![]() ![]() This time, the duo sings the song in English-French. Three months later, he teamed up with French singer-songwriter Clou to re-record “Borderland” as “Dans nos rêves” from the album. Icelandic singer-songwriter Ásgeir released his fourth studio album “Time on My Hands” last October.Ásgeir Releases New Song “Dans nos rêves” featuring Clou.My own stuff (in recent comment history) riffs on that transitional era between industrial, techno, punk, and what would become electronica.Donate to support families affected by the crisis in Ukraine ➔ There is a godawful almost secret album by Underworld when they were an 80s synth band, that captures the end of the synthwave moment just before they really became Underworld (pre dubnobasss) when synthy alt culture met dance/techno. I make a lot of music that is influenced by what happened outside and after that 80s synth genre, as I think what happened was the paralell thread of the 80s, which was holdovers from industrial and minimalist pioneers in the 70s influenced aphex twin, autechre, orbital, future sound of london, and eventually breaking through to the mainstream with underworld and chemical brothers. I'd still say that the mumblecore/normcore element of Drive is an expression of the same kind of psychopathic dull affect Ellis was writing about, except Drive was about working people struggling instead of city bankers. With you on the movie Drive as the aesthetic origin of the revival though. I'm also a Master Boot Record fan (and of his crypto puzzles), but he's more metal driven instead of the uncanny reflections of regular synthwave. I'll post some example tracks below of darker stuff that fits this ethos. ![]() Because I was so heavily influenced by Drive and Hotline Miami I see the genre as this brooding soundtrack for antihero's, like the kind of music that plays when the protagonist does some horrible stuff and subsequently smokes a cigarette looking off into the distance trying to understand what they just did. Hotline Miami is another piece of art that prominently uses the genre to convey harsh ultra violent scenes of death and destruction, the beat and tempo drive the player to move quickly and kill swiftly in these dingy crime infested apartment complexes. This movie (atleast for me) really set the stage of what synthwave conveyed, its fantasy of what I was told growing up were better times. The interesting thing about that movie is that it exists in a world almost directly opposite of what you described as "smooth social brand exterior" all the characters are living in some form of grime or filth, and the main character is a socially stunted badass. ![]() As for the social aspect, many people agree that the movie 'Drive' really kicked off the modern synthwave movement with its soundtrack and how the music played into the actions of the main character. You mention that a lot of synthwave is easy listening, but ironically most of the synthwave artists I tend to enjoy are a lot more "hardcore" I'd list 'carpenter brut','dance with the dead' and 'master boot record' as some good counterexamples to what you described. I'd like to start by saying you made a very good argument here, but I would like to make some comments of my own as someone who is absolutely infatuated with this genre. Maybe people just like it, but that seems more insane than I'm really prepared to consider. When I hear synthwave, to me it is the soundtrack to embracing that insanity, which I don't have, but can appreciate. ![]() To me this makes synthwave perfect for the way millenials and younger people have had to manage their smooth social brand exterior in every concievable micro aspect of their lives, down to the organization of their bathrooms because it's all being competitively scrutinized for performance on video. Any edge in synthwave at all appears to be playing on this, where the smoother it is, the more meta and uncanny it seems, and with it the implication of extreme and bizzare hidden depths behind it. The music is like the bland, empty affect part of the Patrick Bateman character's outward personality, which only barely concealed the serial killer "depth" on his inside. Bret Easton Ellis wrote American Psycho about the very people original synthwave was written for in the 80's, and I suppose that's what makes it such an amazing and appealing retro movement today. It's the easiest of smooth listening, which I think is its point. Even though I like a lot of the original artists it borrows tropes from, the pecularity of synthwave is it does it all without any edge. Synthwave is funny, but I don't have any real affection for it because it lacked eros. ![]()
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