• Music

    Amid The Ruins 1453 – Dyerwave Trilogy (All Dyerwave Tracks)

    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…

  • Music

    Harald Grosskopf & Ramón Amezcua – Quetzalkrautl

    ¡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…

  • Music - Soundcloud

    learningtodive – Norwegian Pop

    learningtodive · Norwegian Pop (Album) 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.

  • Music

    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.

  • Music

    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,…