Sebasistan
100+ Head-Fier
I would assume sythwave / retrowave / whatever we want to call this electronica subgenre is not terribly well regarded in audiophile circles. Too much artifice, there's artists a dime a dozen, and let's be honest, most of them just aren't very good. Too many tracks that are just haphazardly thrown together, shot through with the ever same dialog clips from old 80s classic movies, a warbling synthesizer and little talent. Also at this point in 2020 the genre has been around longer than the era that inspired it lasted, so it's all becoming a bit of a joke.
But then, there are some legit great artists in synthwave. They may be difficult to find, but they do exist. So since there is no dedicated thread here for this thing, I thought why not start one and talk about what's actually legit good stuff and where to find it (hint: it's pretty much all on Bandcamp).
My first real exposure to retrowave - which is different but overlapping with chiptune, just to make things more confusing - was in 2012 when indie hyper violence fest Hotline Miami came out. This might seem odd, but I had quite a lot of musical discoveries through video games, from Nine Inch Nails (thanks, Quake!) to Sigur Ros (thanks, Prince of Persia 2008 trailer!). So it was kinda fitting that another video game would open up an entire genre for me.
To this day, one of the most prominent contributors to Hotline Miami's soundtrack stuck with me and I can't wait to see what he does next.
This is Perturbator, aka James Kent, out of Paris. Perturbator has a background in metal, which is an overlap that is fairly common in (good) synthwave apparently. I've seen quite a number of synthwave artists whose main musical projects are metal bands, who then dip their toes into electronica, and bring attitude and overall approaches to compositions into electronic music like this. Sometimes they also just straight up bring in guitars. I will go into an artist like that in a later post.
Perturbator is my personal gold standard for synthwave. It's fairly dark, aggressive and layered music that uses old timey synthesizers with modern beats. There's not a lot going on in terms of vocals, and yes, they, too, employ the much maligned dialog snippets from 80s flicks on occasion. But vocals aren't what I'm here for, and since this is Perturbator I am willing to forgive the nostalgic indulgence.
Peturbator is, like most of the genre, certainly "a mood" as the kids would say.
Oh also content notice on the videos, they feature some flashing lights, so be careful if you're prone to seizures.
His 2016 album The Uncanny Valley is something I rank among the best synthwave albums, personally.
You can also get remastered versions of his first two albums and some more EPs on the Blood Music label.
But then, there are some legit great artists in synthwave. They may be difficult to find, but they do exist. So since there is no dedicated thread here for this thing, I thought why not start one and talk about what's actually legit good stuff and where to find it (hint: it's pretty much all on Bandcamp).
My first real exposure to retrowave - which is different but overlapping with chiptune, just to make things more confusing - was in 2012 when indie hyper violence fest Hotline Miami came out. This might seem odd, but I had quite a lot of musical discoveries through video games, from Nine Inch Nails (thanks, Quake!) to Sigur Ros (thanks, Prince of Persia 2008 trailer!). So it was kinda fitting that another video game would open up an entire genre for me.
To this day, one of the most prominent contributors to Hotline Miami's soundtrack stuck with me and I can't wait to see what he does next.
This is Perturbator, aka James Kent, out of Paris. Perturbator has a background in metal, which is an overlap that is fairly common in (good) synthwave apparently. I've seen quite a number of synthwave artists whose main musical projects are metal bands, who then dip their toes into electronica, and bring attitude and overall approaches to compositions into electronic music like this. Sometimes they also just straight up bring in guitars. I will go into an artist like that in a later post.
Perturbator is my personal gold standard for synthwave. It's fairly dark, aggressive and layered music that uses old timey synthesizers with modern beats. There's not a lot going on in terms of vocals, and yes, they, too, employ the much maligned dialog snippets from 80s flicks on occasion. But vocals aren't what I'm here for, and since this is Perturbator I am willing to forgive the nostalgic indulgence.
Peturbator is, like most of the genre, certainly "a mood" as the kids would say.
Oh also content notice on the videos, they feature some flashing lights, so be careful if you're prone to seizures.
His 2016 album The Uncanny Valley is something I rank among the best synthwave albums, personally.
You can also get remastered versions of his first two albums and some more EPs on the Blood Music label.
