[Thor Joachim Haga]

OK, this is a curious phenomenon that is worth talking about:

There is a particular – and in my opinion slightly irritating – aspect of synthwave that has to do with creating ‘alternate realities’ in which the albums take place. There’s this pretty widespread thing of creating fictional soundtracks for fictional films, by fictional artists. Sometimes, you have to dig really hard on the internet to find the REAL persons behind the projects.

One such example is the “artist” Turquoise Moon, who has released several albums on Bandcamp – many of them socalled lost and obscure “soundtracks” from the 80s. There’s even a backstory:

“Turquoise Moon were an American synth duo of Terry Ferrello and Frank Heisenberg, recording and releasing music from 1981 to ‘86. The pair met in ’81 while living in Mountain View, California, and working as game developers for Atari Inc. Here they discovered a shared fascination for synthesisers and drum machines that they cracked, modified and rebuilt. Choosing the name Turquoise Moon, the duo wrote instrumental music out of Frank’s basement, which they self released on cassette via independent stores and fanzines throughout the Bay Area during 1982.”

Of course, it’s all rubbish. Googling ‘real persons behind Turquise Moon’ just takes you to the fictional names behind the act. You have to dig even deeper. I did eventually find out that it’s the composer Andy Fosberry who’s the brain behind the project. Not very famous, but he did score that potboiler shark film INTO THE DEEP last year.

But anyway, if you look beyond that slightly childish ‘alternate reality’ thing, there’s actually some pretty cool music on these. Like the two MIDNIGHT DEMON “soundtracks”.