media it's accompanying.



And we can't be talking futuristic soundtracks and not give nod to perhaps my favourite opening theme of all time, Inner Universe. Ironically enough after speaking about soundtrack symbolism, Inner Universe nails it also, the contrast between the electronics and Origa's unique vocal contributions matches the world of Ghost In The Shell incredibly well. It's been a long time since Stand Alone Complex ended, and Origa herself passed sometime ago now, bet her work and the world of Ghost In The Shell will be forever entwined.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Slightly Perturbed

Oh boy was I ever excited to see this one in my inbox. It should come as no surprise to any regulars I love me some cyberpunk Sci-Fi and some Hotline Miami synthwavy goodness, and do I have a treat for you if you also dig that kind of thing. Let's go.

Click here for uncensored

Now, if that artwork didn't tip you off, Perturbator is one of the big names of the scene I see a lot, alongside say Carpenter Brut and Lazerhawk, there's a whole lot of retro influence drawn from, mainly 80's anime and seedy occult slasher flicks. It's with some slight shame I admit I haven't kept up with 'Bator's actual releases so much, but like many a great cyberpunk inspired musician before him there's a glut of world-building and story behind the LP which I will put up now:

"The album continues in the same story thread as the artist's previous works, taking place 24 years after the finale of “Dangerous Days.” Focus shifts from the world of Nocturne City into the future alleys of Tokyo, after the finale of the War Against Machines."

And with that, lets begin. From the get go it's not hard to see why the devs of Hotline Miami picked up on it, from all I've heard that slightly menacing off kilter sound has been perfected. As is to be expected from a tune with a title like this.



It's not always instantaneous release of Synthwave violence though, one of the strengths of Perturbator I've come to know is that the composition of the tracks to achieve a certain atmosphere is top notch. Thankfully it's not long before The Uncanny Valley gives us a stellar example of both these. Keep an eye out for the inevitable AMVs of this one in the near future.



I've always liked the more downbeat pieces on offer too, and this album features probably my favourite of them all so far. There's certainly a comparison to be made between the sound of this one and Vapourwave, but that was going to be a given seeing as they both derive a lot of inspiration from 80's anime. Still, it feels very authentic, I don't think it'd sound too out of place coming out of a Sega CD game (specifically Snatcher).



And finally the album's title track, one final synth filled swan song to see it out. As much as it's sounds cliché I definitely think there's a strong cinematic element to the LP as a whole and not just because of the cited influences from say Akira and Ghost In The Shell, even this one feels like ti was structured to accompany a finale into credits roll, complete with a fade at the end for a teaser for the next one to show.



Once again I sheepishly apologise for not having properly dug into Perturbator's back-catalogue before, but I'm sure if I posted my backlog of things I have to pick up you'd understand! Regardless, I highly recommend checking Perturbator and the like out if this kinda sound is scratching an itch for you, there's plenty out there to get stuck into you can start over at /r/outrun or even better...

Find more Perturbator on:
Bandcamp
Soundcloud
Youtube
Twitter

-Claude Van Foxbat