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)

TOP PICKS

Street Cleaner – EDGE

Bandcamp 

Microchip Terror – Illegal Experiments II

Bandcamp

WOLFCLUB – Just Drive (Part 1)

Bandcamp

Chiasm – Missed the Noise

Bandcamp

Ultrakiller – Death Trap

Bandcamp

Baldocaster – Cult of Saturn

Bandcamp

Castroe – Fall into You

Bandcamp

Galaxy 80 – Visions

Bandcamp

Siamese Youth – Echoes of Tomorrow

Bandcamp

Frank Redux – Memory Lane

Bandcamp

Honorable Mentions & Singles

Literature – Stoa

Bandcamp

Rupert Lally – Maniac’s Almanac

Bandcamp

Cyberoptics – Resurgence

Bandcamp

Austin Archer – Now That’s What I Call a Bunch of Austin Archer’s TikTok Songs Compiled Into an Album Vol​.​1

Bandcamp

Ev.exi & Rhodes Rodosu – Stellae / Infinitus

Bandcamp

Mecha Maiko – Kitchen Floor

Bandcamp

LukHash – Dying Breath

Bandcamp

Maxthor – Into the Light

Bandcamp

3FORCE – Alpha Prophecy

Bandcamp

Korine – Sunshine

Bandcamp

The Playlist

This is a truly hellacious mix of darksynth, cyberpunk, outrun, and industrial. Together these various influences create a fantastic update to the Street Cleaner’s sound, making “EDGE” one of his best albums to date. “EDGE” really is a total banger, filled to the boiling brim with futuristic sci-fi viciousness.

There’s also the Street Cleaner narrative that’s constantly playing the background, telling a story of the hyper-violent vigilante fighting against crime.

“I Know This to Be True:
Crime will not stop, It will take on many forms, It will evolve to always be cutting edge. But That doesn’t matter. Someone will still be there to smash it back into submission. Be it 1880, 1980, or 2080, it makes no difference. There will always be a Street Cleaner, the Legacy System.”

The intensity of the music works perfectly with this narrative, as even without the album art, or the video game, it’s easy to imagine giant mechas locked in eternally explosive combat when you listen to these tracks. Street Cleaner has included some radical guitar work on “EDGE,” which folds seamlessly together with the synth without much kitsch.

What really makes the package complete are the many additional artists featured on “EDGE.” Awesome album art from Daniel Eichinger, features from video game sound designer Aubrey Hodges and guitarist Jake Hellend, additional art from Ian Cowell, and other we’re probably missing – merge to create the astounding package that is “EDGE.”

Grab a listen here now – just make sure you don’t cut yourself on all that EDGE!

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. 

That’s right folks. Street Cleaner is set to purge the streets this fall with a brand new retro action indie game from Creaky Lantern Games. Taking on the lead role as Street Cleaner himself, you will eradicate crime from the city and face “…intense boss fights like Master Feng the ninja overlord, Big Jerry the dance club manager, and Agent Artemis sniper extraordinaire.”

For the new game Street Cleaner created an entirely new, intense and authentic 8-bit soundtrack, something which was new to the artist:

“The entire In-Game soundtrack is chiptunes like you would find in that period game. I spent a great deal of time learning an archaic DAW to painstakingly wrote a whole new soundtrack that is authentic as possible….It was very difficult to wrap my head around the software. I’ve been using the same DAW exclusively for 15 years, so stepping back into an old tracker style sequencer was not easy. But the end goal was worth it!” – SC

Check out the trailer below, and check out Street Cleaner: The Video Game here on Steam!

Top 10 Retrowave Collaborations of 2019

10. DJ Ten & Lost Nights – Creation

9. Wayfloe – Spirit Bomb (feat. Violette Wautier)

8. FacexHugger – Power Unleashed (feat. Street Cleaner)

7. Futurecop! – We Belong (feat. Parallels)

6. Jay Diggs – Ready (feat. JJ Mist)

5. YORU 夜 & Turbo Knight – King And Queen (feat. Polemic Heart & Starquake Synthmaster)

4. Michael Oakley – Now I’m Alive (Feat. Dana Jean Phoenix)

3. NICOLAAS – No Stranger Thing (feat. Lucy Mason)

2. To Live & Die In LA – Remember (Feat. Dana Jean Phoenix)

1. Brandon – She’s on Fire (feat. SJBRAVO)

Rocketing to the top of the bandcamp charts with a Monday night release, “Annihilation” tries hard to bend and break darksynth genre tropes, refusing to “…reuse patterns that had proven successful in the past.” This approach has paid off – creating an album that feels accessible while providing an excellent atmosphere in addition to the hard hitting dance floor destroyers we’ve come to expect from Street Cleaner. Check out the full album here – and note there are still vinyls left!

It’s been a while since we’ve heard a full length album from Street Cleaner, and we’re happy to see the wait has been well worth it!

***Be sure to check out Street Cleaner and Protector 101 on their upcoming tour this November!***

Nov 08, The Drunken Unicorn Atlanta, GA

Nov 11, Will’s Pub Orlando, FL

Nov 13, Tin Roof Charleston, SC

Nov 14, Fallout Richmond, VA

Nov 15, QXT’s Newark, NJ

Nov 16, Hong Kong Boston, MA

Nov 17, PhilaMOCA Philadelphia, PA

Nov 18, Metro Gallery Baltimore, MD

Nov 19, Skylark Social Club Charlotte, NC

Nov 22, Club Anything Milwaukee, WI

Nov 23, Livewire Lounge Chicago, IL

Event Page Here!

Friday afternoons mean one thing – the NRW Weekly Selection.
We’re striving to bring you the best of the best. From outrun to darksynth, we have your weekend covered!

Mega Drive – NARCS

LÜNE – Absences

Street Cleaner – Better The Devil You Know

Robert Parker – A Memory, A Feeling

Slvmber – Mike & Mary