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

Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release.

The floor melting bass sounds, full of shredding growls has the texture of a razor, with an epic lead line blistering through the stratosphere, rising like an expanding horizon.

Trace Decay is full of mind exploding arps, twisted FX, outrageous leads, slickly programmed tight and punch bass lines.

Delos dives into a dystopian collection of retro synths, eerie motifs, filmic synth lines and beautiful sound design that plunges you into a dark, pixelated world. A world where the hot glow of neon streaks through the sky and the deafening sound of revving engines howls through the streets. Smoke rises and falls, florescent colour glitters on wet cement.

Combining analogue warmth with dazzling melodic depth, the retro-fired palette of hypnotic vintage synth leads fits perfectly with the modern, almost futuristic melodics of the track.

If the gargantuan, bellowing bass synths don’t captivate you then the enveloping pads, dizzying arp lines, full-throttle drum grooves will. Taking you to the past and beyond, a cool retro-electronic retro-future smash hit of a song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SssLX7zW5EI

Stuttering, lurching, arped basslines, synthetic voices pitched up and down before the reverbed voice scatters across the rhythmic drums and bass. A voice that chimes of haunting beauty amongst the throbbing synths. Neon lights oscillate while a giant inverse pyramid hangs above projecting hot pink and cobalt blue swirls and flashes. What came before is historically eclipsed, left trailing.

Just hold on to something, a break down then a kick in as chord progressions of wonder move throughout the songs landscape.

Blistering synths so wild they will give you a rhythmic toothache. A midway break in the song returns to the intro promising more to come. The patterns repeat hooking you into the destination, your own wilderness, a spectacle and something impressive in itself.

The architecture of the music plays over you, ambiguous workings connect invisibly, it is hard to see how these things really connect, but they do. And wonderfully so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSW–QRNg1w

You can feel the sway of the waves beneath you. Gliding, rising, dropping to synth melody lines so vast and expansive they sound like binary stars, both repelling and igniting each other.

Rushing arps, twinkling at interstellar-travel-speed, the synth-waves trapping you into their rhythm and glow.

A kick drum enters then the beat, guitar leads so wonderfully constructed no human could be playing them, somehow finding it’s way through the crowd of sounds.

It is a sort of broken kaleidoscope, with no place to be, colours rotating, swallowing each other then regurgitating them in patterned spirals. Splashy analogue modeled pads fill the void, instantly fuel your retro-inspired dreams and you are off on an adventure to space, maybe to return.

Maybe not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4WLX8hfpJw