10.

Makeup and Vanity Set & Sferro – Memory Screen

9.

Neon Nox x LukHash – Midnight Run

8.

Neilio – CYPHER (feat. Kaarin Zoe Lee)

7.

Preston Knight – Human (feat. Hello Meteor)

6.

Wice – City Nights (Feat. J+1)

5.

Dreamhour – She’s Everything (feat. Dokodoko)

4.

House Of Serpents – Ritual (feat. Battlejuice)

3.

Timecop1983 – Read My Mind (feat. Josh Dally)

2.

Kid Moxie & NINA – Electric Kiss

1.

PYLOT x Tyler Lyle – Time Bomb |Visualizer|

Below is the list of our top 10 collaborations from this year from some of the best acts in the scene….

10. Dreamreaper & MAGNAVOLT – BLOODRAVE

9. Earmake & Stilz – Artifact Hunt

8. ALEX & Mono Memory – SOCIAL MEDIOCRITY

7. Futurecop! – Home (feat. Parallels)

6. Fury Weekend & Ollie Wride – Soul Survivor

5. All the Damn Vampires – I Can’t Go (feat. Mint Simon & Sunglasses Kid)

4. DRYVE – 80s Song (feat. Cassiopeia)

3. Josh Dally & Timecop1983 – Take Me Back

2. PYLOT – Invisible (feat. Ezra Hyte)

1. Miami Nights 1984 – Only When It’s Dark (feat. Gunship)

Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein

Summer has come to Hawkins…

… and whilst the nights are still dark, filled with gloomy forests and subdued/moody synths, Dixon and Stein have added plenty of bright and airy neon synthesizers. All throughout the the soundtrack there is a war between the dark and the light, good and evil, terror and euphoria. The two disparate soundscapes give the feeling of basking in the warm sun of a summer break, whilst underneath a ghostly inertia tremors beneath the sheen, percolating, menacing arps looming like a shadow of tentacles, lying in waiting in the Upside Down…

The soft pastels of heat, sun, swimming pools, bathing suits, summer vacations combine with the violet pinks and harsh blues of the Mall’s synthwave nights. New sounds are added to the cocktail of 80’s nostalgia along with themes of fashion, heat, comedy, violence, horror, romance.

Youth, innocence and friendships drift away from those safe childhood basements, into the world, the Stranger Things kids growing up and growing apart. The two composers have managed to capture the melancholy of losing the past whilst hurtling into the future perfectly, each emotion held and harnessed in the soundtrack. They balance soft meandering pads of thoughtful reflection, bright sparks of excitement, and oppressive feelings of dread. At a moments notice they are able to flip a switch to match the tone, from synths terrorising the night with moody riffs, tinged with a ghoulish nature, to subtle dangerous cringe inducing throbbing, to joyous, riotous synthwave bangers.

The soundscape is full of ghosts of the past, and reflections of the future. Rough and tough raw analogue sequences, modular synth explorations in dark drones and granular atmospheres, silky melodies rushing to euphoria.

Their synth work machinations offer true inspiration, at once unique and powerful. They recapture the magic of the previous seasons, that elusive trick of feeling both original and comfortingly familiar… making this a summer to remember…

https://kyledixon-michaelstein.bandcamp.com/album/stranger-things-3

Trevor has always had a talent for creating an authentic homage to the past while exploring his own forward thinking unique sounds. Taking elements from the genre which in the midst of an influential revival whilst also breaking new ground.

Girlfriend’s sound is stacked with polys, glassy leads, analogue-styled chords, melancholy post-disco, neon-tinged melodies and hedonistic raw-pop stylings.

The haunting catchy vocal hook, thick pads and fat basses meld with a plethora of rich synth sounds. Harsh sonic analogue chords, sound as tight and harmonious as you need them to be with savoury Moogs, a collection of futuristic basslines and Neo-Retro forward-thinking beats thickening the texture.

A sound of soulful chords and a soulful voice, meandering through the synthscape to a hypnotic dreamwave backdrop.

Tokyo, early nineteen ninety-four.  Scrambled and a little more than lost in translation, wandering around the subterranean bars and after hours parties amongst the neon glow. A retro future landscape past and future colliding in the eternal present…

Light crashing and smothering in his grasp, Timecop’s synth-lines and pulsating polychords mangle together to form notes of kaleidoscopic beauty intent on taking you on a journey through the neon dreams of your retro future.

In fact, I am 99% convinced that these sounds were made by some half man half machine hybrid taking full advantage of the software’s architecture as some ultra-human cyborg.

Crystallised chords injected with the right amount of grit and decay, pulsating as a late night workout, deep dark moody and filled with heart-breaking emotional nostalgia.

Riving subs analogue bass riff and dive into the dirt with a nostalgic palette of synths taken right out of 80’s film soundtracks and video games transport you back in time with ease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q05jWNsLtas

Futurcop!’s dreamy sonics flash back to the 80’s melodic-pop-soundtrack-soundscape of your retro dreams.

It’s as if they have wandered into a garage sale littered with retro gear from the 80’s, picked up as many authentic retro machines as they can carry and then set about creating an entire world of retro-future classics in their childhood basement.

The tracks resemble some forgotten gems from a lost 80’s fantasy film, with luscious pads and synthetic strings, served with up in a variant synthwave/retrowave genres, from electronic pop to chillwaved-chillstepped filmscored-dreamwave.

The production is sharp and clean whilst at the same time retaining an essence of decay, of a time passed. It sounds as though their electronic waves were mapped onto a retro tape recorder and then filtered back into a modern day DAW. They let loose on their 80s-style synthesizer-infused film scores with chunky basslines, analogue modelled pads, and chilling vocals melodies. All laced with passion, an ache for past time, a jolt of modern pop tilting into the future with heavy enthusiasm. The mesmerising sound of ricocheted pads are littered throughout the album, with instrumental tracks offering small intermissions, a break from the choreography of beats and sung melodies at just the right times to create space to reflect and consider what went before.

The overall ambience is light, creating space, making it appear as if there is a distance being travelled, a distance between things. Like the suns warmth that is a thousand lightyears away but still burns, so far, so close that it doesn’t even seem like a distance at all.

They demonstrate with each new synthesiser that there is poetry to these lost machines.

https://newretrowave.bandcamp.com/album/voltrana

The melodies aggravating in dystopian drones, tense dark and unearthly, the retro stabs, subby 80s

Suspenseful eerie and supernatural carepenter-esque sequences. The trick is in the waiting, the suspense of what can and will happen next.

The song conjures up all the appropriate nostalgic images of an 80’s nightclub; the club down an LA side street, leather jackets worn tight to the pins of badges, jeans clench to thighs and peroxide straightened hair still smells of its burning. People no longer searching for anything, shouldering off the noise to the shadows, the darkened nightclub etched in menace. Two intersecting sources of light work across the eyes, a pulsating rhythm and melody drawing you in further. Heat, boredom, fashion.

The synth-laden glitz of the early 80s, pop, electro all draped in neon shadow.

Tense melodics and discofied beats captures the essence of the after-hours drive, exploiting the nostalgic synth palette, re-creating classic sounds synonymous with the era. Crafted and curated with new-wave guitars and vocal hooks to create a true synthwave anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc7YdbgIBWw

]]> https://newretrowave.com/2019/03/12/the-bad-dreamers-who-you-run-to/feed/ 0 https://newretrowave.com/2019/03/12/stellar-dreams-valkyrie/ https://newretrowave.com/2019/03/12/stellar-dreams-valkyrie/#respond Tue, 12 Mar 2019 22:02:58 +0000 https://newretrowave.com/?p=26054