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

10. Occams Laser – Halls of the Damned

9. Starfarer – Highrider

8. Burial Grid – Caput Mortuum

7. Acryl Madness – Kill _Em All

6. Microchip terror – Circuitry of Doom

5. Hollywood burns – Abomination from Planet X

4. Perturbator – Death of the Soul

3. Sierra X Matteo Tura – Inner Speech

2. Abstract Void – Forward to the Past

1. Gost – Bound by the Horror

10. Dynatron – Origins

9. Hollywood Burns – Saturday Night Screamer

8. Eagle Eyed Tiger – Untether, Unravel

7. Starcadian – Culture

6. Waveshaper – Client

5. Gost – A fleeting Whisper

4. Kavinsky – Renegade

3. Quixotic – Highway violence

2. Sierra – All about love

1. Waveshaper – The Phantom Machine

Honorable Mentions

• Perturbator – Death of the Soul

• Danger – Haven Virtual concert

• LAU – True

Rites of Love and Reverence marks the sixth full-length release by Michigan-based producer Gost. Having established his moniker amongst the most successful in Synthwave with Behemoth, Gost has since broken free from the stylistic confines of the genre, starting with Possessor, an album still unmatched in its sheer sonic brutality.

With this sixth album, Gost keeps the ball rolling with some hard-hitting, cavernous subterranean club bangers. After a spellbinding introductory sequence, the record blows up right in your face with a face-melting barrage of distortion and pummeling drums. The album keeps a great balance between dance-friendly, industrial post-punk sequences and blood-pumping thrillrides through the nine circles of hell. Listeners best be warned, however, for Rites of Love and Reverence offers very little respite for the uninitiated and locks you into its cavernous, club nocturnal decadence with a compressed, loud mix sustained nearly all throughout its 44-minute runtime. On tracks like ‘We are the Crypt’, ‘Coven’ and ‘Burning Thyme’, Gost delivers some of his best vocal performances to date. More than the mere add-ons you hear on all too many Darksynth album, the raspy, filtered vocal melodies complements the sonic aggression with a sensual yet harrowing edge. Bold as the album may be, Rites of Love and Reverence is an album built on a solid foundation of darksynth. What sets the album apart is how seamlessly it incorporates its coldwave and extreme metal influences… and how unapologetic it is about it.

Overwhelmed as some listeners will undoubtedly be after listening to this album, one can’t help but praise the sheer boldness of Gost’s output. Rites of Love and Reverence may not be the album some of you wanted to hear, but every second of it sounds like an album its creator was dying to make.

In an age where commodity trumps personality, Rites of Love and Reverence is an album that forces you to meet the artist on his own terms in order to deliver nothing short of a masterpiece.

Gost ‘Rites of Love and Reverence’ is out now via Century Media.

Are you still the Earthly Avatar of Baalberith?

“Yes and no,” GosT says through a chuckle. “Trying to spread through a couple of other demon names as of late because I’ve heard that– I’m not superstitious, but maybe I am a bit — I’ve heard that you focus on one demon long enough it will fucking ruin shit for you. I did have a really bad year last year….I’ve been fucking with the Stomidod a little bit, which is a lesser demon, but I don’t don’t know. I’m down to change.
I think the music’s changing so it makes sense anyways.”

Your music has changed since you began producing, becoming darker and harder with each release. You said in interview a little while ago, “Possessor was the first release where it’s all me.” Can you explain a little bit about that transition to becoming something that’s more you?

“I’ve gotten to a place were I can take a chance more on writing. It just took me getting to a place of security. Once I knew people liked it, so I could take more risks. It’s stupid.  ”

Was that switch to corpse paint maybe a metaphor or a symbol of your evolution into the darker music? Did that have anything to do with that transition or was that just something that happened?

“No. It was a lot of things. Definitely an ode to the metal genre, and there’s a lot more vocals now. On the new album there’s pretty much vocals on every track. It’s impossible to sing through a piece of plastic. I tried a couple of different variations of latex, but it just doesn’t sound right. It’s just more of a quality issue than anything,” he says with a laugh.

Did you feel nostalgic about letting it go?

“I mean, it was kind of scary. People react horribly to that sort of thing generally and I did have some blow back, people being jerks.”

Chris, who backed GosT on stage, speaks up.

Chris: “I think it’s a progression, honestly.”

So how did you two meet each other? 

GosT: “We came up in high school and used to skate together. Some both played together in some of our first bands. When I needed some help on the road, I asked him. Of course he was downand then it just naturally progressed.

Did it have anything to do with your progression into the more metal aesthetic – the harder music?

GosT: “Actually, it’s just weird being on stage alone. After being in bands for years, when you’re on stage alone, being that much the center of attention is just fucking weird. I can’t explain it….
I don’t know how big name DJs do that shit. It just feels awful. Just having someone to share it with also helps set the stage vibe and everything. It feels like a forward step.”

Chris: “I think that’s an important thing for music. You have to be able to push limits and move forward, instead of making the same album over and over again.”

What’s Chris’s input on the new album? Are you guys co-writers?

Chris: “No, this is all [REDACTED]. I’m pretty much the person that helps him make this happen.”

GosT: “It’s a live environment, and he has a huge influence on that. There’s all the sound checks when we’re setting up a show before tour, it’s all input for him as well. We communicate creatively that way, but it’s still– Writing, it’s still just me.”

Speaking of the new album, Do you plan on going darker and harder? Is that even possible?

GosT: “Yes, there’s a mix, dude. There’s a lot of really fucking gothy, almost industrial sounding tracks. There’s a lot of mix on this album, whereas in Possessor there was either a heavy track or a postpunk sounding track. Expect tracks with postpunk and black metal all mixed together. It’s a lot of experimentation on this record.”

The next band starts up and I end the interview, I ask him if there’s anything he would like to add.

Gost: “Columbus fucking rules! We had a great fucking show tonight. Crazy crowd!”

“Fever Dreams” is an eclectic mix featuring some of the biggest names in synth such as Com Truise, Lazerhawk, Gost, Carpenter Brut, Power Glove, NINA, Marie Davidson, S U R V I V E, GUNSHIP and more.

Every track on this album is a slam-dunk smash hit. It’s hard to understate exactly how fantastic this release is. The artist list was curated by Dana Swanson, a senior writer/producer and voice for Adult Swim.

She said in a release via Magnetic Magazine:

“I’m a giant fan of Synthwave and was inspired to create something that sounded incredible while driving at night,” states Swanson in a statement. “I’m also beyond fascinated with the dichotomy of the dreams that you have when you’re sick and half-awake: anything is possible, but someone else is behind the wheel.”

Grab a listen here!

Fans of darksynth and ambient will likely love this release – give it a spin below!

See, this wasn’t just any random show; it featured 3 of my absolute favorite artists in the genre; Perturbator, GosT, and Dan Terminus. Once the tour was announced, I knew I needed to make this pilgrimage. I knew it would be fulfilling, crazy, inspiring, and generally wonderful for my well-being and artistic pleasure. The decision to attend this tour was simple (one could say the decision was made for me), so it was just a matter of figuring out which city I wanted to visit. Vienna worked perfectly well for me since I had visited over 15 years ago and had always wanted to return.

Once everything was booked (the easy part), I just had to wait. But quickly on I thought to myself, “If I am going all the way over there to see this tour, I should make some sort of project around this.” Musical writing and covering shows is something I did before, so I decided I’d write about this in some shape or form. So I reached out to New Retro Wave about the opportunity, and began by interviewing GosT and Dan Terminus. I had the pleasure of spending over an hour on Skype with GosT discussing everything from inspirations, past show experiences (which just made me giddy with excitement and anticipation for this one!) and even awful 90’s metal fashion like Jncos (and their apparent resurgence).

Friday, March 25th. I arrive in Vienna after a night of very little sleep on my flight over from NYC. My day is a game of coffee drinking and tricks to play on myself to keep from falling asleep, but it turns out the general excitement of my journey makes it moot; too much energy! Before traveling I had befriended an Austrian fellow who was making the trip with some friends to see the show, so we decided to meet up at a venue called Escape Metal Corner where there would be a show after party the next night. Over the course of several hours we threw back beers, discussed how excited we were for the show, and also our general enthusiasm for this movement; Synthwave/Darkwave was all we could talk about. The fans dedication to this is pretty incredible, evidenced by my travels, as well as this guy’s dedication to the cause by making himself his own custom Perturbator jacket:

Homemade Perturbator Jacket!

“The whole outing felt very ritualistic; we were excited to be part of something special.”

Saturday the 26th: day of show. I go eat things and see things to kill time before I needed to show up. Eventually, I made my way, while listening to (naturally) my Darkwave warmup playlist, walking along the river to the Grelle Forelle venue, situated in an odd corner and pretty hidden from the street. Just finding the venue itself was a mini adventure. Since I was (graciously) granted guest list access and would be hanging with Perturbator, GosT, and Dan T backstage I got there very early, and was lucky enough to watch the setup and initial sound checks. The lighting and sound were pretty fucking killer, couldn’t wait to hear and see this live!

Perturbator warming up

Eventually I spotted Perturbator (James) and introduced myself. He (and everyone I ended up meeting) was extremely pleasant, fun, and all around a very nice guy. He took me backstage and introduced me to the rest of the crew, and we sat down to chat. We decided that we could do some interviews once Perturbator finished his soundcheck. I reassured them that the “boring” interview questions were out of the way, and had even gone out of my way to create some pretty ridiculous questions for laughs; they appreciated this and seemed to be quite tired of the regular old “who are your inspirations questions.” In any case, we had time to kill (a few hours) so we commenced beer drinking and listening to random music. Which led to …

No interview at all! Once we hit a certain threshold, we decided that an interview would be boring and instead, I should just write about hanging out with them, which turned out to be hilarious, incredible, fun, and frankly stupid. Turns out that I had a ton in common with all these guys from our collective love of heavier music, to random similarities in our youth to food choices. We went on a tear listening to some of our favorite nü metal artists like Limp Bizkit and Korn, cheesy indie rock, and hardcore. There was a lot of pseudo-moshing happening in that back room. The whole evening went something like this:

* Drink beers, talk about music

* Drink more beers, talk about music

* Tommy runs downstairs to watch a set

* Tommy runs back upstairs to have a beer and listen to more nu metal and shoot the shit

* Tommy runs back downstairs to see another set

* Essentially repeat the above for 4 hours

Overall, the sets themselves were all epic, high-energy, and full of spontaneity and passion; all of these guys put on an absolute clinic, winning over the crowds and creating an experience that is really hard to describe; it was unlike any show I had ever attended before and left me dizzy for weeks afterwards. It was literally very difficult for me to put into words exactly what these shows were like. I can only hope they can get over to the States more often now as I have now had just a taste and am already craving more. The bar has now been substantially raised for me for live music.

Oh, did I mention there was an after-party? There was indeed an after party. We made our way (Perturbator included) back to the Escape Metal Corner again for some additional DJs spinning Synthwave. Here the dancing and revelry continued with aplomb, as the place was packed with concertgoers and was no less packed when I finally decided to leave around 4:30 a.m. The energy from the concert spilled over into that smaller yet very loud venue, bodies jumping up and down, heads nodding, fists continuing to pump viciously.

Sunday the 27th, I sleep a lot, then spend my last few hours in Vienna by roaming around Zentralfriedhof, an amazing cemetery, with another fellow I had met at the show the night before. This has been a constant theme for me, meeting passionate, fun, nice, friendly people as I start getting more into this music and that’s something I could not say for many other genres I have gotten into. Both the fans and the artists themselves, which seems to really set Synthwave apart; its authenticity and sheer joy that it gives its creators and listeners.

I’ve already booked my next trip to see Carpenter Brut in the Ukraine in September. I am pretty sure that is also going to be insane. I cannot wait.

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!

A lucky few of you may have grabbed the vinyl when it debuted for limited release, but now Blood Music has released GosT’s “Behemoth” album for digital download. It’s “name your price,” but I’ll save you the thought involved: go ahead and give a little, because this album is priceless.

As many of you know, I am a rabid fan of GosT, ever since his early work in 2013. I still remember finding the EPs “Radio Macabre” and “The Night Prowler” and being impressed… then being astounded at “Nocturnal Shift” and quite honestly blown out of the water by “Skull.” In 2014, GosT followed up with “S/T,” a further refinement of a style that is not only unique but extremely powerful. GosT’s music invokes both dark menace and semi-religious rapture; I have been a devoted follower ever since I discovered this artist and his work. It is definitely on the edge (fringe, even) of retrowave, but it is incredibly significant to the genre, and in many ways, undeniably groundbreaking.

“Beyond” starts off this album with a nice, atmospheric intro. It is kept brief before exploding angrily into “Genesee Avenue,” a blistering track with a drum set that hits like a hail of stones. Next comes a retooling of the track “Night Crawler,” with superior instrumentation and embellishment. “Master” is another brutal track, and it’s here that we find the signature distorted and rough tones we’ve come to associate with GosT. This track does not let up. It refuses to let you go. “Reign In Hell” is a short but effective track with some cool bendy tones evocative of a broken, possessed machine. Frantic piano arpeggios lead us into “Tongue,” a brilliantly arranged piece of music that builds on itself in a classical-music way and would be at home on any decent horror film’s soundtrack. “Without A Trace” features haunting, beautiful vocals by Hayley Stewart and carries an almost romantic undertone. It is definitely slow and soft for GosT, but it is great and definitely belongs here. “Ripper” begins to build the listener up again, and is both sinister and uplifting. GosT has a sort of gift for mixing those emotions together in his music; it is always so evocative! Things continue to pick up with “Bathory Bitch,” a track as dark and sensual as the vampire countess herself. Uptempo and busy, it still pulls visions of dark red velvet to mind. “Sacrament” is another short interlude track, drumless and fairly minimalist, but it makes a good lead-in to the title track. Speaking of the title track, it is a spectacle in itself. It needs to be heard to be believed; in the span of two years, GosT has gone nuclear and it has resulted in something of a ghastly masterstroke. “Behemoth” the track is a wonderful pin on which to hang “Behemoth” the album; richly dripping with both murder and glory, brutal and beautiful to behold. The album includes two remixes by Dance With The Dead and Perturbator, two of GosT’s peers in the dark cave on the outskirts of retrowave. They are both wonderful remixes that both alter and add to their parent tracks.

All in all, I was blown to Hell the moment I pressed “play.” I grant “Behemoth” nine out of ten. I would give it a ten, but I’ll wait for a darkwave album by The Devil Himself before handing out that laurel. My guess is, GosT would give His Dark Majesty a run for his money.

COMMUNITY RATINGS

Ooh, I was very excited to get the greenlight on this one. Horror fans, especially old-school gut-munchers like myself, have fond memories of Lucio Fulci’s classic undead flick Zombie. A valued part of my VHS collection as a horror-obsessed teen, Zombie tells the now-familiar “zombie plague” story, but with less rubber science and more awesome gore and FX.

Emmet Kiernan, aka SurgeryHead, made this tribute to the original soundtrack to coincide with Rough House Publishing’s comic book version of the film. The comic itself features art by Derek Rook, and is incredibly hard to get ahold of now, as I found out to my dismay. The album art, however, is by the same artist, so you get a teasing taste of what you’d expect waiting within the pages. Hopefully some of you will be able to succeed where I have failed and get a look at the comic, but the soundtrack is LUSH. It is incredibly atmospheric, and even seems to tell the story itself. The titles all reference aspects or even scenes of the movie, but for the most part this is a loose interpretation; you couldn’t definitely glue a track to a scene. That’s fine though… most of it’d fit anywhere. This is Hollywood quality score work, and I don’t just say that as hyperbole. It is crisp, clean, and precisely effective. There is no overuse of anything, and while parts of it seem minimalist, that’s actually for the best. Music for horror isn’t supposed to be overpowering; it’s like putting ketchup on a hamburger… you don’t want to drown in it.

As far as highlighting individual tracks, “Underwater Hell” is an excellent example. It builds slowly, using just enough drum-sound while keeping a steady climb in volume. “The Bloody Dawn of Maldye” has a bit of grungy nastiness to it; it grinds, burns slow, and evokes the heartbeat of a frightened victim. “I Buried You, But I See You Walking” is perhaps the most insidious of Kiernan’s works on the album; between light drums and low thrumming tones, you hear sounds that might even make you think of a dentist’s drills. Shudder-worthy. “Zombies, Everywhere!” is another one that steadily climbs to new heights of terror; there are even some tastefully-placed church bells!

My personal (admittedly biased) favorite is GosT’s remix of the original title music for the film. Everything GosT does makes me imagine purposefully hitting someone with a semi tractor-trailer. And I love it. The original pumping beat is present, but GosT’s signature chainsaw distortion and cutting high notes lend a modern and grisly taste to the recipe.

Lastly, I’d encourage our readers to spend the 4 euros to buy the album because not only is it great, but its profits go to Doctors Without Borders, helping people who’ve survived real catastrophes. And if zombie films taught me anything, it’s that without humanity’s capacity to work together and heal its wounds, we are doomed.

I give this album eight out of ten, and it earned it. SurgeryHead and GosT are two of my favorite artists in our scene, and they’ve acquitted themselves well in this homage to Fulci’s work. Eat up!

STREAM HERE

COMMUNITY RATINGS

]]> https://newretrowave.com/2015/04/01/zombie-the-unearthed-ost-by-surgeryhead-featuring-gost/feed/ 0 https://newretrowave.com/2014/09/26/wretrowave-com201409interview-gost-html/ https://newretrowave.com/2014/09/26/wretrowave-com201409interview-gost-html/#respond Fri, 26 Sep 2014 20:09:00 +0000 http://new-retro-wave.com/2014/09/26/wretrowave-com201409interview-gost-html/

I recently had a chance to have a digital sit-down with one of retrowave’s darker, more sinister artists…. GosT. It turns out that despite his Satanic malice, the apparition had much to share with me during our meeting.

1. Thanks for agreeing to an interview! Let’s get right to it… what got you into music as a whole?

I do not remember a time that music wasn’t a big part of my life.  If I had to pick a moment or period of my life that I remember as pivotal,  my parents had a Kiss pinball machine in our house when I was very young (which I still own).   So as a child I was instantly drawn to Kiss.  The make-up the pyrotechnics, the insane boots!  My mother was also always listening to current rock music which left a very lasting impression on me that is still with me today.

2. Clearly your work is horror-influenced. What horror films from the 80s affected you the most, and what about them?

A Nightmare on Elm Street terrified me as a child but I was simultaneously drawn to it as well.  This was the film that started my love of horror for sure.  The knife glove was so badass to me!  Also the first two Halloween movies were massive for me.  John Carpenter’s score for those films just blew my child head off!  The film Silver Bullet with Corey Haim was also in constant rotation among my group of childhood friends.

3. Not that I mind at all (in fact I’m into it), but what’s the deal with the Satan imagery? It seems to be something you gradually adopted.

I’ve always played in metal bands so it just kind of naturally found its way into this project.  Also, I live in a very small town which is dominated by Christianity and the obnoxious passive aggression that community throws at non-believers. The negative of that belief is an easy way to distance myself from the religious right in my community and the world…  Basically HAIL SATAN!

4. Who are your biggest influences musically?

As I said before Kiss has always influenced me.  My influence are fairly vast and kind of all over the place.  Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Suicidal Tendencies, NIN, Danger, SebastiAn, Depeche Mode.  I could literally go all day but these bands in particular hold a lot of influence for Gost.

5. On the “Skull” EP, it’s easy to notice a jump in overall production value. What’s behind that? New equipment? Better facilities?

I started Gost to just have something I could do on my own without an actual band.   People started to really show interest which made me want to do better.  With Skull I started spending loads more time on actual production and trying to make something somewhat different from the rest of the synthwave community.

6. What’s next for Gost? What can we expect? I know you’ve been doing some track remixes and stuff, but is another album coming?

I’ve just signed with Blood Music which is crazy to me!  They have already put massive amounts of energy into my next release.  I am releasing my debut LP the first of 2015 with them!   There are a couple surprises that I think my fans will be pretty stoked on and I can’t wait to share all of this.  I am also releasing a remix I did of a Carpenter Brut track for free DL on Halloween.

GosT’s Bandcamp page

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