10. Droid Bishop – “End Game”

9. Yota – “The Vibe”

8. Clyde Shelton – “Spending Spirit”

7. The Midnight – “America Online”

6. W O L F C L U B – “Electrify”

5. TOKYO ROSE – “TYRAEL”

4. Florida Skyline – “Hello World”

3. Com Truise – “Galactic Melt”

2. Waveshaper – “CRT Days”

1. DEADLIFE – “Strands Unravel”

Honorable Mentions:

A.L.I.S.O.N – “Lightyears”

Voyage –  “Sync”

Dan Terminus – “Requiem”

Baldocaster – “Map to the Stars (Part 1)”

View our other Best of 2020 lists here!

Like our lists? Check out our Top 10’s from previous years:

Top 10 Retrowave Songs of 2019
Top Ten Retrowave Songs of 2018
Best of 2019 

Top 10 Synthwave Tracks of 2020

10. Clyde Shelton – Spending Spirit

9. Dan Terminus – Last Call For All Passengers

8. A.L.I.S.O.N – Éternité

7. Droid Bishop – Music

6. Hotel Pools – Still

5. The Midnight – Monsters

4. Various Artists – Magnatron III

3. W O L F C L U B – Runaways

2. Com Truise – In Decay Too

1. DEADLIFE – City of Eternal Rain

(Very) Honorable Mentions

Daniel Deluxe – Ghostrunner (Original Soundtrack)

Baldocaster/Traveler CS – Exodus/Solare

Molchat Doma – Monument

Master Boot Record – Floppy Disk Overdrive

Yota – Hazy Paradise
Top 10 Retrowave Albums 202

View our other Best of 2020 lists here!

Like our lists? Check out our Top 10’s from previous years:
Top 10 Retrowave Albums of 2019
Top Ten Retrowave Albums of 2018
Best of 2019

Top 10 Synthwave Albums of 2020

Dan Terminus – Feral

Danger – 04:42 Still Free

Jean Frais – Touch

Korine – Cruel

Top 10 Retrowave Music Videos of 2020

10. Trevor Something – Can You Feel it?

9. Meteor & Magic Dance – Ready to Fight

8. LeBrock – Interstellar

7. Jessie Frye ft.Timecop1983 – Faded Memory

6. Mecha Maiko – Phones

5. Betamaxx – Never Sleep Again (feat. Vandal Moon)

4. Gunship – Black Blood Red Kiss (feat. Kat Von D)

3. Gunship – The Drone Racers

2. Carpenter Brut – Fab Tool feat. David Eugene Edwards

1. Makeup and Vanity Set – Algorithm

]]> https://newretrowave.com/2020/12/19/top-10-retrowave-music-videos-of-2020/feed/ 0 https://newretrowave.com/2020/12/04/carbon-killer-drops-debut-album-vr-sun/ https://newretrowave.com/2020/12/04/carbon-killer-drops-debut-album-vr-sun/#respond Fri, 04 Dec 2020 19:07:42 +0000 https://newretrowave.com/?p=31222 Carbon Killer is finally here and ready to blow your face off with his electrifying strain of retro-tinged electro-rock. No more than three years since having started the project, the mysterious masked avenger has made a spectacular entrance onto the Retrowave scene, wielding a transparent Flying-V axe and a world full of riffs and overdriven synth sounds.

Now, the artist from Bordeaux, France has delivered his long-awaited debut album ‘VR Sun’, visibly determined to put his creative versatility on full display.

The album starts off on a pure Carbon Killer adrenaline boost with the explosive opener with ‘All Cyborgs are Biomechanical’ before settling into a smoother setting with ‘eDEATH’ and the sinle ‘Neon Sign’. With a mere eight songs on its tracklist, VR Sun is a tightly woven effort, varied yet unmistakably drenched in CK’s DNA. The album also boasts an impressive lineup of no fewer than 11 collaborators, yet manages to stay steadfast in its pacing and delivery. In short, VR Sun is a mature and solid debut whose sense of ambition meets gratification through its sense of focus.

VR SUN by CARBON KILLER

Be sure to follow Carbon Killer on Facebook and Bandcamp for the latest news updates and music.

Favorite Tracks : ‘Neon Sign’, ‘Panic Attack’, ‘I Dream, I Die, I Dream Again’

Sporting a gorgeous piece of artwork by Maria Mendes, the album holds a dazzling lineup of fellow collaborators including Volkor X, Power Nerd, Dan Terminus (Credited as Mathusalemherod), and Théo Begue from prog metal band Hypno5e just to name just a few. Furthermore, the artist has announced that an online release party will be held on December 3^rd to celebrate the occasion.

‘Carbon Killer is immensely delighted to FINALLY present to you the result of more than a year of studio work. Here comes the very first studio album from what is, in the other hand, one of the very most touring Synthwave band out there. It was a long and hard process to write this music, and the damn pandemic crisis would like to steal a proper release party from us ? Hell no ! Let’s create something else, something online, and party together until we release the album at midnight ! There may be some gifts involved during this event ! Be ready for an evening of randomness, surprises, music and…videogames…!’

Get ready for a thrill ride, for the Carbon Killer is loose, on the prowl and heading your way!

Neon Sign by CARBON KILLER

The Carbon Killer VR Sun Online Release Party begins at 8pm (GMT+1)
Tune in and RSVP to the official Facebook Event

Be sure to follow Carbon Killer on Facebook and Bandcamp for the latest news updates and music.

We had the fantastic privilege of a deep-dive interview with Dan Terminus ahead of the release of “Last Call For All Passengers” – and now we have the job of reviewing it – time to sharpen our knives and dig into this bloody album we’ve talked so much about!

Right from the top with “Oubliette,” it’s pretty clear this release is going to be strikingly different previous Dan Terminus albums. A single plucking synth builds into a cacophony of high-powered kicks reminiscent of 90’s styled drum and bass or breakbeat. But Soon the synth returns, giving texture and a melodic melancholic reprieve from the intensity.

This is a general theme we’ll hear throughout “Last Call For All Passengers” – starting a raucous fire of beats and bass – then tempering it with intricately interwoven synth leads. In spite of sounding very experimental and distorted, the hooks are incredibly solid. With the strong 90’s references the album feels familiar even on its first playthrough – and at times listens more like a dance album than a traditional cinematic cyberpunk album or a darksynth headbanger – yet the cyberpunk atmosphere remains in all its gorgeous glory.

Interestingly, “Oubliette” is nearly synonymous with the word ‘dungeon,’ and has the same origin as the French word ‘oublier,’ meaning “to forget.”

Given this album was written after an intense period of burnout where Dan left his job, crashed his car,  created and then destroyed an entire “primal” unreleased album, “Oubliette” – this sense of forgetting or perhaps climbing out of a dungeon – is the perfect metaphor for the change in direction we hear in “Last Call For All Passengers.”

But there’s more going on with this album than just breakbeats and expertly crafted discordant synth.

Diverse Influences

Tracks like “Disfigured” are reminiscent of old school industrial music. “Feral” is replete with Gesaffelstein-esque bass stabs. “Inherit” has a synth lead that just brushes up against witch house before layering in stabs in the form of 90’s record scratches – and “March” listens more like a straight up hardcore deathmetal track than anything else.

The whole package feels uniquely retro in a 90’s aspect, yet still futuristic and experimental. It’s the perfect soundtrack to high-tech lowlifes hacking into each others brains – or spraying caseless ammunition under a sky the color of a television – tuned to a dead channel. “Last Call For All Passengers” a masterpiece of what cyberpunk can be as a musical genre.

But the real genius here is that this album is so impossibly cohesive. Dan Terminus has brought together so many disparate and eclectic experimental sounds that it’s almost impossible to imagine them as a singular vision – yet still it is.

Easily one of the best albums I’ve heard all year, bravo!

Listen to Last Call For All Passengers Here!

Check out our Deep-Dive Interview with Dan Terminus Here!

Over the course of two hours, we discussed everything from his unique production style to an intense period of burnout – and even the destruction of an entire unreleased Dan Terminus album!  We hope you enjoy this deep-dive into the mind of a true sovereign of synth.

Got a question yourself? Check out the upcoming Dan Terminus Reddit AMA October 1st in /r/Outrun at 12pm ET.
(This interview has been edited for clarity and length)

Artist: Luca Carey

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us! 

“It’s cool, man. And thank you for having me! Ask me anything. I won’t dodge any question.”

In 2015, you had an interview with Decibel magazine. You mentioned that you began making electronic music to pass the time – as an outlet for your creativity. Now, five years later, after touring with Perturbator and gaining more fans – is creating music still the outlet it used to be?

“It’s a difficult question – almost a loaded question! But, my answer is yes and no.

I must say I never thought that I would be touring with James (Perturbator). I never thought that one day I would play in Paris – in a big, big concert hall called Le Trianon – in front of fifteen hundred people! I never thought I would end up doing this.

So, I try to keep the same state of mind – which is to say I’m still the same loudmouth asshole, turning knobs, twisting buttons, punishing keys, and beating up synthesizers. Because I think that if I stay true to myself, then maybe the music will be fresh – or at least, it will still truly be me.”

In an old Reddit AMA when asked about producing music, you mentioned that you create a track in your head and work on it in your head – and you place it on a “mental shelf I built for myself, like a mini-library.” Then you patiently reproduce the track on your DAW. Can you tell me a bit more about your mind library? Is that still a method you use to produce?

“Absolutely it is. I started doing this when I was a child because I read a book in which the character said that since libraries were burning, Monks had to build their own mental libraries, and would have to memorize dozens of books. So if a library burns, at least there will still be somebody out there who’ll be able to rewrite the whole book.

In fact, it’s just a visualization of a shelf, like a metal or wooden shelf in my mind. When I have an idea, I put it there. It’s something that helps me remember a lot of things – and yet I still don’t remember everything I would like – especially you know, from childhood and everything.

Lets say, well, to be honest with you, to describe my mental shelves… it’s not a palace. It’s not gothic, it’s not dark… it’s not a cyberpunk Los Angeles city. It’s just a warehouse filled with shelves. I connect it to rooms or bedrooms from my childhood, like lets say the village I used to go to when I was a child in the south of France, or my grandparents cabin in the countryside. For some reason those elements are very precise in my mind.

There is no map. If I want to go there I’m there. I don’t have to walk five miles down memory lane if I need it – it’s just there.”

Photo Credit: Laura Lyson

Your first album, “The Darkest Benthic Division,” is very atmospheric. You mentioned some of your influences were Noir Deco and the original Vangelis Blade Runner soundtrack. Then, as your albums progressed, they get much darker and heavier.

What inspired you to take your music from that atmospheric, dreamy sound into the darksynth territory?

“Two things, the first thing was gaining technical knowledge in terms of music production and getting to know my DAW better. The second thing was that I really wanted to push my music harder because I wanted to try new things – new sounds. I wanted to go dark and heavy because I’m also metal head.

It was difficult. I could have gone on writing “The Darkest Benthic Division” forever – writing the same album five times, really. But I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself and write the same album twice.

Sometimes when I strike a few chords on my keyboard I go back to those very simple, yet efficient atmospheric tracks. Something that I’ve also noticed, is that when I play such songs like ‘Abandoned Ship Graveyard’ or ‘Underwater Cities’ people go crazy.

It’s when I get the most attention. People look at me, and I look at boyfriends hugging their girlfriends – and it’s a fantastic experience. But in retrospect, it’s the most simple album I’ve made. So that’s the beauty of it. Maybe one day I will write another whole atmospheric album. I have no idea – I’m not against it. But now is not the time.”

The Production Style of Dan Terminus

Speaking of new music, I understand you used  FL Studio to produce “The Wrath of Code” and other albums. Has that changed? Did you use any new hardware, VSTs or DAWs or for the new album, “Last Call For All Passengers?”

“I’m an in-the-box producer. I love working with VST’s, and even the cheap stuff. I don’t care. As long as it sounds good it’s okay with me. As long as I can distort the shit out of it then I’m fine!

The new album was created on FL studio 10. As far as hardware goes, I didn’t use any hardware for the album. I only use VSTs like Synth1, Korg M1, Korg Wavestation EX, FM8 – and a few plugins like Multiband Distortion – stuff like that. Nothing too fancy, I’m sorry.

Basically, my setup is just me, my 2012 computer, a midi keyboard, two Fostex monitors and the screen – and that’s it. I’m a pretty simply guy you know? I don’t feel like having multiple synthesizers or clicky, shiny gear will help me become a better musician or a better producer – it’s all in my head first anyway. It’s all about being yourself.”

“So, was your creation process the same for previous albums and “Last Call For All Passengers?”

“I still create in my head and then reproduced the tracks in my DAW. I would like to tell you something though – it’s not necessarily about gear, but knowledge.

I feel like when you buy equipment, you don’t necessarily learn new things. But, if you can create the bass sound in your head by snapping your fingers, you don’t need to spend three or four hours designing a sound.

I think everyone should keep on learning every day, to get a wider playground. I try to learn new things every day in terms of production by reading books or reading articles. Every time I discover new things. So, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a good idea to buy a synthesizer. It IS a very good idea to read books and articles and to make sure you’re learning new things – even if it’s just a small, little piece of knowledge. I certainly don’t want to sound arrogant either – there is still much for me to learn!

This also lets you make things sound bad, in a good way. You know what I mean? If you listen to “Last Call For All Passengers,” you will realize the mix is kind of like a roller coaster.

Many times I voluntarily left the EQ alone – because if I EQ’d them properly, then they would sound too clean – and it would not be interesting!

If I were to work with another person or other people, things would be different. But when you are a one man project, I have to surprise myself. I have to outdo myself. I have to challenge myself. Otherwise, it’s too boring. And I would not wake up. I would just go to the countryside, take care of my horses and say, “Fuck music, fuck all of you, I’m just going to stay here forever!”

Art From Luca Carey

That’s interesting – so you own horses? Is that why the cover of your album is this sort of nightmarish horse? Did Luca Carey do this album cover as well?

“Absolutely, in fact, it was kind of a challenge because I wanted Luca to use black and green only. And I mean, if you’ve seen look at Carey’s work before, you know he usually paints with a thousand colors. He asked me if he could use grey, and I said, “Okay, but no more!”

I asked him for a mix of a Mérens – which is a black French mountain horse, and a Trait Comtois, which is a draft horse. He threw me three ideas, and I picked the one I liked the most.

As a relief, I told him for the back cover – you do whatever you want to do, because forcing him to only use two or three colors was an ordeal for him. So, he painted a big Cthulhu, and he painted it his way, and it’s fantastic. And let me tell you, it’s going to be nightmarish, really.

Technically, the horses are not mine yet. It’s just a matter of, you know, papers – but I love them with all my heart.

But with Luca. I believe that this guy is clearly not human, or at least he must have some alien DNA in him because his vision. No, I mean, really, his vision is so singular that it’s hard to compare it to anybody else. I love what he does. I would like him to get more recognition because it’s just not fair that he’s such a genius does not get more recognition!”

Check out Luca’s work Here!
Follow Luca on Facebook Here!

Artist: Luca Carey

I read in another interview when you were creating “Automated Refrains” you were listening to a lot of Bathory, Type 0-Negative, things like that. What were you listening to for inspiration when you were creating “Last Call For All Passengers?”

“My heavy rotation records was music from the 90s. Bomb the Bass, Nation 12, Fatboy Slim, The Prodigy. Because, I started hearing such music in my head. I said to myself, ‘Hey, Bomb the Bass was so fucking good!”

Burnout and Album Destruction

From the little bit I’ve heard, it sounds like it’s going to be more danceable than you previous work – is that a fair assumption?

“It depends on what you define as dance music! You will hear a lot of breakbeats and lots of bigbeats, just like, you know, the Chemical Brothers and everything.

I think it’s almost on purpose. when I started doing this I made it spontaneously because this album – “Last Call For All Passengers” was born from thrashing, dumping another album that I made as I burnt out. So. So, yeah.”

That’s interesting – you dumped a whole album? Surely it couldn’t have been THAT bad?

“I worked nine years for a big company. I had to resign, and at the time I was suffering from extreme burn out – I even fell asleep at the wheel and I crashed my car into a wall, as I was burning out. The doctors ended up ordering me to stay home and rest.”

What? That’s crazy!

“Yeah, but to be honest, the burnout is one of the best things that ever happened in my life because it helped me refocus. You know, it’s cool. I was burning out and I started writing songs and in fact, I wrote a whole album that was super fast paced and very primal. It was primitive… and also it sucked big time!

It was a shitty crappy album with distortion over everything and it sounded like crap. But I wrote it as I was burning out because… I don’t know, I was angry or something. Well, I’m still angry – but angry in a good way, if I dare say so!”

Is there any chance we’ll get to hear this terrible burn-out album? I know you say it’s bad, but it sounds fascinating.

“No! When you write an album and when you release it, it is a very serious matter. You don’t make an album for fun. You don’t release an album for the purpose of releasing an album. You release an album because you want to fulfill yourself as a producer or as a musician. It’s like getting a tattoo. I don’t want to look back 20 years later and think – “Oh fuck, I should never have done this!”

When it was time to go back to music again, I listened to this album it sounds definitely like shit, so I got to get rid of it. I dumped the whole album. Quite recently, in fact, as I was saving projects on my external disk drive, I found a copy of this destroyed album. So I really listened to it again. And let me tell you, it was so fucking bad, like really – it’s horse shit, really.

And then I wrote “Last Call For All Passengers,” which is all about being back to life again. Not in an artsy-fartsy phoenix rising from the ashes kind of thing. I think that’s fucking ridiculous. But, that is how the album was born.”

With a title like “Last Call For All Passengers” – and with the current state of the world, I thought the album might be about this looming science fiction dystopia or climate change?

“The true explanation is that I was watching a movie by Mel Brooks – Young Frankenstein. There’s a scene where Frankenstein is hopping on a train, and the ticket collector says, “Last call for all passengers!” I think. Maybe I misheard it, but I said, “That’s it!”

After I picked the album title, now we have COVID-19, the fires in California, two thirds of Australia have burned. The pentagon releases papers saying, “Hey, maybe UFO’s are a reality.” Then we dodged a bullet with war between the US and Iran – and so much more. So, now I look at the title, and it really fits the world we’re living in.

The world we live in today feels like the X-Files from 1995. It was supposed to be a television show, not reality! Really, if I saw the heavens splitting open and a fleet of motherships landed, I feel like that would be just a normal day in 2020. Great! Now we have Big Mac’s on Mars!”

Cyberpunk or Darksynth?

Life really does imitate art! Speaking of which – you mentioned before you don’t really care about being labelled as a “darksynth’ producer – but do you think the genre is moving away from it’s synthwave roots?

I don’t really listen to much darksynth – I only hear what people send me from time to time, for guidance or feedback. There is one guy I listen to because I think he’s brilliant – SurgeryHead. He’s one of the very few guys I saw live that really, really scared me – and I admired him at the same time. His music is perfect, and his on-stage persona is, well, let me tell you it’s fucking scary!”

As far as synthwave – I would like to see it keep on evolving instead of becoming a sterile representation of the music. Any form of music needs to evolve.

I definitely agree with with that! But, it’s odd to hear you don’t listen to much darksynth, I think many fans might consider you a darksynth producer? What do you consider yourself?

“There are three layers, OK? The first layer is that I am an electronic music producer. The second layer is that I am a cyberpunk music producer. The third layer is, as long as it sound good to me, I will make that kind of electronic music.

I don’t mind if people label me darksynth, and if people label Dan Terminus as synthwave too, I don’t mind. I wont get fussy about what it is. As long as it sounds good and as long as people enjoy what they are listening to, it’s fine with me really. I do understand that from some people’s perspectives, some of my tracks may be considered darksynth, and a label is always necessary I guess.

Like, when I say, I listen to death metal, I mean old-school deathmetal. Bands like Carcass, Obituary, Pestilence, Deicide. Some people who say, “I listen to deathmetal too” and they bring up artists like Meshuggah or those totally insufferable bands who play on a 12 strings guitars that sound like a horde of guys banging on telephone cables with hammers.

People have different definitions of what deathmetal is – what any genre is. So, no – I don’t consider myself a darksynth musician. But, if people label me as such, I really don’t mind.

So you consider yourself a cyberpunk musician?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I had never heard cyberpunk music – the closest I got was when I read Neuromancer by William Gibson, and there is a colony in space where guys from Jamaica listen to “Zion Dub” which he described as bass-heavy music.

So, it’s very selfish of me, but I wanted to write music that to me, would be a kind of cyberpunk music. It’s selfish to want to define a new genre – but it was just me thinking, “Okay, what can the soundtrack to a cyberpunk setting?”

I was totally flattered when I first heard people actually calling my music cyberpunk! It was a huge compliment; I was humbled and honored.

Well, we’ve been talking for quite some time now – thank you deep-dive interview! What’s next for Dan Terminus?

“I’m not sure yet, more music for sure – we’ll just have to wait and see.”

10. Molchat Doma – S Krish Nashih Domov

This Molchat Doma sound is a virtuoso mix of Alphaville, New Order and The Cure. almost every track on this album feels iconic in a familiar, but also foreign way. Although it is sung entirely in Slavic, the sad, nostalgic themes still resonate deeply.

9. Kalax – Kalax

A new, enhanced retro feel makes this truly dreamy dreamwave feel much more nostalgic than the previous releases from Kalax – almost wistful at times. The result is an astounding release of synthwave that bears a beautiful cinematic quality like Kavinsky or College.

8. Mega Drive – The Grid

This dark and futuristic album perfectly embodies cyberpunk. The dense, uptempo tracks meld perfectly with ambient features on this album, creating a complete soundscape for some mysterious dystopian city.

7. ALEX & Tokyo Rose – AKUMA

ALEX and Tokyo Rose perfectly compliment one another’s style on this groundbreaking darkwave/outrun album.  In spite of being dark, “Akuma’s” melodies feel more retro than it’s contemporaries, creating a rare form of nostalgia.

6. FM attack – Stellar

While his previous albums drew heavily from disco and had a more upbeat and dance feel, “Stellar” is steeped in postpunk and new wave vibes. This updated sound is unique and fantastic, creating a more wistful and nostalgic feel to the signature FM Attack sound.

5. HOME – Resting State

This interesting album is comprised of an astounding 35 demo tracks. In spite of this, they manage to be just as interesting and full-bodied as much of his more fleshed out work. If these are just demos, we can’t wait to hear whats coming next!

4. Various Artists – Magnatron 2.0

Powerful and dark, this compilation manages to be cohesive in spite of containing 16 very different and monstrously amazing artists.

3. Com Truise – Iteration

“Iteration” signals a tonal shift from Haley’s previous work. It feels more lachrymose and less hard sci-fi than his previous releases. This does not feel arrived at by way of nostalgia but instead from melancholy and heartbreak – a fitting end to a long journey.

2. Dan Terminus – Automated Refrains

This album is one of the darkest, most complex we’ve heard all year. Dan Terminus manages to elicit complex nostalgic melodies and a pitch-perfect retro-futuristic vibe through HEAVY synths – an accomplishment to be lauded. Top it off with a couple lighter, almost ambient tracks and you have a well rounded and well deserved top spot for “Automated Refrains.”

 

1. Lazerhawk – Dreamride

The synthwave demigod has returned in full force. Dreamrider suffuses Lazerhawk’s years of producer expertise and creates a thoroughly complete body of work that is in every way more than the sum of its parts. Lazerhawk’s mastery of the form is undeniable.

Special Mentions

Master Boot Record  – INTERRUPT REQUEST

Meteor – Inner Demon

I find myself drawn to this type of music and imagery for some pretty obvious reasons; I grew up in the 80’s. I loved the glory days of Horror like Friday the 13th, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street. Critters was my favorite movie for many years. Transformers, Voltron, Knight Rider all hold special places in my heart and I will never shake those influences. Also, being a huge metalhead doesn’t hurt. Darkness and blood and skulls run rampant in the darker corners of Synthwave. My wardrobe is 90% black with the rest pretty gaudy neon-colored things that I only wear on special occasions. So you can see why I might freak out and think this music is basically a mixture of all the things most influential to my upbringing that also comprise a big portion of my personality to this date. I have no choice but to love this music. How did GosT and Dan T get into it?

GosT: It was around 2006/2007 when I was first trying to make music on a computer. I heard College, Minitel Rose, all those guys on Valerie Collective, they’re kind of the originators, Kavinsky was starting around the same time, and so I heard that and I liked it; but I was really into Justice’s sound. So I tried to make that for a long time, then I started making Synthwave. As I did that, I started getting better at production and go to where I could do what Justice was doing at the time. It just came together.

Dan T: I started making music electronic music with an Atari 520STe, a 4 tracks tracker and a bunch of 3.5 floppy disks containing samples. I was making tracks for me, just for the fun of putting sounds together. Then I said it could be fun taking my music to another level of production, so I started doing things more seriously.

Sharing this music with other people has already become a passion of mine. I put together a best of *Wave 2015 Soundcloud playlist early this year, and have pretty aggressively distributed it to friends, who themselves have then distributed it even further. Many times a week I email/chat/text/Tweet songs to people; and I literally have never once gotten pushback or a “hey why are you sending me crappy music!” responses; people seem to universally love this music.

And that brings me to another point; as of now, I feel like I’m on a bit of an island of Synthwave all by my lonesome; I know that I personally love this music, and my friends are becoming converts, but what about all the other fans themselves? What is the scene like? Where can I get into said scene? Specifically as an American, it seems like there really isn’t a super strong scene over here just yet.

Dan T: The synthwave scene was born on the internet, just like so many other trends and styles. It’s a good thing because anybody can now start something without having to struggle to get it out there. As of today, a lot of producers are doing this kind of music for fun, uploading on a website and sharing their songs with whoever wants to give it a listen.

GosT:  In Europe we play to like 800 people. In America we play to like 50. You know how things are here, everything’s so spread out, and it takes people here longer to grasp things; or maybe they’re just unwilling I guess is a better way of putting it; you know people here get set in their ways and so when you’re like “check this shit out!” they’re like “oh yeah I’ve heard something like that before”. There’s just so much separation between the working class musician and what people pay attention to in America. It’s pretty weird.

I have literally never been as excited for a show as I am for this one. I had not one single reservation about booking a flight and trip to Europe just to see this show. That if anything shows you how powerful I feel like this scene and movement is right now. It’s kind of scary, but in a positively invigorating way.

I am what I consider a music tourist. I have traveled around the country and Europe for shows and festivals of all shapes and sizes. This year I’ll be attending my 6th straight Roadburn Festival to celebrate doom and psychedelic stoner metal. I have gone to what I refer to as “big dumb metal festivals” like Hellfest and Wacken. So I thoroughly enjoy traveling for the sake of music, experiencing new live music environments, and interacting with people. I have even attended mainstream electronic shows like Mad Decent Block Party and have seen acts like Justice, Daft Punk multiple times live. I’ve also attended tons of great hip hop shows. But nothing quite like this before, so what is it going to be like?

Dan T: I don’t know. The concerts I played at were crazy, with a bunch of metalheads headbanging like crazy, while some girls were dancing to tunes like “Death By Distortion”. I enjoyed every second of it. So I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I do.

GosT: It’s a huge modgepodge of shit man. It’s just a smorgasbord of people and everyone is super fucking nice, everybody seems to get along really well and everybody’s super nice to us.

RE: the fans: Dan T: Absolutely the best. Really. It’s always a pleasure and a great honor to know my music is a part of somebody’s life. I’m grateful for that. Their dedication is remarkable. I received some very touching emails from fans who told me how my music had helped them get through harsh times. Once this happens in your life, you know you can lay down and die right now. It’s the ultimate compliment.

So far, Synthwave has reinvigorated my love for music, and more importantly to me, really inspired to start creating music again. I have been in and out of punk/metal bands since I was in high school, but as of late have hit a bit of a snag in productivity and general motivation. Something about the autonomy of production and also just the general excitement I get from the music itself has me feeling a second wind in life as a musician.

All in all, I’m excited to immerse myself into the brave new world of where electronic music is progressing these days. I am incredibly excited to experience seeing 3 of my absolute favorite artists in this genre all perform together to a large crowd in Austria on a Saturday night. My excitement might only be bested by the artists’ excitement themselves …

Dan T: Everything. It’s like having all the good sides of touring, without the bad sides. I mean, there’s just me on stage with a bunch of virtual synthesizers, a controller, a MIDI keyboard and that’s it. So that’s not like your big five-guys black metal band + amp heads and cabinets + restringing guitars every night etc etc; it’s much easier for everyone!

I also find it very exciting to go on tour and shake hands, meet people who enjoy my music. Communicating on the internet is a good thing, but meeting people in real life is what I prefer! I want to shake hands and talk with the fans, I want to know what people think of this tour, I want to talk with people about what they liked and disliked.

GosT: Playing to sold out crowds, it’s fucking weird to me, still. Actually having people take care of me, everything’s taken care of you, and you know, shit that you never get when you’re playing metal and that you never think you’re gonna get, so; that and I love Dan Terminus and Perturbator, they’re great dudes so it’ll be fun. But yeah, I think the main thing is just playing to people who care which is insane.

One additional thing that I wanted to mention that I noticed while starting to dig into Perturbator/GosT/Dan Terminus was that they all have releases being distributed through Blood Music, an awesome electronic/metal label based in Finland, run by essentially a single guy who I have had the pleasure of communicating with who seems like he is working nonstop by the activity on Facebook, Twitter, etc. So I wanted to ask GosT about this, and what impact he has had so far on the scene:

GosT: He absolutely works harder than anyone realizes. When he signed me, and we were working on Behemoth, it was a collection of tracks that at first was gonna be an EP, and I just sent him a bunch of shit and he loved it and for like 2 or 3 months he emailed me every 5 minutes about it ’til we got it right, and you know he’s got so many other things going on but I can never tell he’s got other things going on because of how constantly he works and when you see the new Perturbator release and the new GosT release especially following up the huge Emperor release there’s no way people are gonna be able to deny how much he works. People are so weird about the “I gotta have it right now thing”, it kind of sucks because you know with true craft like this guy puts into it, you’re gonna get like the best record, the best artwork, the best I mean layout of the tracks, everything is down to the smallest detail, scrutinized over all by himself. So I don’t think he gets enough credit for that and I just gotta say, if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing.

So let’s see what happens in Vienna. This is going to be stupid fun, and I intend to enjoy myself to the fullest. This writing has the feel of something serious, but deep down this entire movement and scene to me is about having fun and dancing and grooving and partying, all the best things in life. Stay tuned for more!