Today’s offering is from Lappländer, an artist from Finland who offers up some very chilled-out synthwave. I like the cold, minimalist feeling to the music.
Tag: Synthwave
Dyerwave is a stand-alone genre sitting inside of synth-wave, which has produced a number of appealing artists who bring 1980s visual imagery and marry it to dystopian visions of the future. The artist responsible for this release, Amid The Ruins 1453 is a Serbian composer and fellow Orthodox Christian who has expressed admiration for philosopher, Christian apologist, conspiracy theorist and radio talkshow host Jay Dyer.
The music is appropriately bleak, and would work well for fans of Vangelis (during the period he was composing the score for Blade Runner) and a more warped disco of Giorgio Moroder. One could also add the influence of the later soundtrack music of Tangerine Dream to the list of musicians influencing this album, and sprinkling of snippets of Dyer’s voice throughout the recordings adds a nice touch to the music.
¡Demasiado kosmiche…! Two absolute legends in electronic music grace these pages with a combination whose name cracks me up, but whose music entinces. Ramón Amezcua is best known under his nom de plume Bostich and is known as the godfather of the Nortec scene which combines hard electronic music with Norteño music and banda into a radically different form of the sort of electronica produced either Stateside or in Europe. Harald Grosskopf played drums for progressive rock bands like Wallenstein, Ashra and appeared on quite a few albums by Klaus Schulze, as well as releasing Synthesist, which is today considered a classic in electronic music. Decades on, both composers are still at the height of their compositional powers, though I must admit to liking the slightly nostalgic feel of some of these tracks. It’s definitely music for the 21st century, but the old Kraut (and Norteño) in me can’t help but reminisce at how good these musicians have been for so very long.
learningtodive – Norwegian Pop
learningtodive hail from New Zealand and made a lot of waves with this, their debut EP. This is a nice blend of post-punk, post-rock and synth-based music. For those who prefer to stream this, I point you to their Spotify page. I’d much prefer to see them on a platform where I could download their music, but as it stands, I’m pretty happy having the chance to hear this on any format. Quite good stuff.
Venus Berry – Shibari
This is perhaps the coldest of cold wave releases I’ve ever had the pleasure of reviewing. Venus Berry is the nom de plume of Anouk Allard, who is not only a musician but has a background in visual art. Her style covers not only the aforementioned cold wave which the French seemed to dominate during the 1980s, but also aspects of modern synthwave, electro and a weird sort of avant-pop that reminded me of Isabelle Antena.
She is joined on this album by Antoine Sapparrart on bass and Jules Méli on guitar. Quite an enjoyable album.
Doll Klaw – Thorns EP
As a more-or-less native Los Angeleno who grew up running around clubs in the late 1980s and early 1990s in clubs like Club F**k, DAS Bunker and the like, hearing synth-pop like this makes me feel a sense of nostalgia.
Southern California-based Doll Klaw has all the hallmarks of a 1980s indie band – the ethereal vocals, the cold synthesizer, the catchy, dance-ready grooves and a fashion sense that screams ‘retro’. As synthwave is making a comeback, the band have managed to come at a perfect time to take advantage of it.
If you like bands like Red Flag, Xymox, Cocteau Twins or even Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), the band will provide you a fix. This is probably one of the few bands I’d make a venture into the city to see play live, should such a thing ever be possible ever again.