Hi Dana! What’ve you got to recommend to us today?

I would love to talk about the film Labyrinth from 1986, starring David Bowie and directed by Jim Henson. I was born after the movie came out, but it’s one that was really important to me throughout my childhood. Even watching it now gives me that sense of ‘instant nostalgia’. I have some really cool older cousins who played it for me one Christmas when I was young. We were all big David Bowie fans and I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever. The music was amazing, the visuals were incredible, the puppet-work was really inspiring…

What do you remember about the music you grew up with?

My parents always played a lot of eighties music like Madonna and David Bowie. Later on, I got into Prince’s eighties catalogue. I remember the first album that I ever owned was Björk’s Post. That album really inspired me. Alternative rock was probably my first foray into music though. Electronic came in later on.

Do you remember what got you interested in diving into electronic music?

I think it was the sound of the synthesizers. They sound so warm. To me it’s this perfect amalgamation of humanity and technology coming together: Synthesizers are technical machines that we operate, but they ultimately need that human touch, that human connection to allow them to come to life. I love that aspect of it. The songs also remind me of the eighties music that I had been listening to as a child.

I remember getting into Boards of Canada and thinking what an incredible sound they had. That was also a big draw for me to jump into the Synthwave scene. I found that a lot of these Synthwave artists were incorporating these nostalgic eighties synthesizer sounds in a way that sounded poppy and dance-y, which is closer to my background as an artist. I like to perform and sing very upbeat music, and I like the fact that Synthwave is a nice fusion of the two worlds.

What I love about Synthwave is that it covers such a broad range of different types of music. You can have some of that orchestral, cinematic approach, or you can have some of the more dance-y, techno approach. You have great artists who are able to write really slick pop hits within that Eighties retro nostalgia framework. There are similarities to modern pop in that you can have great melodies, catchy hooks, and memorable choruses, but there’s a bit of grittiness, a bit of an unpolished, nostalgic feel to Synthwave that is more appealing to me than what you hear in some of the ultra-slick modern pop songs out there on mainstream radio.

Do you remember how and when you came across the Synthwave scene?

I believe it was on Soundcloud. I was at Theatre school at the time, which was certainly demanding and a lot of it was producing other people’s written work, whether it be music, monologues or theatrical pieces. I needed this creative outlet to explore my own voice and musical creativity. I believe I stumbled upon Robots with Rayguns and Betamaxx on Soundcloud, and I immediately fell in love with the sound and vibe that they were putting out. I reached out to them and they agreed to collaborate on a track, so I started releasing different collaborations with different artists. It all grew organically and ultimately developed into people contacting me and coming up with more and more material.

Have you got any news to share with our readers, any updates?

I just came out with the album Megawave, which is the collaboration album with Powernerd. I’m really excited to release it with Outland, which is also an event company that produces live shows. I’ve been really lucky to have performed three shows with them, two of them in London (UK) and once in my hometown of Toronto, where they put on a massive show this past summer. I’ve had a great working relationship with Powernerd over the last few years, working on various tracks. We performed two live shows together before. We have really good energy and we wanted to keep the momentum going with this album. People responding so well to it, and I’m thrilled about that. The next step, once everything opens up again, is planning the next European tour. I’d like to go back out there for the third time. I have dates booked for October, so my fingers are crossed. When everything is safe, it will be so nice to see everyone and experience some great music together under one roof again.

Thumbnail photo by Hayley Stewart.

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Hey Vincenzo, thank you for joining us. What’ve you got to recommend to our readers today?

A peculiar movie I always keep deep inside in my memories is Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. I actually saw it for the first time as a very child, so I probably couldn’t catch all of the films’s the details, but when a petrolhead kid sees a movie starting with a couple of Lamborghini Countach’s… then you know it’s going to be good. I must’ve watched it four or five times in total. With that being said, the story is quite simple and I’m not going to spoil anything!

The movie is about the difficult relation about Charlie (Tom Cruise) and his autistic brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman). There are many touching moments (yeah, I’m a sensitive guy) and everything is beautifully accompanied by a Hans Zimmer score. That was the first time hearing about him and I have to say the Rain Man Theme is one of the best soundtracks I ever heard. It got nominated for Best Soundtrack at the 1988 Oscars. Many scenes are representative of this movie: the casino, the walking on the tree-lined avenue and long travel by car (because Raymond is afraid of planes). It’s very outrun J.

Out Now by Vincenzo Salvia

What’ve you been up to, music-wise? Any projects or news you’d like to share?

Since being featured in Stranger Things, I’ve been slowing down a bit with my compositions, relaxing and enjoying the moment. I recently released an EP called Out Now and a single with my talented friend Mental Exile ‘We are nothing but a game’, and now I’m out searching for new sounds and concepts. I’m probably going to abandon the Italo touches for this release and go down the Nightdrive/Outrun route, simply because I need new music for my Assetto Corsa game soundtracks.

Thumbnail photo by @Onedaystranger

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So what’ve you got for us today?

Chris:

I went with Streets of Fire by Walter Hill. I first saw it on Canal+ (French TV channel) when I was a kid and I rediscovered it much later. My film knowledge was made through Canal+ and the local video-rental. I’d watch all the horror that would come on Saturday nights and we’d rent the Friday the 13^th movies at the video store. I grew up on these ‘pop-corn’ flicks. What ended up sticking were these oddball movies like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, big-budget movie flops fuelled a pretty hefty dose of ambition.

Streets of Fire was released in 1984 and was made possible by the success of Walter Hill’s previous film 48 Hrs starring Eddie Murphy. Some see Streets of Fire as some sort of spiritual successor to The Warriors. It’s one of those movies that I consistently re-watch and am fascinated by. The setting is what makes the film really special. It’s set in a parallel universe, another dimension where the Eighties draw heavily from Fifties culture. You’ve got neons and Eighties fashion alongside Rockabilly culture, old vintage cars and an overall Wild Ones inspired atmosphere. It’s almost post-apocalyptic, too.

There are a lot of cool stylistic choices. There isn’t a drop of blood in the movie. The film is pretty violent and you’ve got people fighting with weapons but it’s still a Rock n’ roll fable, a fairy tale. No one really dies in the movie. The film was initially set to launch a trilogy but it flopped.

It’s basically retrofuturism set in the Eighties.

Exactly. It’s Fifties culture set against an Eighties backdrop. I often call it a Synthwave movie because it basically has the same relationship to the past that Synthwave fans have with Eighties culture, only this movie was doing it nearly forty years ago. It’s a fascinating blend of film noir, westerns and loads of different elements. There’s even a bit of Casablanca in there, with the whole storyline between the protagonist Tom Cody and his old lover.

The plot is ridiculously simple: a bicycle gang has kidnapped a girl and her ex is called upon to save her. It’s basically the plot to Super Mario. What really takes the film to new heights is the film’s soundtrack. The female lead is a singer plays in a band called Ellen Aim and the Attackers and the songs in the movie were done by a band called Fire Inc and composed by Jim Steinman, the kind of Wagnerian Rock. He’s the guy behind Meal Loaf’s Bat out of Hell and I’d do anything for Love as well as Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart and Holding out for a Hero. He writes Wagnerian Rock, which is basically pure power. His music pumps you up like crazy. The movie kicks off at a concert, set to an adrenaline-filled track called ‘Going Nowhere Fast’. It’s absolutely massive.

The Final Fight video games are actually directly inspired by Streets of Fire. The suspenders-wearing character Cody is directly inspired by Michael Paré’s character of the same name. The first episode of the Bubblegum Crisis anime also starts off with a homage to Streets of Fire and mimics the opening sequence at the concert with a performance by Priss and the Replicants.

Have you any news for the Synth Squad? Any updates?

Chris: We’ve had some cancelled interviews right before the lockdown. Right now we’re trying to get back into phoner interviews with artists. Our homepage is also currently migrating, but we’re still putting out our Sunday Selection and Tracks of the Day.

Pete: We started out doing phoner interviews but ended up focusing on face-to-face interviews. We really enjoyed the possibilities that it offered. We were more focused on covering events and face-to-face interviews, but now…

Chris: [Laughs]

Pete: We could still cover live-streamed sets, I guess… We’ll see.

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So what’ve you got for us today?

Pete Trautmann:

I’m going with Rambo III. I must’ve been nine or ten years old when I first saw it and it sparked my life-long interest in Stallone’s film career. It was typically the kind of films that would come on Sundays on Ciné Dimanche on TF1 (French TV) after a more family-friendly film. I’d tape those films and watch them on Wednesday since we didn’t have class on Wednesday mornings. I’d be alone at home, my parents were at work and I was allowed to watch what I had taped, they were pretty lenient in that regard.

Rambo is alongside the colonel Samuel Trautman, the dialogue is lighthearted and the film is filled with one-liners that stick with you when you’re a kid. For example, there’s this famous scene where Trautman is being interrogated by the Russian colonel Zaysen, who asks him where the American missiles are, to which he responds “in your ass!”. Apparently that’s where the French expression comes from (note: the French version “dans ton cul” is a very commonly used response).

You’ve got all facets of Rambo in the third movie. You also see Rambo suffer and deal with pain, namely with the scene where he cauterises his open wound with gunpowder. Stallone is a real badass in this one. The Trautman-Rambo duo is simply amazing, too. Even when they’re surrounded by choppers and Spetsnaz commando officers, they’re spitting one-liners at one another.

Like a lot of his Hollywood action movie-star peers, Stallone got a pretty hefty ego readjustment around that era, too. Few people dared to work with them, because you could be sure that half of the movie production would be on set before shooting because of disagreements with the script, the shots and whatnot. They weren’t the kind to take hints from anyone. But Rambo III came right after the box-office failure that was Over the Top, a redneck road movie where Stallone tries to reconnect with his son by taking him on a road trip as a trucker. The film was a disaster and they lost loads of money. Stallone was also going through a divorce with his second wife and had to pay out millions of dollars. Given that Rambo: First Blood Part II was the biggest box-office hit of 1985, the studios are obsessed with the idea of topping that success. The film cost 63 million dollars but only earned 100 million.

What is it that draws you to Stallone, in particular?

There are a number of things that came with time. When I was little, I was into the big buff action side of things. Stallone stood alone and would wreck everything around him, especially in the Rambo movies. There could be 125 guys shooting at him and they’d all miss him, whereas he’d kill them all with only three shots. In Rambo III he kills 72 out of the 125 guys that die in the movie.

Then there’s also the fact that we were served a ton of Stallone movies in the Nineties. There’d be a new movie of his every other year. I really liked the fact that his movies told so many different stories. He was a NASCAR driver in Driven, a mountain climber in Cliffhanger and an old school cop in a non-violent future in Demolition Man.

I saw the Rocky and Rambo movies in reverse order but I’d always stop before the first movies because I used to think they were boring movies when I was a kid. There were fewer fights and more dialogue. You eventually grow older and open your mind up, though [Laughs]. When I was a teenager, I discovered how great of an actor he was and saw his films in a new light. That’s when I found out First Blood, which I initially thought to be a pro-war movie, was really a critique of the Viet-Nam war and the way war veterans were carelessly reintroduced into society and left to become social pariahs.

It’s pretty interesting to note that these sequels wouldn’t have been possible, had they not taken liberties from the source material.

That’s right. I actually re-read the 1972 novel recently. Rambo actually dies at the end of it. However, producers Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna of Carolco Pictures couldn’t just kill off the character in the movie. What’s pretty interesting is that they also got David Morell, the author of the original First Blood novel, to write the novels to Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III, based off the movie scripts. It was a pretty common practice at the time. The books were part of the movie merchandising and would be released at the same time as the movie, with the poster as the front cover. The books more or less followed the same plotline, with some changes. In the Rambo III novelization, they added a female doctor character who treats the wounded Afghan soldiers, whom Rambo and Trautman need to protect and escort to safety.

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So what’ve you got to recommend to our readers today?

I’ve chosen two film recommendations. I brought the 1986 horror film Night of the Creeps. It’s probably one of the most criminally underrated Eighties movies ever made it’s a mix of science-fiction, cheesy horror and laugh-out-loud comedy and the director delivers everything in spades. It’s one of the first horror films that I can remember watching and I can’t recommend it enough to the readers! I remember getting it at a video-store.  The VHS cover stood out to me. I used to spend a lot of my childhood around video-stores, which is where I got my love for films. I used to rent a lot of films. The first job I wanted to do was to be a film director. I always remember that as one of my first memories.

The second film that I think everyone should watch is a 1986 film called Chopping Mall, which has an incredible Synth soundtrack by Chuck Cirino. It’s batshit crazy. It’s got out of control robots, awful dialogue and exploding heads, all within a shopping mall in the Eighties. It’s best watched with beers and a few friends. I must’ve seen the film between the time I was ten and thirteen.

Can you identify what draws you to old-school horror, as a director and as a fan?

I think it’s the atmosphere. Modern horror doesn’t have the atmosphere of Eighties horror. It’s got some kind of schlocky vibe with an undercurrent of pulsing synths. Nothing today measures up to the horror movies of the Eighties and early Nineties. That’s what I think, anyway. I very much like DIY style horror, where you can feel like the movie was a passion project. John Carpenter’s Halloween was a really low-budget, for example. The same goes for Chopping Mall and Night of the Creeps. They are not the churned-out unoriginal money-making machines you see in cinemas today.

I know the film-rating system is pretty harsh in the UK. Were these horror films easy to get a hold of when you were still a child?

There were a lot of films that were banned in the Eighties in the UK, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist. These films were re-released around the 2000s’. The schlockier, lower-budget films that weren’t really that “harmful”, were released on videocassette. It was only the ones that had the blood and gore and various things that people thought could “harm the public” that were banned. There was a politician called Mary Whitehouse, who basically banned a bunch of films due to what she thought would cause violence. A lot of these films were just 18+ films. Our films rating system goes from U (for all audiences) and PG (Parental Guidance) to 12+, 15+ and 18+.  I remember watching Clownhouse and Halloween when I was very young. My mum and dad didn’t really care about showing me things like that. If you’re born a certain way, you’re going to turn into a psychopath, but I don’t think TV violence turns into a killer.

Did you have a lot of friends that were into horror? Or were you the odd one out of the bunch in school?

I was the kid that people used to come around to the house to. I had hundreds of VHS tapes. My parents bought me them. They used to watch Terminator and Halloween around my house [Laughs] without their parents knowing. People used to come to my place after school to check out all of the newest horror and action releases that they couldn’t see anywhere else.

How did you pick out the movies you’d watch?

The thing is that you couldn’t really tell if something was really good back then. You just had to go off the poster artwork, whereas nowadays you get to read reviews online. You had to go through a video store and browse around. It was the same with CDs in the Nineties. When an album was released, you didn’t know what the rest of the album was like. It basically boiled down to luck. I still have a lot of terrible VHS tapes in my house [Laughs]. You paid quite a lot of money back then for a new release, too.

Has your relationship with horror movies changed since the digital age or have you kept somewhat of an old-school approach to consuming horror?

I still watch a lot of horror movies, but I don’t really listen to anybody’s reviews or opinions on it, because I think that horror is very much in the eyes of the viewer. You’re either going to really like it or you’re not. That’s why I go to a lot of horror festivals, as well. I don’t read about the films that are showing, I like going in with an open mind. It’s just nice to find something new and refreshing that someone else has picked out in a horror festival, as opposed to sifting to loads of stuff that you’re not sure is going to be good. I still read reviews of horror films, I just don’t really trust them. A movie that I’d been really looking forward to might come out and get loads of bad reviews, but I might still enjoy it. There are a few films that I’ve watched when I was growing up that have terrible reviews that I love.

Do any examples come to mind?

I’ve got two, actually. Sam Raimi released a western in the Nineties called The Quick and the Dead and it’s absolutely incredible. It’s one of the most underappreciated films ever made. I think that everyone should definitely check that. I think that it’s Sam Raimi’s best work. It’s fantastic. There’s also Money Train with Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. It’s got a fantastic script and loads of memorable one-liners. Me and my dad used to watch it all the time on the weekends when I was growing up.

So what’ve you been up to and what’ve you been working on lately?

I’m developing my first feature film while I’m in lockdown. It will be a brutal thriller with a lot of action involved. I’m looking forward to sharing that with everyone soon. I’m also currently working on the marketing for a film called Lieutenant Jangles, which is an Australian Synthwave movie. I’m also helping on a film with the Masebrothers called Cyborg: Deadly Machine. The film is going to be dubbed over into English and I’m basically polishing up the translation. I’m also working on Commando Ninja II soon with Ben Combes, which should be exciting. The lockdown has given me the time to work on all of these projects, and we’re also hoping to set some Synthwave festivals again in 2021 for which I can get some acts. The other organisers Will and Simon of Retro Future Fest are hoping to put something on next year in the summer.

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Hi Mathieu! What’ve got to recommend to fans and readers today?

 I’m going to go with Last Action Hero. I’m a huge fan of this film. If I were to name a single film as a point of reference in my work, it would be this film. It’s a beautiful representation of its own era.. It marks somewhat of a shift for action movies. The film plays around with old movie tropes whilst also forewarning what Hollywood movies would later become and what it is today as a formatted medium. It’s really cool. Schwarzenegger is in top form in it. The film got mixed reviews and wasn’t very successful, but it later went on to achieve cult status. It’s my go-to film that still makes me smile. It’s full of great quotes and the characters are awesome. It’s got a sense of humor that I like and that inspires me with what I do. It’s fun, it has a great soundtrack and it simply encapsulates the Eighties cinema that I love.

The film is from 1993 yet it was already subverting Eighties action movie tropes. It’s crazy.

Yeah. The film is about this kid who uses a magic ticket to transport into the fictional universe of his favourite movie, which is a typical Eighties action movie with lots of corny one-liners, infinite ammo and gratuitous violence. He is taking into this fictional world, where he realizes the full extent of its absurdity. The whole thing is simply a caricature of tropes you’d find in movies like Commando. It’s pretty funny, because if you watch Commando again, you realize that the movie is practically a parody in-and-of-itself. It’s very naïve. The protagonist Danny travels to this world where everything is over the top, where cartoon characters work for law enforcement and whatnot. Later on, the opposite happens and the fictional action hero travels back to the real world with him, where he is confronted with a much darker world. In the fictional universe, everything is beautiful, all of the women are gorgeous … There’re a lot of fun details in the film. 

Do you remember your first time watching it ? Did you see it in theatres ?

I didn’t get to see it in theatres. I got it at a video rental. I loved the movie, but a lot of people didn’t « get it » at the time of its release, which is why it wasn’t very successful. I think audiences in the early Nineties still took action movies at face value. Seeing Schwarzenegger make fun of himself must’ve caught some people off-guard. We see it everywhere now, though. Even the retro scene does it on films like Kung Fury.

Schwarzenegger was probably one of the first action heroes to openly laugh at his own image and the kind of movies he represented.

He was poking fun at his bodybuilder image way before that. I actually re-watched Commando recently, and I remember seeing him joking about his muscle mass in the behind-the-scenes footage. He’s pretty self-conscious. There’s actually this pretty cool scene in Last Action Hero where his character meets the real Schwarzenegger at a movie premiere. There’s this confrontation between the actor and the character that is pretty interesting. The film was directed by John McTiernan, who also made Predator and Die Hard, so you know it’s well made and well thought out.

Do you have a favourite Arnold quote ?

There’s this scene in the movie where his character meets the antagonist Benedict for the first time and tells him « Why am I wasting my time with silly putz like you when I could be doing something more dangerous – like rearranging my sock drawer? Two, how exactly are you going to snap your fingers, after I rip off both of your thumbs? ».

That’s some classic action movie dialogue you don’t hear too much of today!

That’s true, you don’t hear these kinds of lines anymore [Laughs]. Schwarzenegger had a lot of one-liners. I’m not sure if these were actor ad-libs or if they were actually planned and scripted. Today’s action movies are a lot less fun, in my opinion.

Were these one-liners taken more seriously at the time?

I think they included them because they thought it was cool. They were actually trying.

They were supposed to be like witty James Bond one-liners.

Yeah, they were supposed to make the characters look cool, not ridiculous. It later became a gimmick when people realized that it amused people. I think they were supposed to be taken more seriously back then.

For this quickfire round, I’m going to name a few action movie actors and I want you to tell me the first things that come to mind.

Sylvester Stallone

As far as action movies go, I think he was a much better actor than Schwarzenegger. His early roles were more visceral, but I think he eventually became a caricature of himself through the movie formats he got stuck in. He could’ve been a greater actor. He’s a pretty good actor when he takes on more dramatic roles. I’m fond of Stallone and his performances. He made some good choices and took some risks with movies like Cop Land. People often compare him to Schwarzenegger, and I guess you can if you’re talking Rambo II and Commando, but Stallone clearly has some acting chops when you look at other facets of his career.

Jean-Claude Van Damme

I have a lot of sympathy for him. I was the kid on the school playground that love his movies. I’m fond of the guy, but I sometimes feel bad when I hear his recent interviews and see what he later became [Laughs]. I liked the Eighties Van Damme, back when I was a kid. He’s not a bad actor either, actually. He’s pretty spot on in certain roles, but he simply doesn’t choose the right films. JCVD, for instance, which is a portrait piece on Van Damme, is a very touching movie. He used to be taken more seriously back in the day because of his martial art skills. But this kind of actors eventually created a film ‘format’ that the studios kept wanting to repeat endlessly. You can definitely see how Eighties and Nineties movies eventually became bloated and became ‘too much’. The Lethal Weapon franchise, for example, goes completely over the top by the time it reaches the third movie. This was often the case. These actors eventually turn into a caricature of their own selves with each subsequent movie role.

Steven Seagal

For a long time, I was definitely not a fan of his. I don’t know why, I just didn’t like his persona. Later on, I came to appreciate his films for the corny fun factor, with movies like Above the Law and Out of Justice. Then again, I’ve never been a huge fan of his. He came along a little bit later, too.

Jackie Chan

I actually just finished reading his autobiography. I’m a big fan. He’s the one that got me into video and movies. I’m hoping we’ll get to pay tribute to Eighties and Nineties action films from Hong Kong one day through our videos. I used to rent all of his movies. I’m really fond of his and am very impressed by his films and skills. He made real action movies, with guys who took real risks. If you want real action movies, look no further. It’s the real deal.

I love what he did with his Hong Kong movies and I was really happy to see him return to these productions. The fight scenes are a lot more impressive than in his Hollywood productions. Hollywood used to actually bring these guys over to shoot action movies, which changed the game for action cinema as we know it. They’re part of action film history.

 Definitely. It’s a shame that Martial arts and stunt movies have for the most part vanished.

Yeah. Even in Hong Kong, CGI got rid of it all. It made moviemaking easier. People got things done that way because they didn’t have any other option at the time. They’ve since learned from Hollywood and have had to adapt to the new CGI norms. It would be tricky to go back to a more ‘traditional’ style of moviemaking. Jackie Chan actually says it in his book. The audience is always out for more. Maybe I’m being an old fart, but I think people are a little less perceptive to this. It’s why I struggle with modern cinema and its over-use of CGI, even with newer Hong Kong action films. I zone out whenever I lose the impression that I’m watching a real actor risking his ass over an explosion [Laughs].

Moving on, I’d like to congratulate the Masebrothers team for your amazing work on the ‘Heart Demolition’ music video. How did that come about?

Thank you! We got an e-mail from Herman Li back in May. He offered us an opportunity to direct a music video for their new album. He gave us a choice of three songs and gave us free rein to do whatever we wanted. The album is very retro-oriented and features awesome artwork by Stan W. Decker. The guys are also big fans of video games. Herman Li actually has a Twitch channel where he occasionally plays games. We got to meet the band and we definitely felt their passion for retro culture. They really loved the Megadrive-themed video we pitched to them. We invited a bunch of characters from our previous stories and even made a fictional Dragonforce video game, created by our talented VFX artist Jeremy Vazzoli. They really dug it and I think it was pretty well received, too. It was a great experience.

Finishing off, how are your projects coming along? What’s new? Any updates on Cyborg: Deadly Machine?

We recently released a new video on our channel that we shot during the quarantine, for those retro fans who might want to check that out. We set ourselves a little challenge and needed to take our mind off things. We’re still paying homage to the retro subculture.

 As for Cyborg, we recently finished shooting with our actors. We actually launched the Kickstarter project a year ago, and we were able to reach our goal in part thanks to you guys, so thank you! We started shooting back in June and finished right before the start of the quarantine in early March. We had 14 days of shooting, which is a lot for a medium-length film. We’ve had a few setbacks. I actually hurt my back, which pushed things back. Our production artist also had to pull out for health reasons. We keep our backers up to date through social media and kept them informed of all of this. We just have a few last prop shots to shoot once the lockdown is over. We’re currently using our free time to edit the film and prepare the props. We already have 45 minutes of footage and we’ve got some really cool things in store. Right now, we’re focusing on the French version but we’re also preparing the English version. The film will be translated into several languages. We’re making progress and we’re really happy with the results. We’ve got a lot of great things in store made in traditional retro sci-fi fashion. We’ve also got Meteor and Fixions working on the film score, which will also be released on Vinyl. They’ve already given us some amazing stuff and we can’t wait to share it with you all!

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What’ve you got to share and recommend to your fans and readers?

I went for an album that takes me back to a time I cherished as a kid in the eighties. It’s an album that influenced me a lot. It reminds me of my youth but It’s not something I grew up listening to. I am an Eighties kid but I didn’t fully experience the decade the same way some of my older peers in Valerie did. I was seven years old at the end of the decade, so I didn’t experience all that much from the Eighties, besides kids’ stuff like Chantal Goya (singer), Récré A2 (a Children’s TV program in the 70s and 80s) and Dorothée (French Children’s TV show presenter whose shows helped popularize Japanese Animation in France).

The album I picked is Neurovision by Telex. I discovered this album around the same time the Valerie Collective started, when David (aka College) was just launching his blog. At the time, the Internet wasn’t as developed as it is now. The first version of Valérie was like a moodboard where we’d post stuff we liked; stuff related to Italo Disco, film stills, photos and illustrations from the Eighties… I discovered Telex during one of my internet scavenger hunts through their song ‘Peanuts’.

They’re kind of a Belgian “Joke” band, a trio made up of Marc Moulin, Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers. Marc Moulin is very famous in Beligum, he’s a radio guy who later became a Jazzman who signed to Blue Note records. He’s also the guy who produced Lio’s first hit songs like ‘Banana Split’. They released this sophomore record in 1980, which is seen as some sort of “joke” project in which they were just messing around, although I don’t quite agree with this point of view. The album is definitely a joke with a heavy concentrate of Belgian absurdist humor. There’s a very creative aspect to it, where they’ll allow themselves to go down the wackiest routes whilst keeping the execution top-notch. Marc Moulin handles the arrangements and is an amazing pianist. Dan Lacksman handles the studio machinery and is a bloody amazing sound engineer. Michel Moers is a poet who doesn’t sing all that well but whose lyrics skillfully dance at the edge separating the absurd and the ridiculous. The album art is also fantastic and was done by an artist called Ever Meulen, who has an Eighties Clear Line style (see: Ligne Claire).

The album has this extremely tacky track called ‘Euro-vision’ that the group presented at the 1980 Eurovision contest. They entered the contest hoping to score no points but missed their goal because Portugal actually liked the song and awarded them ten points. Their performance was pure nonsense and they were really struggling to keep it together. It’s hard to be truly, completely ridiculous. They even took a photo at the end of their set with the flabbergasted audience. With that being said, the lyrics to the song weren’t all that dumb.

The album also has two tracks that I really love. There’s ‘My Time’, which is an Ann Steel cover song. It’s very Synthpop, the arrangements are great and Moers puts on a great performance. Then there’s ‘Plus de Distance’, which is a completely absurd, neo-romantic Synthpop track about airports. It’s one of my go-to songs. It’s tacky but cool. It’s so well done, that the tacky side doesn’t come off as ridiculous.

This is part of the reason why I wanted to bring up Telex. These guys were off the rails but put were doing it extremely well. They would leave the beaten tracks with their musical background and weren’t tied down by musical labels.

Their albums Wonderful World and Looney Tunes were somewhat foundational to the New Beat sound, this short-lasting Belgian music style that marked the clubs of the era. It’s a style somewhere between Hip-hop and early techno, hardcore and Gabber. Telex was somewhat swept up by the movement. By simply fooling around, they ended up innovating and laying the foundation for a number of music genres.

Legend has it that New Beat came from a mistake, that it came from a DJ accidentally spinning a 12” LP at 33Rpm. The movement only lasted a few years. Near the end, everyone was sampling one another. New Beat is basically the same sound sampled a thousand times over. It made no sense, but it didn’t matter.

How does this whacky sense of humor translate, forty years later?

That’s the thing. It’s hard to figure out which parts were tongue-in-cheek. It’s the same deal with Lio. ‘Banana Split’ works because it’s super catchy. For a song meant for radio airplay, it’s really well composed and put together. However, lyrics are pretty salacious, especially when you consider that it’s a 16-year-old singing them. It’s very borderline. It’s a joke, but it’s very well produced. That’s what Telex is.

It may be a joke, but it’s super well done and it’s got a lot of Synth sounds that you still hear nowadays in Synthwave and Synthpop. Even in modern productions like Cléa Vincent, you can hear Telex-like gimmicks such as Jazzy, Moog-esque touches and liquid, resonant sound textures.

There’s a tacky side to Synthwave that artists more or less own up to. We’re borrowing from the Eighties, one of the richest but also one of the worst musical eras, creativity-wise. One of our neighbours played some Jeanne Mas at a quarantine balcony party recently, for example. Her music is tacky, but her songs have some amazing synth sounds that everyone still uses in Synthwave: Fairlight, Jupiter…

Going back to the Valerie collective, do you remember what you were initially after when you started the blog?

I can’t speak for David, and he’s the one who launched the blog. For me, it was the Italian producers like Moroder that fascinated me. John Carpenter’s films came up a lot, too. I remember Valérie being heavily soundtrack-oriented. The goal was to dig up obscure, outdated and occasionally tacky stuff. I remember someone bringing up the credit sequence to Buckaroo Banzai, for example. It’s quite simply the worst movie scene of all time. It’s ridiculous, it’s extremely tacky, but the music is awesome!

Speaking of which, can you tell me a bit about the Hollywood films and series you grew up on?

This is going to sound basic, but the first film that really left an impression on me was Back to the Future II. My friend has loads of VHS tapes, but he only had the second movie in his collection. I watched that film so many times. There was also Quantum Leap, this series by Donald P. Bellisario about this time traveller who needs to take people’s place in order to influence history and return to his era. The guy used all of these silly tricks to replace people and he had this hologram guiding him around that only he could see. Like everyone else, I was also into Star Wars, too. My dad used to watch Miami Vice a lot, which ended up leaving quite an impression on me, especially the flamingos, the parrots and the sailboard in the opening sequence. I came back to it pretty late and started watching it again around the time we started Valérie, which is when I realized how groundbreaking the writing and the music were for its time.

Could it be where the ‘neon’ aspect of Valerie came from?

Actually, we were never really into that aesthetic. Alex Burkart from The Zonders, who is our graphic designer, was probably more into that kind of thing. I think he might have gotten that reference through the world video games. We were more inspired by photos. Stuff like Venice Beach, Florida, architecture…

Lastly, have you got any news or projects to share with your fans and readers?

Lately, I’ve been using my time to finalize some unreleased club-oriented tracks that I’ve been playing at my last few shows. I also got some new hardware and exploring some more Ambient sounds. We recently did this show at La Gaîté Lyrique (Paris) with David (College) for the French premiere of Rise of the Synths. I had prepared a few soundtrack/ambient oriented pieces for the occasion with my new setup, and I’d like these tracks to have a life of their own. The reason why I felt like talking about Telex is also that I’m thinking about going down a more ‘simple’ route. I want to move away from the hassle of production and getting clean sounds and focus on the purely creative side of things. That’s where I’m at right now.

Thumbnail photo by @onedaystranger

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Hello Irena! What’ve you got to recommend to us today?

I’m going to go with a book that I started reading again this week. It was written a hundred years ago by a Russian writer called Yevgeny Zamyatin and it’s called We. It’s such a great book! He was the first to write on dystopian technocracies where the government takes charge of all aspects of the individual’s life. He talks about the conflicts that exist in the search for equality, the search for the common good, and the individual’s search for love. It’s a really cool read. In the book, everyone wears a uniform and people are given identification numbers instead of names. Buildings are made of glass so that the state can always watch you. There are rules for when people can kiss, when they can make love… It’s a really interesting read. You need to be emotionally strong to read it, especially if you’re feeling down during these times. It’s not the best book to be reading right now [Laughs]. If anything, it will make you feel the pressure of the system.

There’s something interesting in the fact that we find ourselves drawn to dystopian and apocalyptic fiction whenever we are faced with a similar crisis.

[Laugh] I think that our lives are so fast-paced and we’re so overstimulated that our restless minds search for something to hold on to whenever we find ourselves sitting back. Some of us look for meaning through meditation, some fantasize and speculate about the future, others are after emotional stimulation… Our current situation is definitely not normal, and we’re all looking for ways to deal with it.

I think that everyone in the artistic field is feeling a sense of duality in the world. There’s always a notion of choice involved in an artist’s work. There’s a path to choose. Following your heart and staying true to yourself might cost you money or the attention people are giving you. It can come at the cost of status. You can also choose to do something more popular, something widely recognized by society as a whole, something that can earn you more money at the cost of your ‘true self’. The system always catches up to us and confronts us with these choices, this inner-conflict. Should you work a lot and earn more at the expense of other aspects in your life? Or should you focus more on the people around you at the cost of a better paid position? You’re always confronted with these life choices.

Have you been working on new music since the lockdown?

Of course, there are also family affairs to take care of since kindergartens have closed down, but it’s definitely turning out to be an opportunity to create and push myself artistically. We all have time to do the things we’ve been meaning to do but simply didn’t have the time for. Personally, writing music has always been a slow process. I have a job, I have a family and a home, so these things take priority over the music.

The lockdown happened to suddenly and took some by surprise. We were practically forced to “slow down” overnight. It’s put a lot of us in a position where we’re able to reflect on things. Were you surprised by the way you reacted to this sudden shift?

We all sense that it’s not natural. Our minds weren’t prepared for this, and it’s an issue. If you’re not feeling good in the present moment, if you’re always dependent on stimulus and you’re feeling anxiety from this inactivity, you might need to do some searching and ask yourself why that’s the case, why you’re hiding behind this bloated routine. During the first week, I really felt the need to go somewhere, to do something, to meet people… After a while, I started questioning why that was the case. I eventually figured that it’s simply what I was used to. The system trains us to adopt these daily habits, even though we don’t actually need them. Making one post or ten posts on Facebook makes no difference. So just meditate and relax [Laugh]. I’m okay with my situation … for now,! [Laugh] I don’t know how it’ll affect our future though.

How did you first develop this in interest in Sci-Fi ? Your first album also carries a dystopian vibe.

I’ve had this fascination ever since I was a child. It came from the old Sci-Fi movies like Terminator and Blade Runner. I was really interested in seeing how people imagined the future. We’re speculating about things that have yet to come and extrapolating from science to visualize a possible future. At school, I was really into physics, astronomy and concrete sciences. After that, I got a Masters Degree in political science, which got me even more involved with these subjects. Political Science gets you thinking about the political philosophies of the past and the people who wrote about utopias and dystopias. It was very interesting and it allowed me to dig deeper into these topics. All of the political philosophers agree that some people can really see the future, see the whole system and determine where we’re heading. There have been so many amazing books on the subject, like Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, to name just a few examples.

Is there a reason why you’re more drawn towards dystopian fiction as opposed to more idealistic science fiction?

There’ve been a lot of people that have written about utopias and perfect worlds. I think the first person to do it was Thomas More with Utopia (published in 1516). He talked about a perfect world where everyone is sharing and helping one another, a world without money and whatnot. However, if you take a look at History, you see that we’re always hungry for power. There’s always a part of society that is trying to gain more power, which leads us to war. We have this idea of human progress where we keep moving forward through advancements in technology and knowledge. We’re always striving to go further, which is a beautiful idea, but this progress always comes with a risk. Things can go south. Things can develop so quickly that we may not be able to keep up with it.

Through my music and the visuals, I try to show that the human being is very intelligent and very adaptable. We’re capable of adapting to the conditions that are presented to us. Of course, there are exceptions to this: you could be freezing or starving… However, there is a huge spectrum of conditions in which we’re able to live in. I don’t know what the future has in store for us, but we’ll learn to live with whatever is waiting for us on the other side.

So it’s less about the oppressive context than it is about how we as humans are able to adapt and overcome.

Totally.

How are your upcoming projects coming along? you started working on 8 Vol.2?

Actually few things have come up in my life that have changed my mindset. I want to release music under my own name now, Irena Upė. I’m not sure about the album name yet, but there will surely be a second album.

Does this mean you want to change things up stylistically as well? Does that mean you’re leaving the Synth element behind?

No. It will be a little bit different, though. It’ll probably be more experimental, vocal-wise. Maybe it’ll be more ambient or New-Age. It won’t be as rock-driven, but it will be the same. It will still be me [Laugh].

When can we expect to hear this new release?

I’m hoping everything will be ready by June. I want to have the full package ready. I want to have the Vinyls and CDs ready by the time the music hits Youtube and Spotify. That would be ideal. I’m learning to enjoy the process a bit more and I’m being helped out by a few people on this album. It’s great to be able to discuss the whole process and watch it grow. I’m hoping the album art will be just as great as the last one [Laugh]. I’ve got a lot of ideas and plans but I try not to push myself with the deadlines. With the last record, it almost felt like I had a label watching over my shoulder, telling me what to do. I was pushing myself a lot. This time, I’m simply going with the flow.

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Hi NINA! Thanks for joining us! What’ve you got to recommend to us today?

Recently I’ve rediscovered Kill for Love by Chromatics. I think the album is so underrated. It’s such an amazing piece of music. Every song is unique and dreamy. Chromatics’ visuals have this 70s’ horror vibe, which I really love. I’m also a big fan of Italo disco.

My second pick is something most people will know, even though it’s not Synthwave. It’s something I grew up listening to. It’s a timeless album. The album is The Bends by Radiohead. I’ve seen them live in Berlin many years ago and I fell in love with them. It was at this open-air festival, the sun was setting and everything felt magical. I just get lost in Thom’s voice. He closes his eyes and is simply one with everyone. It’s one of those awe-inspiring moments. From then on, I became a big fan. There are so many great songs on this album. I feel like every song on an album should work as a great standalone single. It should have a statement that actually reaches to you. The album has a lot to say, and I feel like audiences connect to that.

My third album pick is Pink Floyd’s The Wall. It’s such a classic. My former music manager in Germany was really into Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Doors. The Doors’ self-titled album was one of my favorite albums when I was a teenager and still is. He was the one that introduced me to Pink Floyd back when we were working on music and trying to find my musical roots.

Is there any corner of retro pop-culture that resonates with you on an intimate level?

As a young girl, I was really into horror. For me, John Carpenter was a huge inspiration. My favorite movies were The Fog and The Thing. I was also really into fantasy films like E.T., Labyrinth and The Neverending Story. These are the references that speak to me the most. They’re very influential films in the scene, especially when you start looking towards the darker Synthwave sounds. I’m thinking of artists like Waveshaper and Nightcrawler.

Would you be open to writing darker tracks or collaborating with this horror aesthetic?

Absolutely! I’ve always been into Darkwave music, actually. I’ve watched Carpenter Brut live and went crazy! I enjoyed it so much. Hopefully, I’ll get to collaborate with some of these artists in the future. I really look up to their artistry. It’s all really authentic. My lyrical background is quite melancholic and dark like Depeche Mode and Joy Division… This is where I really blossom. I can definitely see myself go in that direction more. My new album Synthian has a few poppier numbers, but it also delves into a more serious, darker atmosphere, especially on tracks like ‘The Wire’. I’m really excited for people to hear it.

So, of course, I’m up for collaborating with other artists. Carpenter Brut and Gunship would be my first picks for collaborations. We’ll see what happens! I’m definitely feeling the horror film score vibes at the moment.

Is there any news or updates you’d like to share with your fans?

The new album Synthian will be out soon within the next month or two.

I’m so grateful having had Lau (LAU) by my side to create this album. We’re a great team! Our long-time collaborator Oscillian produced most of the tracks and I’m also excited to have worked with Richard X again. New to the bill is legendary producer, songwriter and musician Ricky Wilde, who we wrote 2 songs with for the album: ‘Runaway’ and ‘Gave Up On Us’. We also wrote ‘Love Is Blind’ with Till Wild, who is a very talented Synthwave producer based in Germany.

I see the album as Sleepwalking’s big sister. It’s more mature, a little more out there. Essentially it’s a love note to my fans. The title-track ‘Synthian’ expresses my gratitude to my fans for supporting me and my music. The Album is a touch more ‘Cyber’ than my previous work, but it’s still very colourful and dreamy. We’ve got two ballads in there, and the last song ‘The Distance’ is going to be a surprise for most fans. I don’t want to give away too much. It definitely ends with a big bang, that’s all I’m going to say.

Following the first album is always a bit harder, in my opinion. You need to keep it up and bring it up a notch because you really don’t want to disappoint your fans. This is a decisive stage where people determine whether you’re here to stay or not [Laughs].

We also have a big European tour planned. It got postponed, so we might be able to reschedule it for September. Everything is up in the air right now, so it’s hard to tell. I’ve also started to collaborate with Radio Wolf, who’s a very talented producer, songwriter and musician. I think people are really going to like what we’re creating.

Thumbnail photo credit: Say Goodnight Films

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What’ve you got to share and recommend to your fans and readers?

I picked First Man (2018) by Damien Chazelle. It’s a film that really touched me and that actually inspired me when I was writing my second EP Gone. I feel like it was really overlooked and it slipped under the radar despite it being a big-budget movie. Most people I mention it to haven’t seen it, so I figured it this would be the right occasion to get it out there. It didn’t stay very long in theatres either, it’s a shame.

It’s a really touching movie that really focuses on emotion and character psychology as opposed to flamboyant cinematography. It illustrates fear in all of its different aspects: fear of the unknown, fear of losing a loved one… There’s this one scene revolving around the missions that preceded Apollo 11. We learn about all of the people that lost their lives before we finally made it to the moon. It’s got this really gripping scene depicting the failed Gemini 8 mission.

The music is gorgeous and really touching. Again, it’s fairly subdued compared to many other blockbuster movies. It’s got a lot of themes played on the harp, which is fairly unusual but also really ethereal and smooth-sounding. There’s also some Theremin in there too, to tie in with the more traditional sounds of space. I though it worked really well; it always comes in during really emotional scenes. It made me want to write a melody a Theremin, which is how I ended up writing the main melody for ‘She’. I originally wanted to write an ethereal, spatial-sounding track without drums. I ended up with a two-part track; the first part being the ethereal section and the second part dropping the heavier sounds. I wrote the first part a few days after watching First Man. I was filled with the movies’ sense of melancholy and nostalgia.

It also ties into your musical world of escapism and voyages into the unknown.

I like the idea of having a cinematic feel to my tracks. I’m a big fan of Sci-fi and Thrillers, so there’s naturally a bit of these two genres that bleed into my tracks. I’d love to compose a score for a thriller or sci-fi movie. That would be a dream!

Do you remember what first opened you up to these worlds?

For thrillers, I’d say all of David Fincher’s movies. I’ve been a massive fan of his for the longest time. When I was little, I’d watch loads of films that weren’t for my age, and I remember that Se7en really shocked me [laughs], it really left an impression on me. I also used to read a lot of books by Jean-Christophe Grangé, like Blood Red Rivers. My interest in thrillers gradually grew over time.

Your music is pretty dark, even hostile at times, which sets you apart from a number of artists on the Lazerdiscs Records roster, who generally showcase a more overtly ‘nostalgic’ retro sound. Does nostalgia play a role in your creative vision for Sierra? Are you more inspired by the future or the past?

I always turn to the past when I write. I struggle to label myself as ‘Synthwave’, because I don’t exactly fit the criteria, but I love the movement and its relationship to analog sound. I love grain, I love pads and Blade Runner inspired sounds. I love the strong sense of melancholy and the fact that it’s turning to the past. It takes you back to the Eighties and early Nineties. My music isn’t exactly like that, but I always write with a nostalgic mindset. It’s probably why my melodies don’t always sound so happy. Writing music is this super psychological trip where I feel the need to dive back into things. 

To what extent does this sense of melancholy tie into the sounds of Synths? Having written Folk music before, did you feel a shift in your songwriting mood when moving from acoustic arrangements to electronic music?

When I was writing folk, I’d used all sorts of instruments like my guitar, ukuleles and other things, but I feel like there weren’t that many possibilities to add new elements. The cool thing about electronic music is that you can work with Synths or with samples. I love working with samples. You can create an entire world with the simplest sound you’ve dug up. The possibilities are endless and you can add tinges to your sound with the addition of the tiniest of sounds. It’s a lot harder to do this with acoustic instruments. I’d like to work more with samples on my next releases. I’ve been toying with the idea of including my mother’s voice in there, or recordings of my sister playing an instrument; sounds that will trigger flashbacks whenever you listen back.

You mean like aural memorabilia.

Yes, like a memory box. I haven’t done that enough yet, but it’s something I really want to do. I’ve been doing lots of field recordings in the street and during my travels, and I’ve been using this time in quarantine to organize everything into a soundbank. The people listening to the music probably won’t even notice these things, it’s more of a personal thing.

Finishing off, have you any announcements to make or updates to share?

I’ve been working on my live shows and on quite a few remixes. I released a remix of Alex and Tokyo Rose last month, a Lazerpunk remix, and I’ve got a couple more on the way. I’ve started writing again, too. I’m not sure what it’s going to turn into, but it’s in development.

I’m not the super productive type that writes one track after the other. Whenever I dive into the songwriting process, there’s usually a month or two where I basically take inspiration from loads of different things and test new things out, like plug-ins, new synths, new samples… I basically go on a scavenger hunt for ideas. These can be sounds but I mainly work with images. I create mood boards, too. Then, I start developing loops of song ideas. I start looking at which ones I like; which ones I feel like expanding on. I write all of my songs at the same time. That’s basically where I’m at right now. I’m taking my time, no pressure.

Interview translated from French.

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It’s lovely to chat with you again! What’ve you got to share and recommend to your fans and readers?

The first thing that came to mind was an album that introduced me to electronic music when I was a kid. It’s weird how there’s so much to pick from, yet I immediately went to this one album. It’s Utah Saint’s self-titled album, released in 1992. When I was a kid, my dad was basically my major musical influence. My mom was also an influence, but my dad would always make me these mix CDs, and this was the first full album that I really got into. We would listen to this CD in the car whenever we had a really long drive to do.

The album is very techno and ravey, but then there’s also some downtempo songs. They were pioneers in sample-based music. You’ve got some Eurythmics, The Human League and Kate Bush samples in there. They pulled inspiration from well-known songs and turned it into something fresh and layered. They helped pave the way for a lot of music that came afterwards: artists like DJ Shadow or Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk… I’m leaving a lot out by picking this one, but I guess it’s because I’m going back to what I used to consider my guilty pleasures. I should be less guilty about these! [Laughs] I’ve been listening to a lot of early techno and getting back into this album.

So your parents were really into music as well.

Yes, but purely as fans, really. They enjoyed going through records and trying to figure out what I liked and what would stick. When I was growing up, my parents were listening to a lot of Grunge like Smashing Pumpkins and Hole, heavy nineties rock stuff. I thought that the sound of electric guitars and raspy voices were the worst thing in the world, but now I have an appreciation for it. There were artists like The Flower Pot Men and Heaven 17 that made their way onto a few CDs, and the first time I heard one of those Synthesizers, I was like “How is this sound even happening!? What is that??”. Heaven 17 has that nostalgic feel, for me. The Hawaiian Pups as well! There are some things that I grew up with that give me nostalgia, but there are also things that I’ve found along the way.

A heavy component of Retrowave is its tendency to make you feel nostalgia from music made from old-school sounds, after all. Like a number of artists in the scene, I grew up in the nineties, yet the music still hits me in that same way.

You’re totally right with that. I think the artists that got me into Synthwave were probably Com Truise and – even if they are on the fringes of that world – Washed Out and Neon Indian. Once I started to know what to look for and what I was drawn to, it was easier to dive in. I’m in the exact same boat as you: I grew up in the nineties.

Do you remember how you first got exposed to these artists you just mentioned?

That is an excellent question. I think it has a lot to do with music blogs. I can’t remember a lot of them, because a lot of them don’t exist anymore. I know Disco Dust had a lot of stuff, I would follow them religiously. I think I found a few labels that had some really great artists, too. I cast such a wide net when it comes to researching and looking for new music.

Do you remember when that was?

That was probably when I was either finishing high-school or going into my first year of college. That was ten years ago, wow! That’s when I started discovering French touch and all.

It’s funny you mention blogs, because it just comes to show how many shifts there have been in the way people discover and access new music in these last couple of decades. My first exposure to Synthwave was probably through Com Truise, who magically appeared in the ‘related videos’ section of a completely unrelated Youtube video.

The youtube algorithm is scarily good sometimes. Sometimes I’m like “Why would you think I would like this??”, and other times I am very pleasantly surprised. That’s basically what I use now, along with Discogs and Mixcloud. WFMU also has some very good shows. I find a lot of new music through that station. Their DJs are all super good at curating new music.

It’s really crazy to think about how all of the different trends in technology shape the way we consume music. I think the Blogspot era was the best, because you could simply find a blog where you trusted the writer. Once you found someone who had more or less the same taste as you, you were set! The other great way to find new music is if any artists that you follow happen to do a DJ set. Generally, they will be full of gold. Even if you find only one artist that you’re interested in, it can lead you to a lot more discoveries through Discogs and whatnot. I totally agree that moving back towards curation is great. I know that Spotify does those curated playlists, but to be completely honest, I don’t even use Spotify. I only use it to look at my artist dashboard.

So the idea of this column is to dive into what makes each artists’ personal vision and idea of retro pop-culture. Do you have any particular pockets of Eighties and Nineties pop-culture that feel especially personal and nostalgia-heavy? In terms of films, TV shows, cartoons …

Now you’ve got me thinking of The Never Ending Story and Willow! Also, although though I didn’t get to watch Bubblegum Crisis when I was growing up, that show is probably the most Synthwave anime out there. I basically grew up with and worshipped Sailor Moon as a kid, from the age of three onwards. I grew up with that and Studio Ghibli films. My artist name was not necessarily meant to reference a particular anime; I’ve just always had this anime weeaboo fascination with Japan as a kid. Nowadays I understand that there are a lot of stereotypes that can go along with that. What started it for me, though, was the street fashion they had in the nineties. Mecha Maiko is also a throwback to the time when I went to Japan when I was 13 and when we went on these tourist attractions where they dress you up as a Maiko.

Thank you so much for sharing ! Do you have any updates you’d like to share with your fans?

Obviously, with the pandemic, everything is a little bit up in the air right now. Currently I have a string of shows in the US that are currently rescheduled for August. If everything goes well, I should be playing with Betamaxx and Parallels and FM Attack. We’re going to be doing a West-Coast tour, hitting Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix. That’s the plan. I also have some things scheduled in Chicago and Brooklyn, but I don’t quite know if those ones are still happening. We’re also releasing the music video for ‘Phones’. I think also am making a cameo in a music video for Michael Oakley. I don’t want to give away too much.

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Hello and welcome! Thank you for taking the time to chat. What’ve you got to share and recommend to your fans and readers?

I’m going to pick a film called Stand by Me. It was directed by Rob Reiner and released in 1986. It’s a coming-of-age film about four young guys going on an adventure. The film really touched me and I think a lot of young kids were able to relate to the adventures those boys embark on, and what they’re going through at that age. River Phoenix stars in the movie, It was his breakthrough role. It was one of my favourite movies for a long time.

Another film that I consider a game-changer is Aliens by James Cameron.  It was released in 1986. It’s the best sci-fi, action-packed war movie in space to date. It has colonial marines, cool-looking weapons, awesome set design, a female lead, a beautiful soundtrack and special effects that still hold up. It’s the real deal. Another film I would like to mention is Flight of the Navigator also released in 1986 [Laugh]. It’s about a boy who encounters an alien spaceship and goes on an adventure. The special effects in this film still hold up too.

Are there any films that rest in the back of your mind when thinking about and composing retro-themed music?

Actually, yes! I used to be an Ice-Hockey player and there’s this film from.. u know.. 1986 – I am staying in that year [laughs] – called Youngblood a hockey movie with Rob Low, Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. The opening of that film has a great synth score. It’s pretty impressive. I actually uploaded it on the Night Arcade Youtube Channel. It was one of the first videos we uploaded on there to test the channel. Obviously very 80’s. It’s got a cool soundtrack too, very synthesized and muscular.

I would struggle to name eighties films released in the same year, but you seem to know a lot about movies released in 1986. That’s impressive!

[laughs] That’s because I’m into 70s and 80s movies. Film and music are two passions that run through my life.

Can you recall the first time you watched it?

I think it was in 1987 or so. It’s a hockey movie. Back then, I was ten years old and my life basically was all about playing Hockey. That’s why the film and its music stuck with me. Looking back, I basically grew up with the sound of Synthesizers and drum machines from that era. I remember back then, there was a jingle on Dutch TV called Postbus 51 they showed it over and over. Have a listen. It kind of rocks! Obviously a drum machine was used in this one. I feel lucky to grow up in the eighties. This stuff was all over the place.

Speaking of television, are there any particular shows that you remember watching back when you were a kid?

If we’re talking cartoons, it would definitely be Transformers: Generation 1. I’m still a big fan of the cartoon. If we’re talking about TV shows that had an impact on me when I was a kid, I’d have to go for the original late 70’s Battlestar Galactica, aired in the early ’80s on Dutch TV. I particularly love the special effects and sound design on these shows. When I got older, like any other kid in the 80’s I watched the usual stuff like Buck Rogers, V,  The A-team, Knight Rider, Airwolf, North & South, Miami Vice, although in the beginning, Miami Vice wasn’t as interesting to me, as a kid. I guess I was to young for that. I grew in to that show later on. You can say I was hooked to tv. I watched every show. Even Manimal, look it up!

In what language did you watch these movies and TV shows?

In Holland, TV shows and films were shown in their original language with Dutch subtitles. I remember there was this big channel that everyone in Europe used to watch called Sky Channel. I think it was somewhere around 1984. It had all of the best shows from the US, like the Adam West Batman TV series and The Green Hornet. We got to see Transformers on a kids’ show on Sky called Fun Factory. There were no subtitles on Sky Channel though, but we still watched it as most Dutch kids did. We also grew up with German television. The Germans dubbed every US film in their language. Back then we didn’t know any better, it was just like that.

Thanks for sharing! Are there any news and projects you’d like to share with fans and readers.

For those familiar with our Night Arcade club nights in Amsterdam. Our April 11th edition with College, Maethelvin, Lifelike, Shady Lady and myself has been cancelled due to the coronavirus. Before that happened we were already working on our October 3rd edition in Utrecht. The line up for this one is all set and ready to go. As we speak nothing in Holland is certain regarding events, nightlife and festivals. We’re are waiting for an update on this matter from the Dutch government. We’re also working on Night Arcade Records with our first release most likely coming from Utrecht based dj and producer Lektroy, The Arcade Kid and myself. More on this soon at our social channels. For now, have a look at the movies I mentioned, they’re fun and entertaining to watch. Or enjoy the video streams at our YouTube channel. I hope everyone stays safe and healthy. Thanks for having me, it was a pleasure.

Thumbnail photo by Robin Ono (with special thanks to Anthony at Retro Synth Fury!)

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