Overnight, a grand drama has developed in the synth scene. The darksynth / electro producer CYBERTHING! was scrolling through Spotify to discover new music, when instead discovered the remnants of a digital heist! The alleged thief in this case had not stolen credit card numbers or bitcoin – but rather, music. Darksynth and cyberpunk to be exact – as well as album art.

It looks like the alleged thief manipulated the tracks so the Automatic Content ID system didn’t catch them. Cyberpunk indeed!

But this isn’t just a story of alleged theft – it’s also a story about how the larger synthwave community came together to identify the stolen tracks, notify the artists, and hunt down the perpetrator!

The Find

“I was just looking for new music.  I’m always looking for some new unnamed artists who can do something interesting….

So I found this guy’s ‘album’ and the first track was awesome (of course it was, cause it was Street Cleaner – Vultures) but I didn’t understand it right away, since the track was a little pitched down and sounded a lil different. But the second track was Perturbator lol. So I started to Shazam the tracks and made this Tweet after that.” – CYBERTHING!

The alleged perpetrator of this heist appears to be one “Electromedison.” They may also go by “DO.RE.MI.XX Production Story,” and/or “Cybershot.” It appears many of these albums and tracks have been up under false names for almost a year. 

We reached out to Electromedison for a comment, but at the time of this writing, we have had no response. 

Editors Note: We will not link to these “releases,” and we strongly discourage you from seeking out these releases too, as we do not want to give this alleged thief any money from streaming!

If you are a darksynth/cyberpunk artist and you’re worried your music may have been stolen, the unidentified tracks are listed at the bottom of this article, and most of the albums in question can be found on Electromedison’s Soundcloud, and they do not appear to be monetized there.

The Search Begins

Upon finding these maliciously uploaded tracks, CYBERTHING! spread the word on social media, tagging every artist who’s work he could identify. News spread like wildfire, and soon the fine folks over in Nightride FM’s discord channel had begun the hunt, finding and notifying many of the artists who had their work stolen. Eventually, DEADLIFE compiled and tweeted a list of the stolen tracks and the original artists the awesome Nightride FM community could identify.

Dozens of darksynth and cyberpunk artists and their labels are affected, including:

• Street Cleaner
•  Perturbator
•  MADES
•  Chaos Vector
•  Jack Maniak
•  Anacrhonist
•  Pomidor
•  Hexenkraft
•  Dreddd
•  Tokyo Rose
•  Graveslayer
•  Midnight Danger
•  Irving Force
•  Daniel Deluxe
•  Knightbots
•  Alex
•  Neon Nox
•  Nightcrawler
•  Tonebox
•  Compilerbau
•  Kick Puncher
•  Lazerpunk
•  VHS Glitch
•  Darkshine
•  F.O.O.L
•  Coderpunk
•  Sandman

In fact, it seems every single track from these releases was allegedly stolen, though there are still unidentified tracks.
(See the full list of stolen tracks below.)

It also appears the album art was also stolen, with one of them being identified as Steven Holliday’s Creepshow anniversary poster.

A number of artists also confided in me they believe they have found the original perpetrator, but we will not provide real names here, as we aren’t in the business of witch hunts. However, a friend-of-a-friend reached out to the person in question – and this was his response:

The Mystery Deepens

Haven’t heard of Electromedison? Us either – in fact, no one really has. This “artist” has zero social profiles. In spite of this, the pirated tracks have been spread all around the net: they’re on Spotify, Shazam, Itunes, Amazon, Beatport, TikTok, – you name it.

That’s actually why I’m writing this article – so artists who are affected can find their tracks and be sure to report them on their respective services. I can’t imagine anything worse than losing fans because Shazam took you to an imposter’s tracks.

There’s only one way that so many different platforms could fall prey to this scheme: a music distribution service.

In this case, it seems that the distro service in question is FreshTunes, though there could have been other services involved as well.

We want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and to their credit, FreshTunes clearly states in their Terms of Service that copyright-infringing material is not acceptable on their platform – and the content is currently being taken down – so this does seem like the actions of one rogue actor, and not FreshTunes. It has also been less than 24 hours since the initial complaints were made too – that’s a pretty quick turnaround time for takedowns – though the music in question is still available in several places.

We reached out to FreshTunes for a comment, but at the time of this writing, we have had no response.

List of Stolen Darksynth/Cyberpunk Tracks:

Big shout-out to DEADLIFE and the fine detectives of the Nightride FM discord who helped track down many of the stolen tracks below!

Album: Electromedison – Taste of Blood (Album Art: Steven Holliday’s Creepshow anniversary poster.)

• The Laughter Of Fear (Actually Street Cleaner – Vultures)
• M.Z.18 (Actually Perturbator – Neo Tokyo)
• The Smell Of Death (Actually MADES – Awakening (Knightbots Remix)
• Drownedman  Actually (Chaos Vector – Hellhound)
• Taste Of Blood (Actually Jack Maniak – Code 403)
• Rise Of The Machines (Unknown)
• Paranoia (Unknown)
• Alloy (Unknown)
• Dark Task (Unknown)
• Mf Lost (Actually Anachronist – Somnolence)
• Last Sunday (Unknown)

Album: Electromedison – Cyberpunk

• Hunting For A Virus  (Actually Pomidor – Space Lullaby)
• Blackweb (Actually Hexenkraft – A Flame In The Void)
• Brain Error (Actually Dreddd – Omega Beam)
• Overcharge (Unknown)
• Cyberpunk (Actually Graveslayer – Hyper Alloy)
• Timekiller (Actually Tokyo Rose – Armageddon)
• Chasing A Flash Card (Actually Midnight Danger – System Outage)
• Digital Reality (Unknown)
• Infecting All Of Humanity (Unknown)
• Cyberwitchcraft (Actually Irving Force – Overlord (Original Mix)
• Hackers Symphony (Actually Daniel Deluxe – Kindred)

Album: Electromedison – Killer’s Day

• Killers Day(Unknown)
• Murder At A Bus Stop (Actually Daniel Deluxe – Brute Force)
• Wheezing (Actually Alex – Dystopia)
• Strangers Night Call (Actually Neon Nox – Streetwalker)
• Scramble (Actually Tokyo Rose – Armageddon)
• Escape(Unknown)
• A Terrible Dream(Unknown)
• Wrong Turn(Unknown)
• Someone Else’s Script(Unknown)
• Theres A Knife In The Mirror(Unknown)
• Blood With Oxygen(Unknown)
• On The Chain(Unknown)
• Facing My Demons(Unknown)
• Moon Is Hiding(Unknown)

Album: (As Cybershot) – Mechanism Of Action

• No Weapons (Unknown)
• War Z (Actually Nightcrawler – Blood Rage)
• Explosion (Actually Daniel Deluxe – Instruments Of Retribution)
• Fear In The Eyes (Actually Tonebox – Implosion)
• Graveyard Of Cars (Actually Perturbator – Creature)
• Rough (Unknown)
• Mechanism Of Action (Actually Compilerbau – Dark Forces)
• Rise Of The Tomb (Actually Kick Puncher – Red Herring – Night Ritual)
• Werewolf (Actually Lazerpunk – Power / Raydar – The Gathering)
• Cold Night (Actually VHS Glitch – Jaw Breaker)
• Cipher (Actually Darkshine – When Darkness Is Shining)

Album Electromedison – Hacker

• Cyberpunk 2077(Actually Coderpunk – Battle Of Robots (Radio Edit)
• Hacking The System (Actually F.O.O.L – Sahara)
• Hacker  (Unknown)
• Reboot 3 2 1 (Unknown)
• Cyberhunt (Actually Perturbator – Death Squad)
• Ufo (Unknown)
• We Were Declassified (Actually Coderpunk – We Were Declassified (Vinyl Version)
• The Hacker Returns (Actually Sandman – Ignite)

Enjoy at your own risk!

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

‘Fire Within’ is available for streaming and digital download via Bandcamp

This album notably deviates from Nightcrawler’s more traditional synthwave and darksynth sound, being filled to the brim with exquisite elements of industrial and synthpop, as well as bits of EBM, techno and some experimental vibes as well. “Visionary” feels at times highly reminiscent of Gesaffelstien and Street Fever, though all the while being innovative and not derivative in the least – living up to it’s name.

This album truly broadens the horizons of what darksynth as a genre can hope to be as it evolves. Nightcrawler said in a statement:  “I wanted to use the synthwave as a brush inside my creative palette, not that the synthwave is the whole canvas – and merge it with other styles that I think can coexist,” and here he was wildly successful.

Replete with deep, monstrous bass lines, “Visionary” creates an oppressive atmosphere punctuated by haunting melodies that meld perfectly together to create a truly horrific and at the same time satisfying listening experience.

For instance, “Nemesis” juxtaposes an unearthly raw piano against perhaps the most nasty bass line I have heard in some time, and “Catharsis (Feat. Mental Exile)” transforms an almost ambient darksynth intro into a wonderful vocal filled gothic synthpop track. Instead of sounding jarring, this transformations feel natural, and create an entirely new sound for Nightcrawler that eclipses his other albums in terms of technical production.

Nightcrawler has also brought in some top-tier talent for features on this album, highlighting the work of Maxthor, the “mysterious and enigmatic” French singer Celine, Sojna of the synthpop band Oblique, and Mental Exile from Germany.

The result is an interesting and innovative album filled with many influences that meld together into one cohesive sound, creating one of Nightcrawlers best releases to date!

Top Tracks: “Nemesis,” “Vanished (Feat. Maxthor),” Gain Therapy” and “Catharsis (Feat. Mental Exile)”

Grab a listen to “Visionary” here!

While every country has been impacted in some capacity, there’s no denying that some have been or currently are being hit harder than others. “In my country it has had a great impact,” says Lleida, Spain based artist Nightcrawler. “It isn’t very productive musically because I can not go to the studio, but I am enjoying being with my son and my wife all day long in my house”. 

In addition to studio time being hindered, some artists, like Barcelona, Spain based SUNESIS, have felt the impact on live performances.”My last Live show was on 7th March, right before quarantine was imposed in Barcelona. I had another proposal for a live show for mid April /early May that had to be postponed,” she says. Adding that “Spain’s economy is suffering tremendously and my salary has been reduced. Social media was crowded with opinions and recommendations on how to experience confinement but I honestly feel this depends on the person.”Despite the hardship, she adds “I am feeling peaceful, hopeful, and introspective.”

Fellow Spanish artist Electric Runner echoes the sentiment of optimism in this trying time, stating that despite the “obvious and awful impact to the music scene with all the shows and tours canceled”, that they are trying to stay positive, noting that “this is the first time in a couple of years when I have all this time to work on my music, some days are better than others but I’m trying to get the most of this situation, I know it’s not easy for everyone and I don’t say that you are in an obligation to be productive but if you ever wanted to start something artistic this is the perfect time.”

The idea of making the best of a terrible situation isn’t an uncommon one in this time, and really that shouldn’t be a surprise coming from a scene with a fetishistic obsession of lost neon futures. Connecticut, USA-based STRAPLOCKED has a similar positive attitude, saying “So far, it’s given me a bit more time to work on my music. I spend less money going out, spend less time driving, and that has yielded stronger relationships with my fiance and our children, [as well as] more time for music and more time to work on projects around the house.” STRAPLOCKED also brings up a point I haven’t seen discussed much. Where you are at in your life is going to impact how easy or hard lockdown is for you. “I think if I was about 10 years younger, having to stay home would REALLY affect me negatively but at this point in my life the last 2 months have felt almost like a vacation. I can imagine that’s a wildly unpopular opinion but, it’s how I feel nonetheless.”

There’s a bittersweet undercurrent in the minds of some artists as well. For Iowa, USA’s SHIKIMO, the added time for productivity comes at a social cost. “I was able to finish up my new EP in the extra time I’ve had that I’m not spending with friends.” SHIKIMO, like many, are trying to stay positive by focusing on whatever the most recent positive news they have is, which for him has been appearing on Spotify’s official Retrowave/Outrun playlist. 

Despite the optimism, it’s important not to forget that the artists who we often interact with as neon avatars online are real people with real jobs and lives that have been impacted, all the more reason to lend them your support today. 

Artists who make their living from music and gigs are impacted as much as artists who are now working more than ever at day jobs to make ends meet. Miami, Florida’s INTEGRA-85 tells one such story. “I haven’t been able to play shows and the lockdown has dampened my ability to focus on writing music. I’ve had to focus almost on work just to make ends meet in a house where all my roommates just lost all their jobs.” This is unfortunately a common reality for many, including Russian-based CYBERTHING!. 

What’s perhaps most difficult for me as a member of the scene who has admittedly a minute impact on the scene or sales is that I really want to implore readers and listeners of NRW who have the means during this time to support as many of the artists listed below as they can. All of these artists deserve your attention, your streams, your album purchases.

I have a tremendous amount of gratitude to the artists in this scene and consider myself very lucky to write about their music. 

Darksynth has been in vogue through much of 2016 and 2017 as many synthheads’ sub-sub-genre of choice. In a lot of ways that makes sense. After an exhausting 2016, I doubt many of us were as prepared for how emotionally taxing 2017 has been, and I think it’s safe to say that sentiment is on a global scale. Dark synth started feeling a lot less like the soundtrack to a sci-fi dystopia and more like the soundtrack to our own collective societal nervous breakdown. The caveat that plagues dark synth is that it can veer towards redundancy. A lot of the sounds and song structures can get recycled, and some of the lesser dark synth producers wind up feeling like part of a crowd.

But that’s not Nightcrawler.

The Spanish producer’s latest album, Beware of the Humans, delivers ten tracks gunning to set a standard in the scene, with each track having a wealth of strange and hypnotic sounds supplemented by generally punchy and danceable beats. Opening track “Arrival” is a great introduction to the atmospheres Nightcrawler creates through his songs, and despite the lack of a driving beat, effectively builds tension for the release of follow-up “Hell-On Earth”, which has the kind of groove and menace of a DyE song, but with a more analog aesthetic.

Mid-album highlight “Secret Society” shows Nightcrawler at his most cinematic. The first half of the track is eerie and beautiful, but very dreamy. There’s a lightness to the sounds as higher frequencies are explored and densities of reverb are varied. Midway through the track the pulsing bass and kick start up and what was dreamy and soft becomes darker and dancier. The titular track, featuring Celine from Dead Astronauts and Italy’s strangest synthwave producer Vincenzo Salvia, is an easy contender for the best of the album, with the pulsing musical track emphasizing the desperation in Celine’s voice.

The album ends on a strange note, as “Sixth Extinction” might be the weirdest track on the album. Nightcrawler eschews something sprawling or bombastic in favor of something thematically relevant to the dystopia that he sets out to paint. For fans of individual tracks or throwing all of their synth tracks on shuffle, it might be disarming, but for those that prefer the full album experience or who read the brief narrative blurbs on Bandcamp as a mental context in which they can listen to the album, the track is a natural conclusion. The constantly changing sounds and deliberate pace remind us that dystopias don’t usually get better all at once. They get worse or they fall apart.

COMMUNITY RATINGS

Scandroid – MonochromeDetroit based Scandroid is back with his much anticipated sophomore album, “Monochrome.” This album follows close (less than a year) on the heels of his lauded breakout self-titled album, “Scandroid.”

Scandroid is the brainchild of the multi-genre multi-instrumentalist Klayton. Outside of Scandroid, he has produced under a wide variety of names, the most successful of which has been the unique genre bending industrial-electronic-alt-metal “Celldweller.”

“Monochrome” shares many similarities with Klayton’s debut album – relentless, chugging synth basslines mix well with major to minor melodies, friendly, sometimes fiendish guitar riffs and vivaciously vocoded vocals.

However, “Monochrome” does not rehash the original album. Klayton has managed to update this particular sound with more layered synths, a touch better production and an overall darker cyberpunk-not-quite-darkwave feel that suits the Scandroid sound well. He also merges Newwave and synth into a fantastic blend that somehow works well with the cyberpunk feel.

The intro and hooks to “Afterglow” and “Rendezvous” are insanely catchy and the interlude and bassline in “On the Face of The Deep” (Biblical reference, anyone? Genesis 1:2) makes for some fantastically dark synth. Because it was produced primarily on vintage gear, each track on “Monochrome” is intricately layered and definitely worth a few listens – as each listen will uncover previously unheard synthesizer intonations – it truly a brilliant work.

However, the album’s composition and flow does seem to have suffered a bit from the quick turnaround. Although the sound is on-point, this album comes in at a short thirteen tracks – especially when you realize two of them are remakes (one released all the way back in May) and one fantastic remix from Pylot. That makes the number of original tracks under ten!

In addition, although the remakes of “Thriller” and “The Force Theme” are solid tracks on their own – they seem to really break up the feel of “Monochrome,” jarring the album out of the cyberpunk soundscape just as it was beginning to really get into a flow. This tends to make the album feel more like a collection of singles than a cohesive whole.

The vocals also present another problem. In the synthwave genre many fans despise vocals and I often count myself among them – the “Woah oh oh oh” on “A Thousand Years” is just comically campy….Many fans who enjoy vocals might not like the particular alt-metal 00’s style either.

BUT – just as with his last album, Klayton well aware of this genre’s purist tendencies and has released an instrumental version alongside the main album – bravo Klayton! I’m happy to report the instrumental doesn’t lose any of the appeal of the original, and makes for a wholly unique listening experience.

All in all, the production and mastering on “Monochrome” is better than his debut. The Scandroid sound is updated, darker, deeper – but this success is short-lived and leaves us wanting more.  Top Tracks: “Monochrome,” “On The Face of The Deep,” “The Veil,” “Afterglow.”

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Sharp vocals echo, ping in and out, receding quickly with a gated reverb. Comforting harmonies join in the bridge with the stabby bass fueling the bodies movement, gives the song an addictive bounce. Plucky synths enter and the vocal line comes to life for the chorus and truly punches with glamour, hits of nostalgia of random glossy celebrity images from both the past and present. Rushing in as ill-formed snapshots, scattered poignantly out of sequence, some thrown to the wind.

This song is either from three decades in front or behind us, and I can’t decide which.

Support: https://soundcloud.com/nightcrawlermusic
https://soundcloud.com/dana-jean-phoenix

Following 2014’s brilliant ‘Metropolis’, Nightcrawler returns with perhaps his darkest work to date, ‘Strange Shadows’. The EP featuring 5 original and 4 remixes take great inspiration from Italian Giallo and horror movies of the late 70s and 80s. The record was produced by Nightcrawler (AKA George Gold) and mastered by the great Vincent Salvia (Atlantis, Chromelove EP). Not only is Gold a kick ass musician but he’s also a talented graphic designer and again lends his artistic vision for the cover art of his latest EP.

To get in the true spirit of Nighcrawler’s latest work, I advise that you run yourself a late night bath, light a few candles and bolt them doors and windows tightly! I was only three songs into this sucker before I became convinced that some maniac flaunting an axe was going to break into my home and chop off my arms and legs, leaving me nothing more than a mangled mess for some badly dubbed Italian detective to ponder over.

The two opening tracks, ‘Macabre Serenade’ and ‘Una Notte Violenta’ are great and they serve well in familiarising us with what we can expect. The hooky lead keyboard parts combined with fuzzy grim undertones almost leave you feeling as if you’re being pursued by the music itself. Both tracks bare distant resemblance to some of John Carpenters earlier scored work and his classic fear provoking synth soundtracks of the 1980’s. It’s when we reach ‘Omicido Nella Sala Rossa’ that things visit a new level of potency. Nightmarish samples partnered with the tangled sounds of a female in distress, pull no punches in elevating tension and hurling your heart rate into overdrive.  From the dream like void of ‘Omicido…’ we are led toward the last of the original tracks ‘Pendulo Oculto’ and my personal favourite, ‘Calvary: Feat. Vincenzo Salvia’.  ‘Pendulo Oculto’ is perhaps the most danceable song on the EP and comes complete with a heavily infectious backbeat that steers the songs dread filled melody and distantly stirs at memories of Nine Inch Nails earlier work. The excellent ‘Calvary’ draws proceedings to a close and although it too continues on a unsettling path, it bares some signs of hopefulness at its core, perhaps hinting to the listener that not all is lost after all. The final 4 songs of the record are remixes; OGRE takes a stab at Macabre Serenade, Umberto takes on Pendulo Oculto and both Alexandro Parisi and Profondo Delle Tenebre unshackle their own enthralling versions of Una Notte Violenta, all bringing their own unique twist to Nightcrawler’s original tracks.

On the whole ‘Strange Shadows’ is heavily atmospheric and is a vast exploration of darker sounds. It’s certainly not a record you’re going to listen to at the beach or play at your children’s birthday party, but that’s not saying there shouldn’t be a place in your life for this haunted gem. What’s impressive about Nightcrawler is how his sound continues to evolve and that he refuses to remain stationary for too long. Instead he demonstrates perfectly how an artist can stay true to their sound and fan base, but at the same time still remaining fresh and progressive.

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Nightcrawler Metropolis (Official Trailer) from Nightcrawler on Vimeo.

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