Way back in 2013, in the midst of a serious heavy metal binge, I posted this piece. The idea was to match metal albums to grimdark fantasy novels, the way you'd match wine or beer with food. So now, in the midst of an even more serious synthwave binge, I figured it was high time for a sequel. And why not? Synthwave is futuristic, or rather, retrofuturistic--and a large subset is explicitly SF-themed.
Selection Criteria
I've selected 6 science fiction novels--not necessarily the best, or even my favorites. But 6 novels that people who read science fiction generally know, or at least know of. Next, I paired these with synthwave albums that best capture what these books mean to me. So without further ado, I present to you six science fiction/synthwave pairings. Oh, and if you like what you see/hear, click on the book title link or on the musician's Bandcamp embed to purchase.
Don't forget to swish and spit after you taste...
The Pairings
1. Neuromancer by William Gibson/Wilderness by Makeup and Vanity Set
To start things off, I'm pairing the greatest cyberpunk novel with the greatest cyberpunk-inspired synthwave album. Neuromancer is a complex, multilayered and challenging novel--it is remembered for being mesmerizingly original and conceptually breathtaking, though it is Neuromancer's strong emotional core that convinces me to re-read it every few years. Wilderness is much the same, but in musical form. Featuring compositional complexity, high concept and deep emotional resonance, it is probably my favorite electronic album of any kind ever made.
LeGuin's Hainish cycle radically transformed our understanding of what science fiction could do. It is, at base, a work of speculative anthropology. With its focus on culture and ritual, The Left Hand of Darkness is a warmer and more earthy (for lack of a better term) book than most of its colder and more clinical contemporaries. This is not a common aesthetic in synthwave, but is well represented by Futurecop's brilliant 2017 album, which integrates New Age and mystical elements into their dreamy, pop-inflected synthwave. A lovely book paired with a lovely album.
3. Warchild by Karin Lowachee/Bionic Chrysalis by DEADLIFE
DEADLIFE is one of the best new darksynth artists around, and his music is basically hard-charging action music that draws heavily on science fiction themes. That reminds me of Karin Lowachee's Warchild, a riveting, action-packed but thoughtful military SF novel whose protagonist can only survive by becoming a living weapon. In other words, by undergoing a bionic chrysalis.
Science fiction isn't the most romantic or sexiest of genres, but every once in a while there's a novel that explores romance and sexuality in more than a cursory way. Saturn's Children is one of those books, and is full of sex and romance. It centers on a femmebot courtesan, designed to serve human desires, and her adventures long after humanity has gone extinct. Galactic Melt by Com Truise is similarly one of the few synthwave albums that is not only science fictional, but also explores sex and romance thematically.
When I listen to Syntax's music, it makes me feel like a kid again--looking up at the stars and imagining what's out there. Similarly, Sales' Apollo Quartet captures everything about classic science fiction that attracted me as a kid, but with a modern sensibility and direct engagement with all the stuff that makes classic science fiction feel dated and regressive in 2018 (e.g. the sexism, militarism, uncritical positivism, etc.). Both, moreover, evoke that "sensawunda" we all remember from childhood but can rarely recapture as adults.
6. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson/Cosmopolis by The G
Apologies for the shameless self-promo here, but I made Cosmopolis with books like Red Mars in mind. The album is about the journey to a domed city off-world, and explores both the romance of space travel and anxiety that life under a hermetically sealed dome would engender. Red Mars is, I think, the best novel written about building these kinds of settlements. So while the two aren't an exact fit (Cosmopolis is retro '80s, whereas Red Mars is distinctly progressive), it's books like Red Mars that give me inspiration for my music.
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POSTED BY: The G--purveyor of nerdliness, genre fanatic and Nerds of a Feather founder/administrator, since 2012.
Today's episode of SIDE QUESTS is more than a little personal. That's right, it's about my favorite inanimate objects: synthesizers! - G
What Are We Talking About?
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument that produces sound waves. The earliest and basic method is called analog subtractive synthesis. An oscillator produces sine, square and/or sawtooth waves with electrical current. A filter and envelope generator then cut into, or subtracts from, the waveform to alter the sound. With the advent of digital synthesis in the late 1970s, new forms of synthesis became possible, including wavetable, FM (frequency modulation) and S&S (sample and synthesis).
The synthesizer has actually been around since the 1930s, but didn't really catch on until Bob Moog's voltage-controlled synthesizers made their way into studios in the late 1960s, and onto albums by Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles and The Monkees. By the mid-1970s, synthesizers were a thing, though it wasn't until the 1980s that they threatened to displace the sainted guitar.
Bob Moog with some of his 1960s and 1970s synths.
Nowadays you hear far more music made with synthesizers--or samples of synthesizers--than with guitars. That's a sad fact if you're the kind of person who yells at clouds and hates Millennials because they love avocado toast and refuse to spend money on Budweiser or Applebees. For someone like me, it's bittersweet. I love the synthesizer, and am proud of its ascendence to the pinnacle of music making; but I love the guitar too.
The Rabbit Hole
So, basically I've been obsessed for as long as I can remember. Why? Because, in their purest form, synthesizers don't sound like anything you make with strings, reeds or stretched out skin. They sound like the future. They still sound like the future, even though now it's more often the future we dreamed of in the past.
I don't know how it started. I certainly didn't get it from my parents: my dad mostly listens to classical music and a smattering of rock and folk, while my mom refers to all music as "noise." But my dad did have the Vangelis album Spiral on vinyl--in retrospect, that was probably ground zero.
Flash-forward to 1983. We were just getting music videos at that time--not on MTV (no cable), but on weekly shows that came on just after the news. If I was lucky enough, I could watch half before my parents shut the TV off and told me to get ready for bed. Those shows played a bit of everything, but the only songs I remember were the ones with killer synth lines, like "Jump" and "The Message."
The school I went to had a really strong music program, and in the music room, they had a Casio CZ-5000 and a Roland Juno 106. Whenever possible, I'd sneak in early and move the knobs and sliders around. I didn't know what I was doing--I was just a dumb kid. Most of the time, I ended up playing the baseline from "Blue Monday" on the Juno, or some Flock of Seagulls chords on the Casio.
In 1991, I finally convinced my parents to go halfsies on a Roland D-50. My keyboard teacher, Carl, assured me it was the "best one in the biz," and that his guy could get me an unbeatable price. I adored Carl, who was an old timer from the northside of town--an area mostly known for red sauce joints and organized crime. So I mowed lawns and shoveled sidewalks until I'd earned half.
Now, $500 in 1991 was a lot, but it wasn't a lot for a new Roland D-50. Looking back, I've often wondered if my synth just fell off the back of the truck, as they used to say. More likely, Carl's guy just wanted to liquidate stock. After all, by 1990 the D-50 was out of production and had been emphatically replaced by the mighty Korg M1.
The Roland D-50 used something called Linear Arithmetic (LA) synthesis, which was proprietary speak for "sample and synthesis" (S&S). What that means is that the D-50 paired the attack transient from 8-bit samples (think the precise moment a trumpet blares or a mallet hits a xylophone) with the decay, sustain and release from a synthetic waveform (think everything that comes after that moment). It sounded otherworldly--and in fact, you'll recognize the D-50 from basically every late '80s New Age cliche ever. Perhaps the most iconic use of the D-50 was on Enya's 1998 song "Orinoco Flow," which used the Pizzicato Strings patch.
Unfortunately for young teenage me, the D-50 was also brutally difficult to program. Unlike the Juno 106 we had at school, you had to go menu diving to make anything happen--there was nary a slider or knob in sight. But I didn't care--I had my first synth.
The Music of Futures Past
By the mid-1990s I'd discovered techno, house and ambient music. This wasn't music featuring some electronic instrumentation; it was all electronic instrumentation. I did like some sample-based house music, but by and large I gravitated towards the stuff that sounded like science fiction expressed musically.
A lot was made with really cheap gear that had been repurposed from its original intention. For example, the Roland TB-303 Bass Line--a cheap-looking plastic box with a single oscillator designed to provide accompaniment for practicing guitarists. It didn't sound much like a bass guitar, and was kind of a pain to program. But it did have this wonderfully squelchy filter and a characterful way of tie-ing notes together. In 1987, a producer from the South Side of Chicago named DJ Pierre discovered that sweeping the filter along short patterns created an irresistible hypnotic effect. Techno producers from Detroit (and, later, New York, Canada and Europe) achieved a similar effect with other synths, including the same ones I'd used from school--the Roland Juno 106 and the Casio CZ-1000. I can think of no better vision of the future, as seen from 1997, than "Organa" by Dutch producer Steve Rachmad:
I started making my own techno in 1996, though I never really finished anything. I had a mental block--a fear of failure, I think. Basically, if I never finished anything, then I never had to experience the pain of rejection. So I'd muck around, make loops and then fuck off for a few months at a time. Looking back, I regret that I wasn't more serious and driven from the get-go.
That changed in 2015, when I discovered synthwave. Actually I already knew Kavinsky and College, who are widely credited with inspiring the genre. But I didn't realize there was this whole scene of people inspired by magenta-tinted '80s retrofuturism.
That changed soon after we began our series Cyberpunk Revisited. I was re-reading Neuromancer, Mindplayers, Software, etc. and I wanted to find something that captured the mood in musical terms. I found a couple cyberpunk playlists on Spotify and immediately got shoved down the rabbit hole. Makeup and Vanity Set, Perturbator, Miami Nights 1984...I couldn't get enough. I was hooked.
Slowly but surely I got back into making music, and found that--with kids and far less free time--I suddenly had the drive and discipline that had been missing during my 20s and early 30s. I started finishing songs, decorating them in lush, lovely synth tones--I even released some of them. And then made an album!
Synthesizers: The Greatest Thing on Earth
But enough about me--let's talk synths. There are many kinds of synthesis, but I'm mainly into subtractive--the studio sound of the late '70s and early '80s, and the underground sound of the late '80s and early '90s. One of my all-time favorites is, of course the Roland Juno 106. Released in 1984, was basically the older Juno 60 only with MIDI (which allows electronic instruments to communicate with one another) but no arpeggiator.
The 106 features a single digitally-controlled analog oscillator (DCF), which means it produces sound via electrical current but also features an electronic pulse that keeps the oscillator in tune. It has a single digitally-controlled filter (DCF), a single envelope generator, which modulates both amplitude and the frequency cutoff on the DCF, and a single low-frequency oscillator (LFO), which can modulate either pitch, pulse width or the filter cutoff. The 106 also has a silky smooth chorus effect that makes everything sound like gold. So while the 106 has a more limited feature set than some of the other synths I'll talk about, it's almost impossible to make a bad sounding patch with it. It has been called, rightly in my view, the ultimate beginner's synth. And boy does it sound lovely...
Next up is the Oberheim OB-8. Released in 1983, the OB-8 replaced the more famous OB-Xa (made famous in "Jump"). For my money, however, the OB-8 is the best of the bunch. It featured two voltage-controlled analog oscillators (VCOs) per voice, with 8 total voices of polyphony, a Curtis ladder-design voltage-controlled filter (VCF), two envelopes and a whole junk ton of LFO modulation capabilities. You can also pan individual voices across the stereo field (i.e. left to right speaker), leading to some seriously out there stuff.
The last hardware synth I'll present for you is brand new, the Korg Prologue. It's not out yet, but I've had the pleasure of playing one in the shop--and let me tell you, it is mighty fine. The Prologue features a pair of VCOs, a VCF and two envelope generators, but also has a digital multi-oscillator that can do simple FM or wavetable synthesis. What that means is that you can do classic analog, '80s digital or more complex patches that blend the two.
Of course, one of the great things about being alive today is how cheap, convenient and good software synthesizers have become. Some are truly excellent, like Diva by Germany's u-He: a synth that lets you mix and match modules emulated from various classic pieces of kit. It can even simulate the character analog synthesizers pick up as they age...bad tuning and oscillator drift! Here are a couple videos made by my favorite sound designer for Diva (and now friend), Swan Audio. The first is a synthwave track using sounds be made for the preset pack Analog Hits, and the second are his OB-8 recreations, which sound amazingly realistic if you ask me.
Well, that about wraps it up! But just for good measure, here are a couple love songs I've written to the synthesizer. Enjoy!
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POSTED BY: The G--purveyor of nerdliness, genre fanatic and Nerds of a Feather founder/administrator, since 2012.
Someone on my Facebook feed posted a really interesting article on Stranger Things and the enduring pop cultural appeal of '80s nostalgia. Unfortunately I can't find it now, but one of the more notable tidbits was the observation that the current wave of '80s nostalgia, which traces back to the late '90s, has now been around almost twice as long as the '80s themselves.
In truth, it's phased in and out, but never gone away. Now, in 2017, it is in full bloom: we've gotten a remake of It, a sequel to Blade Runner, an '80s themed entry in the Thor movie franchise and, most importantly, a second season of Netflix's unabashedly nostalgic sci-fi horror show, Stranger Things. Meanwhile, synthwave--the overtly retro '80s music that I make (shameless plug)--is more popular and visible than ever.
I've long wondered why I'm so attracted to '80s nostalgia, why I've always been attracted to it, but also why I'm so particularly attracted to it now. The simple answer is that I grew up in the '80s, but that's only part of the story. I was a teenager in the '90s, so you might think I'd be nostalgic for that cultural moment. I probably will be at some point, but I'm not right now, not really. So there's clearly more going on there, and I suspect that's the case for most people. What follows is an attempt to make sense of it all, with special reference to Stranger Things.
An Evolving Aesthetic
In 1997, VH1 debuted what would become its signature program in the post-video age: Behind the Music. Though not limited to '80s musicians, episodes that featured that decade's more ridiculous figures were instant hits. In 2002, VH1 adapted the British program I Love the '80s, which surveyed the decade's pop culture landscape a year at a time. (I Love the 70s and I Love the 90s followed soon thereafter.)
These programming decisions both reflected and contributed to the wave of nostalgia for '80s pop culture that, according to Simon Reynolds, cast its shadow over the entire decade. Indeed, if you look at independent music in the early '00s, it's positively drenched in the stuff: from the "punk funk" aesthetics of LCD Soundsystem, Franz Ferdinand and Datarock to the new wave revivalism of Ladytron, Fisherspooner and Scissor Sisters. And it wasn't limited to music either. The cult TV show Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000) was, in a sense, the Stranger Things of its day. And Napoleon Dynamite (2004), though not technically set in the 1980s, had a distinctly '80s nostalgic aesthetic. So why does the current round of '80s nostalgia feel different?
In 2005, VH1's Michael Hirschorn had this to say about the '00s wave of '80s nostalgia:
[It] applies to a specific kind of Gen X, self-mocking, slightly ironic thing. For this group of people, you can't give them straight nostalgia of the sort of baby- boomer, "everything was wonderful and great when we were kids" feel. People Gen X and younger know that things weren't that great. We never thought that Motley Crue was saving the world. We identify with them passionately, but with a certain wink.
The ironic take still holds, to a degree, but it's never been the only thing going. Revivalists from the ''00s, such as Daft Punk and Ariel Pink, described their approach in decided unironic terms, as less an attempt to recapture a specific sound (with the addition of a wink and a nudge) as to recapture the "blissfully indiscriminate" way in which music was consumed at that time, something that evaporated with the decline of radio and MTV's switch to scripted programming. And if anything, the current wave of retro enthusiasm feels much less ironic and much more earnest than it did in the '00s.
There are plenty of haters, who dismiss the current wave of '80s nostalgia as insipid or emblematic of cultural exhaustion (for example, here and here). But I think those people vastly miss the point, namely, that '80s nostalgia in 2017 is purposive, and says more about where we are today than it does about the moment it portrays. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the lost world of Hawkins, Indiana.
The Lost World of Hawkins, Indiana
When I first starting watching Stranger Things, I was struck by how familiar Hawkins, Indiana felt. I grew up in a place more or less like that, an old Northeastern mill town. It was a twenty minute drive from a small city, and just under an hour from a big one. But it was also a self-contained universe. Most people worked in factories, making calculators, school uniforms or costume jewelry. Others worked in supporting industries--one friend's father owned a small metal treating company, which served the factories. There was a vibrant main street, and a great diner that got so packed on Sundays you could think the whole town was there. There was little crime, and it felt like everyone was looking out for everyone else. It was the kind of place where you knew the police and firefighters by name. The real locals, by which I mean those with roots in the community, probably knew them all from school or little league.
A lot has changed since then. Most of the factories have closed, with the work they once did (and the work that supported them) outsourced to cheaper labor markets. Main Street, like so many across the US, is a dilapidated shadow of its former self. The town as a whole is still okay--its proximity to the aforementioned cities meant it was able to transition from a place that made things to a commuter suburb. And the diner's still there. Many factory towns have not been so lucky.
But when I see the town of Hawkins, Indiana, it feels like I'm looking back at the place I grew up in, as it once was, but which no longer exists in the same form. This feels important. Stranger Things isn't just a celebration of pop culture from a previous moment, but a window into a lost world--one where things that have become deeply uncertain are rendered certain again.
The appeal of peeking into this world makes a lot of sense when you consider the political trend, both in the US and globally, toward economic populism. Strikingly, this trend is evident across the political spectrum, though it manifests differently on each end. Both sets of populists want to turn back the clock on several decades of globalization, outsourcing and the financialization of the economy. They just apportion blame differently. Left wing populists are angry over the dissolution of what George Packer calls "the Roosevelt Republic," a 50-year period of state-regulated economic security and egalitarianism, which was broken up in wake of late '70s stagflation to encourage faster growth, which in turn has disproportionately benefitted the richest of the rich. Right wing populists, by contrast, blame mass immigration for driving down wages and labor unions for driving out the factory owners. Both blame free trade for making it cheaper to build things abroad, though left wing populists also stress its negative effects on emerging markets.
The window to Hawkins shows a place where none of these things have happened yet. Though deregulation was already well underway by 1983 (when season one of Stranger Things takes place), the effects were not yet evident. We are looking at a place that hasn't experienced the financial crises of 1987, 2000 and 2008 or the cancerous spread of Walmart--a place where economic security and a middle class standard of living are still assumed. I imagine that most people who watch Stranger Things, regardless of their politics, find this comforting.
Another aspect of Hawkins that strikes me is its whiteness. I don't mean that in strictly racial terms; after all, Lucas is black, as are some other town residents. Rather, I mean it in cultural terms. No one in the town listens to hip-hop, funk or r&b, just rock and country. Aside from this season two's California transplants, no one seems to come from anywhere except Hawkins. There are no immigrants. There doesn't even appear to be a Chinese restaurant.
I also recognize this aspect of Hawkins from my own childhood, when we had to drive to the city for decent Chinese, or to the big city for Thai. That started the change in the '90s, when the area grew more diverse. In 1983, it wasn't very diverse at all. As part of a multilingual household and with an immigrant mother, I was basically the diversity.
This is not something I'm nostalgic for. Even at a young age, I found the hegemony of the monoculture oppressive. The '90s felt like an awakening to the world, with all the promise that entails. I am decidedly not nostalgic for the days when everyone died where they were born.
But I'm sure other people are. In 2016, pundits spoke at length about economic anxieties related to uneven globalization, but surveys have shown that more people have what you might call cultural anxieties. In extreme form, these manifest as racism, xenophobia and other exclusionary ideas that divide people into categories and then rank them by acceptability. More often, though, it isn't so much about accepting people from other backgrounds as accepting other cultural practices as valid and normal. It is possible, from this view, to accept individual people who look different as long as they don't act different. As long as they don't challenge the hegemony of the monoculture.
It would not surprise me to find out that some people are attracted to this element of Hawkins, Indiana, and more specifically, its portrayal of a world before multiculturalism and a time when the myth of strict assimilation still ruled supreme. Hawkins, one could argue, is a utopia for the culturally anxious, a place where the few non-white residents are perfectly comfortable within the monoculture, which in turn makes everyone perfectly comfortable with them. Put another way, Hawkins is exactly what people mean when they use "I don't see color." It means, "I don't want to think about difference."
I don't fault the Duffer Brothers for portraying Hawkins this way. Not everything has to center race, and I appreciate the fact that Lucas is treated as just another kid by everyone in the town. But as I examine my own feelings for this show, and for the place and time it portrays, I have to be honest about what I'm looking at, and how that makes me feel. Stranger Things is portraying my own lost world accurately, but there are things you lose and wish you could get back, and other things that are better left in the past.
The Lost World of Personhood Beyond Politics
Yet there are plenty of things I do wish we could go back to. Among those, the days when political identities were not so much a defining feature of your personhood as an element of color. Now, politics have always mattered, as have political disagreements. I remember the strong differences of opinion in the '80s: on welfare and taxes, on nuclear weapons and the threat of mutually assured destruction and so forth. But life was not as polarized as it is now. My dad and my friend's dad used to joke on election day that they were canceling out each other's votes. Can you imagine that now--not only saying it, but saying it to a friend and both of you thinking it's funny?
The shift in attitudes is widespread. As Pew noted in a 2014 report:
The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. And ideological thinking is now much more closely aligned with partisanship than in the past. As a result, ideological overlap between the two parties has diminished: Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.
Partisan animosity has increased substantially over the same period. In each party, the share with a highly negative view of the opposing party has more than doubled since 1994. Most of these intense partisans believe the opposing party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being.”
The causes of this effect are multiple. Partisan gerrymandering has disincentivized median voter strategies, while unlimited campaign financing means politicians are more beholden to the wishes of individual donors than their districts. Concurrently, the decline of the newspaper and rise of both shrill partisan media and social media all contribute to the emergence of parallel echo chambers, which generate internal solidarity and views of the other as intrinsically threatening. What political polarization has done, then, is transform every political disagreement into a zero sum game, when in past days it might not have been treated as such.
You might be wondering where I'm going with all this; Hawkins, after all, is not a political world. In the series, the only political markers in the town are a solitary Reagan/Bush '84 sign on Mike's yard, as well as his father's bland statement to the men in black, "we're all patriots here." But that's exactly the point. We know very little about anyone's politics--no one even talks about it. So instead we form our opinions on the goodness of people through other means. And that's when it struck me: can you imagine deciding whether you think someone is a good person or not without knowing their political worldview? This was possible at one time, but it feels weird and alien now.
Some issues bely compromise--of that there can be no doubt. But today it often feels like everyone is fighting everyone on everything, and are so hideously polarized that they can't even think of the other side as equally human. Hawkins provides a comforting antidote to that paradigm, a glimpse back to a moment when people weren't as likely to other the political other. We don't know who Hopper or Joyce vote for; all we know is that they do right by people.
The Lost World of Childhood
Most strikingly, Stranger Things captures the freedom accorded to children in days past, and the lack of freedom accorded today.
I'm a parent now, and I'm clear-eyed about of how different it is to raise a child now compared to when I was a kid. Some things have improved--there's much more awareness of bullying, for example, and parents (dads especially) are a lot more involved in day-to-day child rearing than they once were. And, as mentioned above, I see immense value in exposing children to different cultures--something much easier to do now than before, especially if you live in a Hawkins. But I do lament the fact that my kids don't have the freedom I had as a child. The freedom to roam, explore and learn by doing.
Partly that's because I no longer live in a Hawkins. Since college, I've chosen to live in big cities. I've chosen that path on purpose; I find them more stimulating and exciting. But big cities come with crime and traffic, and their populations are transient. There is more to worry about, and fewer people around who you can trust implicitly. It is not possible to simply let your kid roam free at a young age the way you can in a small town. If you did, someone might even report you to the police.
But it's also cultural--not in the sense of ethnic or religious culture, but the prevalent culture of the moment. The zeitgeist. In many countries, the US included, the lives of children are increasingly structured. As journalist Hanna Rosin writes:
I used to puzzle over a particular statistic that routinely comes up in articles about time use: even though women work vastly more hours now than they did in the 1970s, mothers—and fathers—of all income levels spend much more time with their children than they used to. This seemed impossible to me until recently, when I began to think about my own life. My mother didn’t work all that much when I was younger, but she didn’t spend vast amounts of time with me, either. She didn’t arrange my playdates or drive me to swimming lessons or introduce me to cool music she liked. On weekdays after school she just expected me to show up for dinner; on weekends I barely saw her at all. I, on the other hand, might easily spend every waking Saturday hour with one if not all three of my children, taking one to a soccer game, the second to a theater program, the third to a friend’s house, or just hanging out with them at home. When my daughter was about 10, my husband suddenly realized that in her whole life, she had probably not spent more than 10 minutes unsupervised by an adult. Not 10 minutes in 10 years.
It’s hard to absorb how much childhood norms have shifted in just one generation. Actions that would have been considered paranoid in the ’70s—walking third-graders to school, forbidding your kid to play ball in the street, going down the slide with your child in your lap—are now routine. In fact, they are the markers of good, responsible parenting. One very thorough study of “children’s independent mobility,” conducted in urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods in the U.K., shows that in 1971, 80 percent of third-graders walked to school alone. By 1990, that measure had dropped to 9 percent, and now it’s even lower. When you ask parents why they are more protective than their parents were, they might answer that the world is more dangerous than it was when they were growing up. But this isn’t true, or at least not in the way that we think. For example, parents now routinely tell their children never to talk to strangers, even though all available evidence suggests that children have about the same (very slim) chance of being abducted by a stranger as they did a generation ago. Maybe the real question is, how did these fears come to have such a hold over us? And what have our children lost—and gained—as we’ve succumbed to them?
Rosin presents a theory of how this happened: the largely irrational fear of child abduction, combined with well-intentioned attempts to reduce the risks children face in their daily lives (for example, a largely ineffective campaign to reduce playground accidents). The end result is a safer, though in some ways less stimulating environment. Hawkins, by contrast, is a place where kids still roam free and only go home for meals. In so doing, it shines a light on all our misgivings with overprotective helicopter parenting in 2017.
You may or may not buy Rosin's argument; I do, at least in the abstract. I see my own childhood in a place like Hawkins and lament that my kids may never experience those endless days spent on bikes, exploring in the woods or climbing around house construction sites. All done as a matter of course, of course--as long as we were home for dinner. But in practice I find it very hard to let go in that way. Clearly, so does Rosin, and I assume this is true for many parents who grew up the way I did but now find the world changed around them. We appreciate the things that have changed for the better, but we mourn the loss of things we once took for granted. And so, we look through the window into the lost world of Hawkins, Indiana, a place we can see but not touch.
Endless '80s
Stranger Things exemplifies the purposive dimensions of '80s nostalgia in 2017. But how long can it last? By all rights it shouldn't have lasted this long. Only, rather than fade away, it appears to have metastasized.
The fact is we are no longer locked into pop culture moments the way we once were. Recall that the '80s themselves were nostalgic for both the '50s and '60s, embodied in everything from The Stray Cats to The Wonder Years. Stranger Things is, itself, an homage to the way these earlier decades were reinterpreted in the '80s, through the form of the late '50s/early '60s monster movie that's really about fear of communism or McCarthyism. And then there's Steve's haircut:
The genius of the '80s was to mash its nostalgias up with a heady dose of futurism and neon. At a time when the future is scary as shit, the dead futures of past times can be comforting, even when they themselves are reimaginings of even older futures. Meanwhile, the microgenrefication of music and other entertainment media mean that popular culture can sustain all nostalgias at any given moment. Plus there's the fact that a lot of retro stuff is actually pretty creative. Synthwave, for example: this isn't '80s music made today, but rather a modern style of music that draws as much on incidental soundtrack and corporate music as it does on pop or indie stuff.
Or compare the pastiche of references in Stranger Things to those in Ernest Cline's 2011 novel Ready Player One. The references never overwhelm the narrative in Stranger Things, nor are they ever made explicit. In other words, if you haven't seen ET, Poltergeist or Aliens, you won't know the winks and nudges are there. Rather, they are window dressing on what is, at its center, a compelling human drama. Ready Player One, by contrast, hits you over the head with its unending stream of '80s references--delivered through a series of encyclopedia-style infodumps that are as jarring as they are unsubtle. Now, I realize that Ready Player One has its legion of fans; but I've tried to read it twice and in found myself unable to suspend disbelief. With Stranger Things, by contrast, I practically live in Hawkins for each 45 minute episode.
All this is a longwinded way of saying that, while it's possible that '80s nostalgia will recede from popular view, I don't see it going away. Not as long as we still dream of lost worlds.
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POSTED BY: The G--purveyor of nerdliness, genre fanatic and Nerds of a Feather founder/administrator, since 2012.
Welcome to the first installment of a new post series, Fireside Chats! In essence, Fireside Chats are a mashup of interview and conversation involving a nerd of a feather and a guest who is well positioned to discuss the issues and topics we hold dear. Sometimes this will be creator, and other times a critic or commentator. In all cases, it will be someone awesome. Today's guest is Aaron Vehling, editor and primary writer for Vehlinggo, a website dedicated to showcasing synth scores, synthwave, synthpop, disco, house, and more. Please join us as we talk about synth music and its connection to the broader ecosystem of science fiction themes and retro aesthetics. -G
Thanks for “sitting down” with me! To start, how did you get into music blogging?
I'm actually standing right now, but much obliged! To answer your question: Through a series of fits, starts, periods of self-doubt, moving half-way across the country, and a healthy dose of Bell's Two Hearted IPA. [Ed - you mean "hangover city."]
Here's some background for you: I've been writing about music on and off since 2000, and have used the "Vehlinggo" name since 1990, but didn't start setting up a plan for Vehlinggo as a synth music blog until 2012. And I didn't actually pull the trigger until 2014, when not long after I launched the blog David "College" Grellier and Nola Wren helped give me a boost.
When I was still living in Minneapolis, I originally had in mind a blog devoted solely to everything related to Drive—news, reviews, interviews related to the soundtrack artists, the stars, the filmmakers, etc. Basically a Drive fan blog that had branches into the realms of Italians Do It Better, the Valerie Collective, Kavinsky and Record Makers, Cliff Martinez, Nicolas Winding Refn, etc. (It kind of is this now in many ways, but not the 100% Drive blog I had designed). But I didn't do anything — I was a city editor of a newspaper and managed a non-profit journalism program, so my time was limited. I did barely any substantive extracurricular writing, although I did mess about on my Roland Juno Di synth some.
By the time I moved to New York in 2012, I had a different job, a new outlook on life, and a bit more focus. I drew up an outline and started planning to expand into synthwave, modern synthpop, Italo, house, etc. Had it all ready to go, and 2013 was gonna be my year. I was fresh off a Chromatics/Glass Candy show in which I got to see my various favorite artists again and had a fire in my belly. But then not too many months after I got laid off and had to get a new job, which was an awesome, but very stressful and all-encompassing daily, big-city, legal journalism gig.
By the time I felt like I could do my day job well and have a side jam, I hit PUBLISH on Vehlinggo in November 2014. My first post was a review of "Save the Day," the awesome cut from College and Nola Wren — although my review is not as great as it could have been. But it was a review of their show in Chelsea, NYC, a couple weeks later that sealed the deal for the blog. College and Nola both shared the post, and it affirmed in me that I was doing something right and it also gave my blog credibility as a music entity. When the Valerie Collective's art director, Alex Burkart, gave my logo-less blog the logo people wear on shirts today, the stage was set for some awesome times. I never looked back, although I have changed my focus a bit over the years.
How would you describe Vehlinggo to the uninitiated?
The Velvet Underground of music blogs — highly influential but with a small, dedicated audience. Specifically, it's a place for interviews, reviews, and essays about synth film scores, synthpop, disco, synthwave, house, and all that other stuff that makes you laugh, cry, and fall in love.
Vehlinggo cut its teeth on synthwave. So let me pose this question to you: what’s driving the genre’s popularity, such as it is? Or, to put it another way: why synthwave, and why now?
Synthwave was certainly a part of my coverage from the start, that's true.
If synthwave is popular — and it certainly is among a small group of people — it would be because of Stranger Things, primarily, along with non-retro films and TV shows that have Tangerine Dream/John Carpenter-influenced synth scores. They dig that stuff and then go down the rabbit hole.
This kind of happened with Drive, although in a different way. As I discussed with the people who made the music for that soundtrack, this wasn't a terribly retro film; however people read that into it.
Either way, whether its Stranger Things or Drive, or more on-the-nose fair like Turbo Kid or Kung Fury, these monuments come along and jump-start the interest in synthwave (or whatever people lump under synthwave).
How has the scene changed over the past few years?
What I'm about to say is both very negative and very positive. It's my own thoughts, but it's also what people tell me all of the time.
The scene itself is becoming noisy and impersonal. There is a whole new generation of artists who, instead of coming up with the pioneers, are inspired by them. This isn't always bad, but it's becoming a situation in which you have dozens of artists taking what seems like an hour to create a Miami Nights 1984 or Perturbator clone track, throwing it up in the Synthetix group and expecting miracles--"perhaps Michael Glover (aka Miami Nights 1984) will see my track and I'll be signed to Rosso Corsa!" It's all about self-promotion now, but not in a strategic way. It used to be you'd be in the Synthetix group and you could just talk about the music you loved and the scene's elements. Now the groups are filled with people tooting their own horns.
This is where I think the genre is a bit in its Third Eye Blind phase. If you recall, Third Eye Blind, or Creed, or Lit or whatever, were apparently mostly influenced by the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins — they were tapping into an established vibe that was in itself an amalgamation of inspiration. Those pioneers were influenced by 7'0s and '80s hard rock, post-punk, indie rock, glam, etc. So now we have certain artists who are influenced by Miami Nights 1984, who himself was influenced by the real '80s.
I think at least one reason for this is because of Stranger Things and the like, but I also think that the quality control that synthwave pioneers like MN84, College, Lazerhawk, Mitch Murder and FM Attack employ — it's several years between albums, because these are all meticulous professionals — leaves open a vacuum that few can truly fill. Thank the universe for folks like Timecop1983, who have kept up the quality with more regularity.
Another factor is that supporters like Rick Shithouse (Synthetix.fm), Marko Maric (Synthetix Sundays), Axel Ricks (Neon Vice) are each on a hiatus that I'm not convinced is temporary. And I've been moving away from synthwave for some time. So the tight-knit group that I entered in 2014, and that Axel helped contribute to by entering a year earlier, has faded away. We are now, to reference a Maethelvin song, "Lost in Big City."
That said, there is room for optimism. On the plus side, labels like Lazerdiscs and newer outfit TimeSlave Recordings, which function like real record labels but without the exploitation, are key curators of quality. You know what you're getting with them: The stuff will be well-written, well-recorded, well-mixed, well-mastered, etc. It's no surprise that folks like Cody Carpenter or Robert Parker would work with Lazerdiscs. Lovely label and lovely people. Also, I read recently that TimeSlave is releasing a compilation featuring The Midnight.
Rosso Corsa is the same way, in terms of quality and people skills, although the label could use some help with marketing. FM-84 is also a bright, shining beacon of hope. I know for a fact the man has a deep sense of quality control and perfectionism.
All of these people I've mentioned are also very personable, humble, and friendly people, which helps keep alive the sense of community we once took for granted.
What I think is also helping the scene greatly are folks like John Bergin, the art director for Lakeshore Records, and Ivan Castell and Javip Moreno, the guys behind The Rise of the Synths documentary. Bergin actively watches the scene looking for artists of immense quality and professionalism who could be part of Lakeshore's original artists roster. His A&R work has led to Mega Drive's latest album and Rise's companion EPs ending up on the same label that has released the Drive soundtrack, Stranger Things, Mr Robot, and everything else. In fact, Bergin's A&R talent is why SURVIVE ended up doing the Stranger Things score, if I'm not mistaken. Bergin is a real hero and a real human being and an absolute legend in music, art, comics, and film.
Castell and Moreno have helped, because their documentary, even though it's not even complete, has managed to shine a light on the supremely talented artists in the scene, while also paying homage to pioneers like John Carpenter and Giorgio Moroder and synthwave pioneers like Com Truise, Lazerhawk, MPM, College, Maethelvin, etc., and synthpop gems like Electric Youth. Castell and Moreno over the past year have created an extraordinary momentum that works in tandem with Lakeshore, Invada, and Death Waltz releasing things.
Those folks above, even though they represent the dissolution of the smaller community in some ways, are in fact helping to keep it alive through the way they genuflect to it. It's nice.
Visual media have played a central role in that story, from high-profile stuff like Drive or Stranger Things to “in-scene” flicks like Kung Fury and Turbo Kid. And you have the prevalence of YouTube channels like NewRetroWave and Luigi Donatello, which play an outsized role in the scene. Is synthwave a fundamentally “cinematic” genre?
Depends on the branch of synthwave, but in general I think the instrumental nature of the genre obviously lends itself to cinema/TV.
Then of course there are those who dabble in synthwave, but aren't 100% synthwave who are definitely cinematic. OGRE and Dallas Campbell are most certainly cinematic — after all, they make soundtracks for fake films. However, I'd put them in the same category as Antoni Maiovvi (co-owner of Giallo Disco Records), who also makes scores (for both real and fake films), albeit with more of that Goblin/Argento flare. Syntax certainly gets his share of work with scores.
What about the connection between synthwave and science fiction?
You can thank Blade Runner for that.
Absolutely. But why that particular film? I mean, it's awesome, but it's nearly 40 years old. And I think the cultural influence of science fiction is wider than just the cyberpunk-ish stuff like Perturbator or Makeup and Vanity Set. Timecop 1983, for example--even the name is science fictional. And that's something to think about, like, why do we find outmoded visions of the future comforting? And what does that say about where we are right now?
I've never asked Jordy if he got his name from the Van Damme movie, which I loved growing up, because I love all things related to time travel. But to your point: We love outmoded visions of the future not because they would ever actually happen. We love them for the same reason we love the idea of heaven, valhalla, whatever. It's like Sir Thomas More's Utopia with scifi, perhaps? There's something to aspire to, perhaps a better, more fairer society, or cooler gadgets that make life easier or more fun, or perhaps new worlds that are better than our own. There's something cathartic even about dystopian futures. Those are comforting because they make our current world better and give something to aspire to not do.
The reality is that, other than certain technology like the internet, we never have major technology advances anymore. The future dreamed up in the '30s, '50s, and even the '90s, doesn't really match where we are today. Sure we have video phones and on-demand movies, and all sorts of information on a pocket computer (aka a smartphone), and we have drones that fly around and shoot video! But video phones are still just phones and movies are still movies and drones are just tiny helicopters. Our cars have technology in them that allows for autonomy, but they're still more or less the same car as 30 years ago. We are in a world of incremental changes—incremental changes that will diminish to even more incremental changes as the political situation worsens and progress declines. Where are we right now? We're on Twitter mocking typos while the world burns. That's where we are. In light of that, I'll take a faux future utopia any day.
Over the past year, Vehlinggo has broadened its musical focus to include synth pop and indie artists. What music are you most excited about right now?
I have to correct you a bit. I've always covered synthpop and indie — if you go back almost three years, synthwave is about 40 percent of what I've covered and you'll see synthpop, indie, trap, R&B, funk, etc. I basically have always written about stuff I like that's in the synth realm, and tried not to write too much about synthwave. Which kind of shows in the music I'm excited about right now.
1. Com Truise — His new album, Iteration, is going to be awesome. Trust me.
2. Nite Jewel — Her new album, Real High, taps into an early '90s Janet Jackson vibe — you know, the Flyte Tyme sound — and crosses it with a contemporary, funky feel that makes for one of my favorite albums of the year, so far. She's a revelation always.
3. Hoops — New album Routinesis jangly and lofi dreampop, like the C86 of early Wild Nothing.
4. Radiohead — I've been listening to "I Promise," an acoustic- and strings-driven OK Computer outtake they released to those who bought the 20th Anniv. edition boxset. It's gorgeous.
5. Anoraak — His new EP, Black Gold Sun, is absolutely stunning. I love Anoraak's blend of club, synthpop, and synthwave, generally — did you hear last year's *Figure* that features Slow Shiver? — but this new work is an exercise in transcendence.
6. Syntax — James Mann (aka Syntax) sent me an advanced stream of his forthcoming LP, The Space Tapes. I've been listening to it constantly while pretty much doing everything, whether sitting idle, walking to work, working at work, or writing fiction. It's this mind-opening experience that truly represents the concept of space. Syntax always opens my mind in ways that end up benefitting me. James should be scoring films, working with Com Truise and Tycho, etc. Ghostly needs to sign him.
7. Sepehr — This is some great techno off Monty Luke's Detroit house/techno label, Black Catalogue.
8. Johnny Jewel — His new Windswept album, which features some of his score work for Twin Peaks along with a some vocal pop tracks and other things, is a pleasing blend of smoky jazz and emotive, noirish synths. There's also a really killer Desire cut on there. Meg's vocal melody is soothing and catchy. Johnny and Meg are married, so I think their deep personal connection lends itself to creating such a warm, soulful number.
9. Kendrick Lamar — DAMN. Because he's a genius. Listening to a Kendrick album isn't a passive act. It's a powerful experience that binds itself to your soul. The man is extraordinary.
10. OGRE. Always.
These are a few. I'm shortchanging a bunch of people, I know.
Where do you think synth music is headed in the next few years? Where should it be headed?
I see synthwave and even more modern synthpop incorporating more guitars. Since synths became popular there has been a social contract between synths and guitars (or their players) — sometimes we synth and sometimes we rock; and sometimes they mix it up a bit and create heavenly moments like we saw with New Order and The Cure, or Smashing Pumpkins' Adore, or, later, Bloc Party's A Weekend in the CIty. So I see synth music as we know it bringing the guitars back. To make it easier: Wherever Chromatics are headed, that's where it's headed. And where should it head? I have no idea. We need to let that be an organic growth.
One that that's always frustrated me is the lack of a DJ culture. DJs and DJing play an important role in other forms of dance music. Club nights generate interest in the music, for one. And they generate income for producers beyond record sales. But most of all, they're fun. Techno, for example--it's designed to be played out, and for people to dance to it. Not all music needs to fit those parameters, but synthwave especially--it already has the right beats for it. Yet people aren't releasing DJ-friendly 12" edits or organizing nights where people go out to dance. Instead you get the occasional live show that's structured like a concert--the producer is on a stage, there are pauses between songs and everyone is facing forward and watching. That's good and meaningful, so I'm not knocking it; but I think for synthwave to take a step forward, it needs to expand its audience, and creating the infrastructure for regular club nights is one promising way to do that.
These exist in limited fashion in cities like San Francisco and NYC — and I know they have them in France and Holland. The only artist I know who releases 12" mixes is Diamond Field, but I'm sure there are more. I think what's going on is that most synthwavers are bedroom or basement producers and haven't developed the performance muscle — whether it's a liveshow or a DJ set. You see that the Valerie Collective hosts parties fairly regularly and they have a College DJ set plus Maethelvin performance (which is seamless) and another collective member behind the wheel DJing -- like Pierre De La Touche. Or, also from France, Lazerdiscs' Absolute Valentine hosts retro-themed parties. These are all people who were already more or less performers and DJs before becoming known for retrosynth and synthwave. I guess I'm rambling, but I think my point stands: It doesn't happen enough because people aren't comfortable doing it. That should change and I believe it is slowly but surely changing.
I've thought about hosting Vehlinggo parties and having capable DJs. The problem is I don't know anything about organizing such an event and don't have the capital. But if I had one, it would be of the variety you're lauding.
Thanks for having this chat, Aaron--lots to think about!
For sure! I'm sure I'll sound very cranky and lose even more cachet in the synthwave scene because of this.
NERD MUSIC is excited to present an interview with Vampire Step-Dad, a high-concept synthwave act by an up-and-coming artist in the scene. [Disclaimer: The G mastered Vampire Step-Dad's last two releases.] Please join Vlad and I as we talk music, nerdery and '80s pop culture! And if you like what you see/hear, you can support Vampire Step-Dad by purchasing his music via Bandcamp, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter, where he is very active.
Thanks for "sitting down" with me! To begin, how did you get into making synthwave music?
Glad to be "here." To answer your question, I first discovered synthwave from a video on YouTube called "MiniDrones Blew Up My Toys!" It's this awesome video where RC cars and mini quadcopters are fighting, using explosions and it's all stylized like a Michael Bay movie. But good. Anyway, they used "Hang 'Em All" by Carpenter Brut, and I was instantly in love. This was just before EP III came out, so just after finding him, he released EP III and I was blown away. It sounded familiar but different than anything I'd heard before. It took me a month or two to look into what style of music it was, and that's when I discovered Synthwave. I was instantly fascinated and had to try and make some myself.
One of the things I love about Vampire Step-Dad is the concept, the idea that the music is made by the protagonist in an Alf-like sitcom. How did you come up with that?
Well, I knew I needed something really original. At first I was thinking of a "name" style ..um...name, like "Skip Tracer" or something like that, but I realize it had two flaws: 1. It was already taken by a country band 2. Personal names are easily forgotten. "Was it Chip Tracker? Skip Lazer? I know it was a name of some sort..." So I had to avoid that route. The most important thing to me was that it screamed "80s" all on it's own. There was plenty of trope names already, nights, neon, lazer, miami...it had all been done to death. And on top of that I've never really been able to take myself too seriously, so I didn't want to try to put on airs of badassness.
So I thought hard about what I experienced the most out of the 80s. For me, it was the TV shows. I loved 80s action movies, but if I'm honest, most of what I watched was family sitcoms. Cosby Show, Family Ties, Alf, as you mentioned. So I knew I wanted to go that route. Expounding on this, the 80's had a lot of non-nuclear families, like My Two Dads and Three Men and a Baby. So that was another facet that said "80s" to me. And LASTY, you know... monsters.
Zombies are overdone, werewolf didn't roll of the tongue very well, and Frankenstein's Monster would leave you too limited. So, Vampire + Step-Dad. It fit all my needs. It sounded 80s. It was memorable, because it makes you immediately start imaging what he'd look like and what situations that could cause. And it aligned with my sense of humor very well. Of course, I didn't realize "Stepdad" is the proper way to spell it until after I got my logo designed, so I had to embrace my own idiocy and run with the dash. (Yeah, that's right, dad jokes. brace yourself.)
You explore different aspects of '80s pop culture in your music. Is this a conscious part of your creative process, or something that emerges organically?
Very, very conscious. My attraction to synthwave is all about the nostalgia. I totally respect the guys making old sound new (like Carpenter Brut) but for me, I want to sound like someone forgot to release the soundtrack to an old movie you've not seen before. Also, with the way I write, sporadically and with no real theme, it serves me well to just go with what's inspiring me at the moment, and see where it takes me. This is why it surprises me when people say my release have any sort of coherence. But hey, I'm not going to argue with anyone that's liking my stuff. But yes, ultimately, I want the first few chords of a song to scream "THIS IS AN 80S SONG! GET IT? DOESN'T THIS FEEL SOOO 80S?" Some people think this is a path that leads to a dead end, but oh well. Maybe I'll shift gears when I feel like it. Right now: EIGHTIES.
When I first heard "Green Berets for Breakfast," I felt like it was straight out of a Stallone and Schwarzenegger buddy flick that was never made, but should have been. A live action Contra. Or Ikari Warriors.
Which version? Original, or Redux? "Berets" was on my first EP, and the response I got with it was very lackluster. But I knew I had something good there. The original has a very slow start, and doesn't do anything special for a good long time, so I can totally understand why people moved on from it. But I new it deserved better, so I revamped it for my second release, Sweater Weather. I gave it a much more powerful open, I sped it up just a tad, and I threw in some new synth solos, to really drive the point home that this is all about badass sweaty dudes with camo paint on their faces. I grew up in a military family loving action movies, so I spent plenty of time running through the woods playing "army" so I knew I wanted to make a track worthy of being in Commando. Man I love that movie.
"Redux!" That was the first time I heard your music, and the Commando vibe is unmistakable. I'm still waiting for the VSD ode to Predator, though. You could call it "Get to the Choppah."
No, I think I'd call it "Puddle of Mud" just to throw people off.
Another thing I enjoy about your music is that it doesn't align neatly with any one of synthwave's dominant tropes, like "retro cyberpunk" or "teen romance." Instead you cover a range of references and approaches, even on a single release. At the same time, there's an unmistakable VSD sound. Conveying a range of aesthetic interests while cultivating a signature sound is no easy task. How do you pull it off?
Completely by accident. I'm not "aligned with a trope" because I can't be that consistent. I rarely sit down and go "OK, I'm going to write an action song!" Cause it always comes out forced. Most of the time I fiddle through presets for an hour until something grabs me, then I build on that. A lot of the time it feels like the song itself wants to be something. Like I'm just digging up something that already exists. I often just feel like I'm along for the ride. A few months ago I noticed I had a few songs and ideas that feel along two paths, so I thought to myself "I can make these two EPs, and actually have a themed EP! Like the pros do! SO I continued with that plan, but I've been stuck for a month now cause saying "I need to write this kind of song" to fill out an EP has me sapped for motivation. My brain has a really hard time working that way. The fact that I have a "sound" is immensely gratifying to hear, as I think most artists are unable to really know what their sound is, or even if they have one. The way people hear your music can be completely different than what you intended.
A lot of our readers are fans of science fiction, fantasy, role-playing games--you know, geek culture in general. And synthwave arguably fits into that category too. How would you describe the connection between this music and broader geek culture? In general or in specific reference to your own music.
You know, I've always felt like geek culture, and this is especially true today, is not so much a discrete culture, but just pop culture in overdrive. Anyone can enjoy a good sci-fi movie, but we're the ones that want to fully understand the universe it's set in, and create a board game, a graphic novel series, and a pen and paper RPG set in it. We want to bathe in it. In the same way, synthwave is just the 80s in overdrive. We're not actually interested in recreating the REAL 1980s. We want to recreate what our memories tell us it was. The distilled, hyperreal version of the 80s. And a lot of sci-fi and fantasy is similar. Look at Blade Runner. There's not a normal street in the whole movie. Everything is wet and lit by neon. People are holding umbrellas with fluorescent lights in them. It's ridiculous, but we love it. So synthwave has that same feel. Soaked in aesthetic. Just drenched with it. And of course, it's also referencing all those movies to, so it has a doubling down effect.
What other groups or artists are you into these days?
Hello Meteor is my go to. When I don't know quite what I want to listen to, but I know I want it to be good, Hello Meteor is it.
I'm obsessed with Oscillian's Shakedown EP. It's like he mainlined Harold Faltermeyer, and it's just so perfect. And Brandon is another one I listen to a lot lately. His debut EP, Neon Haze, is a ridiculously good foot to start on. He's got great songwriting skills, not to mention his production is stellar.
How about your upcoming projects—I think I heard something about a Valentine's Day release...
Yes, I've got a romance themed EP, set to come out in time for VD Day. V Day. Sorry. I've got another one after that that I'm pretty excited about. Not to say I'm not excited about the V Day EP, I'm just stuck working on it right now, so I'm less happy with it.
For all the fellow producers out there, I've got to ask: what kind of gear/software do you use?
I use Reaper for my DAW. Got tired of paying for Pro Tools over and over again and checked out Reaper and was blown away. Never looked back. I use pretty much all stock plugins for mixing, save reverbs. The stock plugins in Reaper sound great and are easy to use. You can actually get them as a free plugin suite if you're on PC. Use them in whatever VST supporting DAW you want.
I work entirely in the box. Software synths, drum samples, amp simulators. I actually have my DAW set up within Dropbox so I can hop between my desktop and my laptop seamlessly. I can start writing a song while on the train, and then when I get home, I can hop on my desktop and it's right there, just as it was on my laptop. It's a pretty awesome workflow. If this intrigues anyone, feel free to find me and ask questions.
My favorite softsynths are Synth1, and OP-X Pro II. Synth1 is free, and the stock bank is cheesy, so a lot of people write it off, but it's so easy to work with once you understand the signal flow, and I've been able to make some great sounds with it. OP-X Pro II is an Oberheim ripoff, and it sounds great, and has a million amazing presets to start from. So good for basses and leads. They sound huge.
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POSTED BY: The G--purveyor of nerdliness, genre fanatic and Nerds of a Feather founder/administrator, since 2012.
People have different reactions to political trauma: some get depressed; others get angry; and others try to pick up the pieces and move on. In my case, it's a combination of all of the above, and making sense of that can be challenging. Now, as you are all surely aware, this blog is dedicated to nerdery not politics; when we do get political, it's typically in the context of fandom politics, or the politics of specific works of fiction--both of which can be divisive and heated enough. Even still, like many people (including many whose preferences are strikingly different from my own), I see a deep and foreboding storm brewing--not just in the US, but globally. And to make sense of that, I turn to my favorite media: music, books and film. Thus, without further ado, I present you six pieces of music that have helped me make sense of our world's darker tones (with a Spotify megamix at the end).
1. Makeup and Vanity Set. Wilderness [Telefuture, 2015]
My favorite album of 2015, Wilderness is a sprawling double album of remarkable cohesion, which manages to sound both '80s retro yet also extremely current. As Black Book describes, this album feels as if it was "specifically written for warm weather night drives towards the end of the world." There are foreboding truths encoded in Wilderness, yet also a glimmer of hope and humanity amid the crushing darkness. Buy. Stream.
2. Cybotron. Enter [Fantasy, 1983]
Though known primarily as the world's first techno record, Enter is also a powerful and frequently surprising meditation on automation, corporatization and postindustrial decline of the American Dream. Produced at the same moment in time, this album has a startling affinity with William Gibson's cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer. And like that work, Enter simultaneously reminds you that the anxieties we feel today are not new. Nor, however, have they been resolved. Buy. Stream.
3. Wolves in the Throne Room. Celestial Lineage [Southern Lord, 2011]
Black metal is an acquired taste that few people acquire: its beats are too fast, its vocals too much of a shriek, and its thematic obsessions with satanism and vikings a bit too...uh, yeah. But Wolves in the Throne Room are not your typical black metal band. Their music is majestic, epic and deeply evocative, and their music manages to evoke both the immensity and timelessness of nature and the deep threat to it posed by modernity. This is both dystopian and utopian music at the same time. Buy. Stream.
4. Pink Floyd. The Wall [Columbia, 1979]
The story of a isolated, psychologically-abused child who grows up to become a celebrity-cum-fascist. Buy. Stream.
5. Joy Division. Closer [Factory, 1979]
An apocalyptic masterpiece, arresting in minimal glory from start to finish. Quite possibly my favorite album of all time, and one that is also frighteningly prescient. Take, for example, these lyrics from album closer, "Decades": We knocked on the doors of Hell's darker chamber/Pushed to the limit, we dragged ourselves in. Buy. Stream.
6. Mos Def. Black on Both Sides [Rawkus, 1999]
A piece of music intrinsically concerned not only with oppressive politics, but with the everyday dystopias that most of us internalize. Unlike some of the other selections on this list, however, Black on Both Sides is not bleakly pessimistic, but rather affirmational. Those of us privileged enough to be new to dystopia clearly have a thing or two to learn from those with more experience of it. Buy. Stream.
