The Top 10 Synthwave Albums of 2023:

10. Along by demin

9. Slow Tapes by l y n x

8. Rogue by Wice

7. Axiom by PYLOT

6. First Person Shooter (Original Documentary Soundtrack)
by Various Artists

5. Premi​è​re Anthologie by Adieu Aru

4. Data Fire by Korizon

3. Between the Moon and Stars by Futurecop!

2. Unicorn by Gunship

1. Wavefinder by Sferro & Makeup and Vanity Set

Honorable Mentions

TRIFECTA by A.L.I.S.O.N, VIQ, Krosia

Katarsi by Katarsi

(Not really synthwave, but this is just too good to ignore!)

Evenings 夕​暮​れ Vol. 1 by Hotel Pools

On the face of it, you wouldn’t expect a collaboration album like “Wavefinder” to be so brilliant. Sure, both Sferro and Makeup and Vanity Set (MAVS) have honed their superb synth skills for over a decade – but their production styles are vastly different.

Sferro’s work is decidedly digital, featuring brilliant melodies driven by a disco heartbeat. MAVS, on the other hand, has honed his analog feel – slicing through soundtracks and albums alike with a keen edge of atmosphere.

So, I expected “Wavefinder” to be good – even great, given the sheer experience and quality of musicianship from these two artists. Truthfully though, I also expected some fragmentation – a certain disjointed feeling that is frequently noticeable with similar collaboration albums. It’s a sad fact that often when artists collaborate, there is a clash. Sometimes it’s ego, sometimes it’s production style, or wanting to go in different conceptual directions. Sometimes the final tracks just seem out of order. After listening to dozens and dozens of collabs, I can tell you there’s always something…

“In a lot of ways… the music sort of… tells me what it needs, you know? Then I just sort of let it happen.”

But then, as the first remarkable ripples of “Wavefinder” washed over me, I realized this record is something special. There is no clash – in fact, the opposite is true. The diverse styles of Sferro and MAVS complement one another in a unique way, merging into a gestalt of splendid sonic bliss that neither producer would have likely created on their own. From the initial vox-like trill of ‘Cursors’ to the final 90s-infused ambient decay of ‘Do You Really Want An Answer,’ every track on “Wavefinder” is truly exceptional.

MAVS + Sferro Wavefinder Vinyl From Stratford Court Records

Between syncopated kicks and stuttering hi-hats, there is a tangible atmosphere that pulls you in, demanding your attention. Brilliant polyphonic melodies emerge in perfect counterpoint to thick, juicy basslines – all punctuated by eccentric synth stabs that give the tracks an intense sense of movement and groove. And, of course, all of these elements are masterfully mixed and mastered. All of these different elements complement one another perfectly – much like Sferro and MAVS – and the end result sounds magical.

Throughout the album, there is a pervasive 90s nostalgia feel – which makes sense considering Sferro revealed during our interview that several of the tracks were actually outtakes  “Emotion Engine.”  Often the synth leads or stabs are also just slightly detuned, filtered with the analog wow and flutter warble of a VHS cassette in a very similar technique used in MAVS’ latest EP, “Gradient Ultra.” (Both of those releases made our yearly top 10 lists in 2021 and 2022 – and you should absolutely listen to them if you haven’t already!)

But, for MAVS and Sferro, that lush analog sound was not infused into “Wavefinder” for the often-cited stereotypical reason of feeling “warm” or “fat” – but instead to add a sense of organic decay and randomness. Chance.

“Anytime I can add unpredictability, I’m surprised by what it’s doing…” MAVS related in the same interview. “In a lot of ways, [through analog effects] the music sort of… tells me what it needs, you know? Then I just sort of let it happen.”

Makeup and Vanity Set at Human Music 2

Surprisingly, Sferro also related that although his workflow is digital, chance plays a large role in his production as well. “I can’t really explain it, but it happens to me digitally as well, because my computer sold. Like every render, dude… every render is different.”

“I don’t want to do the typical synthwave stuff anymore. I’ve done that beat and that to death… so the early 2000s, late 90s kind of thing – that’s what seemed attractive to me.” – Sferro

Perhaps most surprising is that MAVS and Sferro had never created together before, in spite of growing up within a few miles of one another in northern Ohio. In fact, the closest they had come to working together was when they both independently created tracks for the Demin’s “Initiate (Remixes)” – which happened to be very important to the genesis of “Wavefinder.”

Demin’s work sounds a lot like a sort of shimmering Com Truise. In fact, when “Initiate” was released, it led many to speculate that Demin may actually be a side project of Seth’s. This rumor is false, of course – as MAVS related perfectly in our recent interview, “…having talked to Seth over the years, I know that he’s into drum and bass and other stuff…. it would be weird for him to just do another thing that sounds like Com Truise.”

In fact, that sound – the Com Truise sound – is quickly becoming it’s own small microgenre called “Datawave,” Similar to how HOME’s work spawned Chillsynth. After working on the Demin tracks seperately, MAVS and Sferro thought that datawave sound would be perfect for “Wavefinder.”

“I didn’t want to deviate in the remix too much from [Demin’s] sound because I liked the sound. I was curious about the ‘datawave’ space…. so I just sort of leaned into that for the remix…and… it felt good. [Later] when I started to dig into the stuff [Sferro] had sent me, it just seemed like the logical progression, like the place to go. You always want to do something that’s exciting to you…and in that moment, that was what was exciting.”

Sferro at Neon RetroFest

But, in spite of finding inspiration in the Com Truise / datawave sound, no part of “Wavefinder” feels pastiche. Instead, the entire sound feels somehow new again – like re-experiencing your favorite movie for the first time. (Or, in my case, my favorite album.) That… genuine feeling – I think that’s what makes “Wavefinder” feel so special. At times it feels like so much synthwave today has been over-produced and polished into nothing but a rose-tinted mirror. It’s so incredibly refreshing to hear two old-guard synth artists creating sounds so new and fresh.

Like I said in the beginning of this review, it’s rare to find a release that reminds me of why I started writing about music in the first place. Those are nice words, sure – but what does that really mean? Well, the reason why I started writing about music was because I wanted to share the music that I loved with as many people as possible – and that sort of sums up how I feel about “Wavefinder.”

I love it.

Top tracks: “Hit Bit,” “Rubber City,” “Memory Screen,” and “Wavefinder.”

But, believe it or not, this brilliant collaboration almost slipped through the cracks of history. Heck, even this interview almost didn’t happen!

“…would it be possible to reschedule the call for tomorrow? Eric’s been out of commission today with a migraine…” – Makeup and Vanity Set (hereafter referred to as MAVS)

My heart sank. I’d been interested in interviewing these two “reclusive” synth pioneers (separately) for years. But the truth is, in spite of MAVS infamous robber mask and Sferro’s disdain for being photographed, neither of them are truly reclusive. They’d just rather focus on what really matters – creating music – instead of being a “brand.” MAVS is also notoriously busy, often working on multiple film soundtracks and albums at once.

Sferro’s Only Known Photograph – Trust Me, I looked!

All that work and a surprise bout of COVID almost stopped this album from being produced. Thankfully, sometimes the stars align even in this, the darkest of timelines. Never say never.

Looking back it was kind of like a very nice,  “…you blew it.” – MAVS

So, what was the genesis of the album? How did you two come to work together?

Sferro: “I reached out to Matt just to see if he was busy…. if he had time to maybe do a track. I thought it was just gonna be a single track…and yeah, he’s a very busy guy so it took a while.”

MAVS: “I had a million things going on – and I just sort of sat on it. It was totally my fault. He had followed up a few times, and I said “I still want to do it!” but… it just kept slipping to like the bottom of the stack.”

I’ve loved Eric’s stuff for so long – and we have the Ohio connection – and I thought this would be super cool to do. So finally I scratched out some time and I sat down one day and did a track…and immediately after, I got COVID. So I was bedridden for a week, and Eric DM’d me on Instagram and said, “Hey, man if you’re not gonna do anything with these tracks, I think I’m just gonna… uh, finish them.” Looking back it was kind of like a very nice,  “…you blew it.”

Sferro: *Laughter*

MAVS: “So I replied back and was like, “NO no, no, no, no – I did one! I did one!” and I sent him a dropbox link and he was really into it. I got better from COVID, and we just… kept going. After that the record itself came together super fast. I mean, it took like three weeks.”

That’s a great story! But what’s this “Ohio connection”? I’m from Ohio myself.

MAVS: It’s funny, Eric and I have never met in person – but he actually lives in [Northern Ohio,] which is where I’m from. He’s actually super close to where my family lives.

Sferro: We had no idea until he posted a picture while visiting and I was like, “Oh Shit you’re like two minutes away from my house!”

MAVS: *Laughs* “Yeah, so we had flirted a few times by having our remixes featured on the same album. More recently we were both on the Demin Initiate (Remixes) album – but yeah we’d never worked together properly before this one.

A lot of people seem to think Demin’s work is actually a Com Truise side project.

MAVS: “I don’t know man…Having talked to Seth over the years, I know he’s into drum and bass and some other stuff. It would be kinda weird for him to just do another project so close to his sound, sonically.”

That tracks. So, other artists have started making more music in that “Com Truise” style and calling it “Datawave” – and your new album “Wavefinder” definitely seems to fit that category. Was that intentional? what’s your take on that?

MAVS: “Don’t get me wrong, I love Seth’s work – and the idea wasn’t just to make something derivative… But we had just finished the Demin remixes, and…man, I really loved Demin’s track. I didn’t want to deviate too much in the remix… because I just liked the sound. I was curious about it. I had never done anything in the sort of “Datawave” space.

The last couple records I’ve been working on have also been masted by Ben Braun – Hotel Pools. I’m a big fan of his music. So, I started listening to a lot more chillsynth… and one of the things I thought was really interesting about it is that the tempos are way slower… I started to think about the fact that it really took my back to my roots-roots. Like, as a kid, finding Autechre… you know, all those guys were Hip Hop guys. And I feel like, chillsynth, datawave, these kinds of artists have a similar root. They have one foot in that genre – that kind of “head nod” feeling. There’s something appealing about that.

So no, it wasn’t like, “Hey this sounds like datawave” – that was the last thing on my mind. It was more that I just enjoyed going back…so I thought, “How can we slow this down even more?” And then the when you slow things down, the resolution gets a little wider. So you can suddenly like, bit more, you know, interesting things and have more interesting sort of syncopation happening musically.

So later on when I started to dig into the stuff Eric had sent me, it just seemed like the logical progression, like the place to go. You always want to do something that’s exciting to you – you know? And so in that moment, that was what was exciting.”

I also felt like there were some strong 90s references in “Wavefinder,” and you seemed to have really delved into the 90s vibes on “Emotion Engine” too. Was that move away from the 80’s intentional – or a sort of spontaneous occurrence like the “datawave” sound?

Sferro: “I will say that at least one, maybe two of the tracks were actually “Emotion Engine” outtakes I had sent over…but [in general, it does feel like a progression.] I definitely don’t want to do the typical synthwave stuff anymore. I’ve done that, beaten that to death. It just kind of felt right and it’s what seemed attractive to me: an early 2000s, late 90s kind of thing.

I don’t think the next Sferro album will be datawave though. I think “Wavefinder” is really awesome, and I think it’s awesome as a collaboration – but I don’t think I’ll explore that direction myself. It’s not the direction I want to go. I think I’m going to lean more heavily toward the early 2000s kinda… well, you’ll see in the new Hyperlinked Dream Sync album! It’s more like, Portishead-y.

“I definitely don’t want to do the typical synthwave stuff anymore. I’ve done that, beaten that to death. It just kind of felt right and it’s what seemed attractive to me: an early 2000s, late 90s kind of thing.” – Sferro

BUT, I do think datwave is awesome. The term is still kinda fresh to me… honestly I only recently heard of it when we started making [Wavefinder.]”

Eric, you’ve mentioned in interviews that your workflow is mostly digital – and Matt, you seem to mostly like analog – or as you like to say, “Play with the noodles.” Did those difference cause any conflict?

MAVS: “First of all, in spite of the room around me, I’m not an analog purist. Whatever works, you know? If you can make cool stuff in GarageBand, go for it. I’m not precious about that. What’s exciting to me is figuring out new ways to approach a workflow.

MAVS In His Studio

Anyway, Eric had sent me fully formed ideas… that I thought was really cool, I dug it. But, it was different that what I’m used to and I had to totally reorient my thought process. I had to come out of that comfort zone and be challenged a little bit by someone else’s thought process – sonically.”

It was awesome trying to experiment while still being reverent to it too. It was it was fun – I had a blast working on it!”

“I’ve put out a lot of records, and when you go through that process, there’s always at least one thing that totally shits the bed….but with this one, none of that happened.”

Sferro: “That reminds me – at one point Matt was saying, “I think we need a couple songs in here without drums…” So I’d send some stuff over without drums… and then drums ended up on it. It just had to have it.”

MAVS: “Right? …Other times he would add stuff on the back end and send it back…. It was a total democracy the whole way through. We were just trying to make something that was exciting to the two of us.”

It sounds like perfect match! Was there anything that caused conflict? You know, caused some sort of problem?

MAVS: “The thing came together in a way that was the least forced, you know, like it, it all happened really fast, it all felt really good!”

Sferro: “That reminds me of one track in particular, I sent a demo over and said “Uh…I don’t know if this will work…. And Matt said “Never say never!” and then sent it back – and it sounded sick!”

MAVS: “Right? I gotta say… I’ve put out a lot of records, and when you go through that process, there’s always at least one thing that totally shits the bed. You’re forced to work with an artist you don’t want to work with, or you can’t release on a certain date, or there’s a huge backorder on vinyl…”

Right? Thanks Adele! 

MAVS + Sferro: *Laughter*

MAVS: “…but with this one, none of that happened. We went back and forth and thought, “Okay, we have an album here.” Then we sent it off to Ben Braun [Hotel Pools] to get it mastered, and that guy just knows how to make bass happen in ways that, well, I’m both comfortable and uncomfortable with! Then we started talking to Andrew from Stratford Court. Stratford Court was almost a shot in the dark… [I’m] a huge fan of the label. It’s so well curated. We waited a while, and then Andrew reached out and said he’d love to do it!”

And honestly, I was floored. I hadn’t sent it anywhere else, but I had a list of [labels]… I just figured you know, Stratford Court to me was like swinging for the fences…and there’s no preorder. It’s all ready to go on Friday.” [Today]

MAVS + Sferro Wavefinder Vinyl From Stratford Court Records

Sferro: “I really love how “into” the record [Andrew] seems. Every time he replies to an email he says how he’s like… ‘really excited about this.’ It’s so cool – it’s awesome!

I’m excited too – and not to spoil the review, but I really think this album is special. Do you two think you’ll be working together in the future?

MAVS: It’s funny with this record, this is the most PR I’ve done for a record in a long time. But I think it’s just because I’m proud of the thing we made, you know? I want to make sure that we do our due diligence to Stratford and present it to the world in the right way.

Really.. I’m just, I’m happy to make music. I’m happy to be able to process the all of the shit that’s happening around us through music…and I’m super happy to have somebody like Eric to collaborate with…

Sferro: “Likewise!”

MAVS: “…and to you know, to see it, see it go out into the world man. It’s all good at this point. So I’m just happy to be here.”

Sferro: “I mean, I have ideas for the future. Things I’ll bring up to Matt eventually, in due time.” *Laughs* But I’m just super stoked we got the opportunity to do this. Matt’s fucking awesome. He’s a super chill dude. I’ve loved his music forever. And it’s cool that some OG’s Got to work together. So… I’m stoked.

So perhaps this isn’t the end for this dangerous duo?

Sferro: “Never say never.”

Editors Note: There is so, so much more to this interview. Both MAVS and Sferro discussed their creative evolution, how they came to find electronic music and two kids stuck in Ohio, and how the digital age affects nostalgia, and their own approach when it comes to organic-feeling synthesis. For more of that, keep an eye out for my upcoming review of “Wavefinder” after it drops!

The Top 10 Synthwave Albums of 2022:

10. Nosebleed (Deluxe) by Midnight Drift

9. Ultrasound by A.L.I.S.O.N & Hotel Pools

8. Heroes by The Midnight

7. The Textorcist OST by Gost

6. Triangle Unicode by We Are Magonia

5. Lovers Lake by Lovers Lake

4. I by Voyage

3. AKUMA 3 by ALEX & TOKYO ROSE

2. (Tie) In Motion I & II by Memorex Memories

2. (Tie) Tortured Waters by DEADLIFE

1. Sentimental by Miami Nights 1984

Honorable Mentions

(In No Particular Order)

In Search of Tomorrow (Original Documentary Soundtrack) – by Various Artists

Forgotten Shapes by Waveshaper

Payback by Neon Nox

Synth City by All the Damn Vampires

Distorted Memories by Lucy In Disguise

Capgras’ Delusion: The delusion that family, friends and others have been replaced by imposters.

Frustrated as some retroheads may be at seeing their supposedly niche newsfeed flooded by “mainstream pop artist” The Weeknd, it seems like the Toronto artist intends to extend his stay in your discussion boards.

Having shot his way to superstardom with a series of dark, drugged-out R&B EPs (retroactively compiled as Trilogy in 2012), Abel Tesfaye’s wildly successful musical output remained largely undiscussed within the Retrowave scene. That is, until November of 2019 when he released ‘Blinding Lights’ the synth-driven second single to his fourth album ‘After Hours’. From then on, the artist became a dangerously hot topic of discussion throughout Reddit threads and Facebook groups, opposing fans of the song and those who feared a kind of appropriation or bastardization of their beloved scene through “mainstream exposure”.

Back in 2020, we took a deep dive through the Weeknd’s musical, lyrical and conceptual output and its long-standing commonalities with and nods to the retrowave scene, from his debut to After Hours. A couple of years and a handful of Covid variants later, we’re now greeted with a fifth full-length album. Announced as a conceptual counterpart and follow-up to After Hours, Dawn FM dropped on the first week of January, most likely with hopes to coincide with a new hopeful chapter for humanity in 2022.

So what’s in store for the retro synth enthusiast on this new record?

In many ways, a great deal of what made After Hours’ appeal to retroheads carries over to Dawn FM. Amongst the most promising features in this record is the return of Vaporwave pioneer Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never, aka Chuck Person), who is credited on no less than thirteen of the album’s sixteen tracks (compared to a mere three in fourteen on After Hours).

Dawn FM picks up from After Hours with a radio station jingle and voiceover announcement by Jim Carrey stating ‘You’ve been in the dark for way too long, it’s time to walk in the light’. Conceptually, the record places Abel in a mysterious state of purgatory bliss, on the way to a bright afterlife. Sonically, this translates into a cohesive blend of new eighties pop influences, disco flair, subtle wafts of vapour and a fair share of French touch strung together in a continuous flow. Dawn FM will keep you in a smooth cruising mood all throughout its runtime.  The album’s first single ‘Take My Breath’ even appears in a slightly extended version, foreshadowed and blended into the tracklist as it would in a DJ set.

The album’s second single ‘Gasoline’, launches the album with a slick, Pet Shop Boys throwback to eighties Britpop whose momentum carries over throughout the entire album.

Whereas After Hours struck the neon retro nerve with its singles, Dawn FM aims for a more pristine disco touch evocative of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories. ‘Sacrifice’ even hits the tail end of ‘Take My Breath’ with some old-school Daft Punk club sounds with its flanged acid bassline. The track paves the way for an interlude featuring Quincy Jones that practically feels like a pastiche of ‘Giorgio by Moroder’, in which the producer narrates his troubled relationships with women. Impressive as this feature may be, one may question the attempt to draw further parallels with Michael Jackson through Quincy Jones’ notorious track record of abuse.

The next track ‘Out of Time’, will no doubt go down as the album’s most controversial track in the retrowave community due to its sampling of Japanese “City Pop” track ‘Midnight Pretenders’ by Tomoko Aran. Some have expressed severe disapproval of the song’s sampling by such a large-scale artist, whereas others seem to welcome the exposure it might bring to the City Pop phenomenon. Considering Lopatin’s credit on the track, it most likely was meant as a nod to the Vaporwave community and its extended family. As a pioneer in the genre, Lopatin’s influence is what sparked interest in sampling and digging up eighties pop from Japan, leading many to stumble upon City Pop albums through the Youtube recommendations bar. The resulting track is an obvious Michael Jackson pastiche with one of the album’s strongest hooks.

Despite the ambition as a radio broadcast concept and the occasional lyrical and stylistic throwbacks, Dawn FM ultimately feels less fleshed out than its predecessors.

It seems like Abel’s collaborators and the album’s heavy pop sensibility have led him to cut down on the corny puns and punchlines, though it comes at the expense of the Dawn FM’s narrative and worldbuilding. What’s left are little more than the same rehashed lyrics about wild sex and drugs, somewhat toned down and made less overt for the sake of commercial radio appeal. Despite us hearing his story through his perspective, Abel’s reflection on his past actions paint the portrait of an immature, toxic individual with a little insight on what makes him such a broken person. Every single Weeknd song is addressed to a girl he wants to, used to or regularly has sex with, the song ‘Best Friends’ serving as the final piece of evidence to prove this theory.

Chorus:
Oh, what we got
Baby, what we got is secure
Been a part of toxic love
It tore us apart
Things you want, I’m not lookin’ for
You’re my best friend now

Oh, I don’t want to be responsible
For your heart if we fall
‘Cause I’ll get clumsy and tear it apart
I love you so, but we can’t get close
You’re my best friend now

(Source Genius)

For an album set in the afterlife, it is surprising to note that there is nothing that The Weeknd hasn’t already told in greater detail in a previous album. The albums’ skits serve more as vacuous statements than narrative tools, with Jim Carrey’s verbose interventions quickly falling into obnoxious territory, culminating in a particularly underwhelming outro that misses its mark and closes the album on a benign, fake-deep message of hope.

For all of its flaws, Dawn FM is an enjoyable listen that has a fair share for retro-hungry fans to sink their teeth into, though fewer standout tracks to fawn over. The dissonant, psychedelic sonic textures provided by Oneohtrix Point Never provide an intriguing, bold aesthetic to the songs and add a sarcastic edge to the Weeknd’s deeper dive into pop music commercialism. Whether or not you believe The Weeknd singing radio jingles is to be taken at face value, there is definitely something off about the way it sounds and a fair reason to believe some of Lopatin’s sarcastic views on pop music commercialism have crept into the album. Not that it amounts to much of a subversive statement. From its very inception, Dawn FM was set out to be a widely commercialized record by today’s top streaming artists, with songs written and produced by Max Martin. Nonetheless, one cannot help but feel something deliberately artificial and uncanny about the retro sounds on the album, a sort of Capgras delusion where the pastiche has replaced the original eighties.

10. Night of the Dark Prince by Jessie Frye

9. Youth by ALEX

8. Resurgence by Lyde

7. My Soul Burns As My Consciousness Is Uploaded Into The Virtual Afterlife by Trevor Something

6. Night Life by Sunglasses Kid

5. Nights by Droid Bishop

4. Ident by Baldocaster

3. Gradient Ultra by Makeup and Vanity Set

2. Pressure Point by Eagle Eyed Tiger

1.  Multiverse by Timecop1983

At what point did you decide that radio would become central to this new Starcadian chapter?

It was on Christmas of 2012! I had just wrapped up Sunset Blood, which was my first foray into electronic music. I was literally learning the concepts of synths as I was writing songs. As I was writing the album, I realized that it was shaping up into a mythology. It was during that time that I started writing the first iteration of ‘Satellites’. As I was writing the mythology and planning what I would do with Midnight Signals, I realized that it would all culminate into the concept of Radio Galaxy: frequencies, feedback loops, time loops, causalities…

Has ‘Satellites’ kept the same role and position in the Starcadian narrative?

It has. That song is pretty key to tying everything from the first single ‘He^rt’ to Radio Galaxy. It forms a loop. The way I formed it in my head is that Midnight Signals I and Radio Galaxy form their own loop, and the entire trilogy is Sunset Blood looping back into Radio Galaxy, like a sub-loop and a loop. There are subtle mirrors and reflections between all three albums to tie them together. I have this obsession with Leitmotivs and I made sure I put all of my creative efforts into coming up with them in beginning and distributing them as I formed more and more of the consecutive albums.

 To what extent do you let musical experimentations guide or change the narrative you set out to tell?

Funnily, I did it the most on Sunset Blood and cut it off after Saturdaze. I had a massive collection of songs in the beginning that I retrofitted into a narrative. Once I did that, I started actually building a narrative, which was spurred by doing the ‘He^rt’ video. Ever since then, I’ve basically been laying down a set number of tracks, each with a brief description of how they sound, their cadence, tempo, their narrative lows and highs. I will basically write to that. I also have a pretty comprehensive sketch library where I pick stuff, but when it comes to the narrative I think the overarching story defines things more than the sketches I have at my disposal.

Would you say this approach helps you or is it merely a necessity for the vision you’re aiming for?

I feel it’s a wonderful way to sabotage yourself if you really want to deliver something fast. This is the best way to not do that because it adds the complication of making sure everything ties together and stays consistent. It’s tough when you want to break off and write a bossa nova song or a spaghetti western song. The more weird and extreme the music, the more I’m into it. I relax to the weirdest shit I can find. Whenever I see a framework, I have a tendency to kick sand at it and build things upside down. That’s my instinct at all times. That’s something I keep to myself, I don’t put it on the audience. I fight that battle in me, and hopefully, the resulting product is somewhere in between commercial and completely uncommercial weirdness.

 What was it like working on this album with Rob O’ Neil? There must have been some extra constraints in creating an album at such a particular time.

You would think it would hinder us, but the reality is that this is how we’ve always worked. We used to work together before moving to LA. Back in 2010, he texted me telling me he had just found a cockpit for 200$, and that’s basically where it all came from. I never saw him once during the filming of ‘He^rt’. He bought the cockpit, he shot the raw footage and I edited it together, added the visual effects, and that was it! The only time we didn’t shoot something separately was on Freak Night. I flew out to LA in December 2019, which was very lucky timing. We narrowly missed the pandemic.

Other than it being, in my opinion, your most ambitious album to date, I also feel like Radio Galaxy sounds more diverse, dynamic and somehow more guitar-oriented. How would you describe the arrangement and writing process compared to your previous albums?

You’re completely right, it’s definitely a lot more guitar-oriented. I originally played the guitar, I didn’t play the synth or the keys at all, but there was a point in the mid-2000s’ where society decided that we were over guitar music. I think it was during the unfortunate time of dubstep and EDM hitting the charts, which unfortunately shoved guitar out of the door. On the other hand, it also allowed me to open my mind to different instruments and different production techniques, which led to Sunset Blood.

 I never quite left the guitar, but I put it down for a little bit. Radio Galaxy marks me coming back in contact with my guitar playing roots, connecting to the spirit of Soundgarden. There’s a lot of Soundgarden on this album. The first CD I bought was Superunknown and it completely defined the way I write lyrics and music, the way I think about signatures and bars… You can definitely hear it on ‘Gutter’, for instance.

I’m still learning how to be a musician and how to write songs and albums. Radio Galaxy is me simplifying but also expanding at the same time, starting with a strict pentatonic guitar-minded way of composing, doing the chord progressions with my hands and leading with my voice rather than writing completely with my fingers on the keyboard and thinking about it in an Ableton, music-production way. It was very freeing. It gave me a new lease in songwriting life. I believe it’s really important for a writing musician to put down their preferred instrument and pick a completely different one. It will completely change the way you structure songs and stories and lyrics.

 Some songs even feel like they could be played by a full band.

I think that comes from shedding some of the layers. Sunset Blood with maximalist, layered decadence and Midnight Signals pulled it back a little bit. As you grow, you try to learn to be more scalpel-like with your compositions and instrumentation and shed the layers. I think that this was me subconsciously thinking in band terms.

Musicians talk a lot about the ‘rule of threes’ where you should at all times hear three distinct elements to a song. You don’t need more, the human mind can only focus on three. That principle somehow bore itself into my brain and I held myself from adding too much stuff. Tracks like ‘Lovebeats’ have very few layers. It’s just something where I just wanted to get the point across as simply as I could.

 Another noticeable shift marked by this album is its red album cover, a radical departure from the predominantly blue tones of previous releases.

It’s funny that for all the meticulous planning I do, that’s the one thing I didn’t notice until I put the album up on Bandcamp for pre-order. I told myself “Huh, there’s a distinct lack of blue in this, sh-t!” *laughs*.

I would love to say that it was intentional, but it was probably just another subconscious way of shedding the same thing. Midnight Signals was more in the same pool as Sunset Blood, but it was a small, subtle attempt to nudge people out of it with songs like ‘Polyana’ and ‘Trapped in America’, stuff that wasn’t necessarily 80s-inspired or in my usual sound. It was very intentionally peppered there to prepare people for songs like ‘I Demoni’ or Shadowcatcher from last year. It was a gentle way of pulling the listeners in the direction that I want to go towards while keeping my style. I think it was the same deal from a visual perspective. I love dark blues, but this cover felt more like the panic attack that I wanted some of the songs to feel like.

 The song ‘Neonhead’ sounds like a term you’d use to describe a fan of retro-synth music, the same way metal fans are referred to as “metalheads”.  The line ‘I am Neonhead’ even reminds me of the opening quote in Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’. Does any of this make sense to you?

You’re pretty close! I really enjoyed writing the lyrics to that song. The reason why I call these songs “ear-movies” is that I like to put myself in that mental space when I write them. For this song, I got stuck in this Lovecraftian, neon-soaked cosmic horror world as I was writing it. The metal and Synthwave worlds have such a big overlap, so I put myself in the shoes of 15-year-old metalhead-me and how badass it felt singing ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’. That’s what I was aiming for.

To me, ‘Neonhead’ is the sound of a neon-soaked live show 20 000 leagues under the sea, surrounded by bioluminescent Lovecraftian monsters.

 Whereas some of your previous songs such as Trapped in America carried a serious message through a heavy, ominously themed track, it seems like some of your harshest bits of social criticism on this album derive their power from the fact that they’re set to such upbeat, funky tracks. Was there a conscious decision to play on this counterpoint?

Absolutely! I actually got a tweet from a fan today that illustrated this point pretty well: “Only Starcadian can make music that kinda calls me out but also makes me dance to my own flaws”. That’s more or less what I was going for.

I’m not going to sit on a twitter-throne and judge people for specific things, I’m going to call it out with a bit of comedy and satire. Neither ‘Culture’ nor ‘Propaganda’ are me chiding people telling them to not appropriate or start a youtube channel. It’s all stupid. The offensive things that people do are stupid, and the way you’re reacting to them, even though you’re correct, is stupid. It’s all stupid and pointless. So just dance.

It is interesting that a lot of people read ‘Culture’ and ‘Propaganda’ as a critique of Republicans and Far-right people. It’s more about the 15-year-old teenagers that ape and assimilate working-class culture, turning it into an expensive hobby while the actual working class is suffering because of those upper-middle-class families. These kids will make a Youtube channel where they talk about self-fulfilment, self-healing grifts and hustles. It’s all done on the blood of people that don’t do that kind of stuff; people that make your coffee and lunch, drive you to work, clean the building that you work in…

 The Internet is a weird place to be in, hence the lyric “the web’s a big mistake”. I feel like your only two options are to either go full alt-right incel, which is the worst possible option you can have, or get into left-wing socialist twitter, where moderation and common sense is out the window.

It’s a very bizarre landscape to release any kind of art into. The only way to break out of that binary classification of art is to adopt this jester-like ribbing of both sides of the argument.

 People are lonelier than ever. We’re starving for real conversation, real contact and the only way to do that is to post a hot take for people to interact with you. Democratized art is just piling up, desperately slicing throats and punching babies to get to the top. When I was a kid, “selling out” was a bad word. Right now, people would kill for a sponsorship or promoted video. It’s embarrassing. But because that’s a reality, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to say something genuinely stupid, controversial and out of bounds to get people to talk about you.

 Amongst the most notable features of this album are the inclusion of new instruments, most notably on ‘Cannibal Gods’. How did these enter the picture in terms of arrangement?

I found myself in the middle east during that same Christmas in 2012 as I was writing ‘Satellites’. I spent a lot of time there as a child. I’m from Greece, which is a big melting pot of Middle-Eastern and European cultures due to it being conquered by the Turks, Venetians, Moors etc. So a lot of our music is based on Middle-eastern instruments. For instance, the Oud is the predecessor of the Bouzouki, which is a Greek instrument.

 It was natural for me to at least do a song where I have a lot of instrumentation that I’m comfortable and familiar with. While I was in the Middle East, I started writing tidbits of that song and trying to imagine what would a Justice song sound like if it was written by Tinariwen. That more or less describes my influences: the Middle-Eastern cultures that I grew up with and French Electronic music.

As with ‘Neonhead’, the phrase ‘Cannibal Gods’ bopped into my head as yet another Lovecraftian cosmic horror vision.

That particular song’s arrangement of traditional instruments and modern sounds actually reminded me of Sepultura.

I love Sepultura! One of the big influences on this album was Sepultura and Mixhell, which is Igor Cavalera and his wife Laima Leyton’s current band. I actually played with them in the Underworld in London. They’re the nicest people on the planet! They have this song called Antigalactic which I’m obsessed with and that was very much inspiring a lot of the songs on this album. One of my favourite albums of all time is also Against by Sepultura. It’s very percussive, full of unimaginable triplets and syncopations. It definitely inspired quite a bit of Radio Galaxy. 

Without a doubt the craziest track on the album is the second to last song, “I Demoni”, named after the Italian translation of Dostoïevky’s novel. It feels very Giallo-esque with some Italian Prog influences. How did this song come about?

It’s definitely inspired by Giallo and Night of the Demons. I think this song marks the first time I thought to myself: “F-ck it, I’m just going to make the music I really want to make and not think of it in terms of aesthetics and vibes”. That made it fit even better into the album, weirdly. This is purely distilled Morricone, Mr.Bungle, Goblin and the oodles of metal that I listen to. I approached it as a Goblin song being produced by the band Jamaica. Visually, the song is essentially a splatter-fest in a room full of demons in the last ten minutes of a Giallo movie. 

Last time we met, you mentioned that your next songs were going to have some Mr.Bungle influences. Listening to this track, it finally started to make sense. Stylistically, it is easily the most radical shift you’ve done so far.

That’s not going anywhere. The next time I feel like doing something like that, I feel like it will go even further. I don’t know what ‘further’ would sound like, though. It all goes back to that ‘itch’ of wanting to do an album that everyone’s going to either hate or get super confused by. How much you curb that instinct defines you as an artist, I find. If you don’t have that instinct, that’s just weird. Aesthetics is basically how much you allow your mind to deviate from what’s expected of you.

To finish off, can you give us an album, book and film recommendation?

It’s sad because I used to read two books at a time, but Radio Galaxy took up so much of my time that it took up most of the time I wasn’t spending on work. I did listen to an audiobook of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind. It’s about the rise and creation of New Hollywood, started by Warren Beatty, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas… it’s a monumental telling of how New Hollywood took over.

While I was doing Midnight Signals, I kept noticing that my ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist kept recommending New Disco to me. Ever since then, all of my recommendations are Joe Jackson, Dr.Feelgood… all power-pop, punk, metal and guitar music in general. I think I’m finding my inspiration in guitar music again, just like the good old days.

Film-wise, I’m still in the same space as before. I’m done with American cinema. I think I’m firmly entrenched in Asian and European cinema. I’m just exhausted by Marvel. I’m even exhausted by A24.

My absolute favourite filmmakers right now are Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. They made a movie called Resolution and a sequel called Endless. Their first two movies are the most groundbreaking films I’ve seen in a long time. It doesn’t get more meta than those movies. They delve into the nature of films and their viewers, looping and rewatching a film. It very much informed Radio Galaxy and the whole mythology. Their stuff is incredibly exciting and it’s uncategorizable. I don’t think those two films can ever be popular, but they’re a mine for ideas.

 Thank you to Starcadian for taking the time to answer our questions!

 Starcadian ‘Radio Galaxy’ is out now via Bandcamp and Spotify.

Starting off strong, we’re talking about Kavinsky. Even for those who aren’t devout
followers of synthwave, this name might ring a bell. Born Vincent Pierre Claude Belorgey and
arriving on the scene in early 2006 with his EP Teddy Boy which immediately set the tone for his
future work with standouts like “Testarossa Nightdrive” which was followed up by the legendary track “Wayfarer” from his 2007 EP 1986. Most will have become familiar with Kavinsky with the 2011 release of the movie Drive, featuring the now iconic track “Nightcall”. With Drive itself being a major influencer on the synthwave scene itself with its gorgeous aesthetic it is no wonder why the two go so well together. Like many artists in this scene, Kavinsky is heavily influenced by his favorite movies and we can definitely feel the nostalgic vibe in each track. Widely considered one of the greatest
tracks of the entire genre, “Nightcall” cemented Kavinsky as a titan of synthwave and set the
gold standard for how music in this genre should sound.

Next up is another artist brought into the mainstream spotlight by Drive for most listeners. We’re talking about Electric Youth. Consisting of Bronwyn Griffin and Austin Garrick, the synthpop duo Electric Youth is perhaps most famous for the track “A Real Hero”, which basically
became the theme song for the main character of Drive, The Driver. Written about the crash landing of US Airways Flight 1549 it became an instant classic with its rolling synths and silky smooth vocals. This track single-handedly showed what Bronwyn and Austin are capable of and it is no question that “A Real Hero” will continue to be remembered as a staple of the genre for years to come. While “A Real Hero” was arguably the standout track on their 2014 release Innerworld it is just one of many memorable experiences on this album. You would be remiss to not lose yourself in the soothing synths of “Runaway”, “Innocence”, and “WeAreTheYouth”.

Having collaborated with Electric Youth on “A Real Hero”, the spotlight now falls onDavid Grellier hailing from Nantes, France. Known to many around the world for his musicalproject, College. Grellier is a member of many different projects each with their own unique sound. Like nearly all artists in this genre, Grellier was inspired by the aesthetic of the ‘80s and shapes his music around these influences. Through College, Grellier has consistently released great material always following his own unique sound but managing to make each release fresh and interesting. Many of his best work as College can be found on the 2008 EP Teenage Color, especially the opener “Can you kiss me first” featuring sounds that deliver instant nostalgic callbacks. Contrast this with the track “Save the Day” featuring Nola Wren from the 2014 release of the same name and we can hear the same soft consistent beats and vocals that he is famous for. The list of artists that pioneered the synthwave genre goes on and is nearly endless. No matter how long you have been creating music, each artist can honestly be considered a pioneer all working to deliver an experience of their own through this style of music. We’re proud to consider Kavinsky, Electric Youth, and College to be the golden standard and it goes without saying that we will continue to watch all of their careers with great interest, as always.

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