All things pop, rock, electronic….
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I just wanted to remind you that this month Sunglasses Kid will be releasing the sequel to his album IA, titled Internal Affairs: Diplomatic Immunity.
P.S. Can’t wait!))
Great news. Internal Affairs may be on my Top 5 album list of all times, no less.
Hoping for a CD, not just download.
I’ll try asking him about it, but he’s like Sylvester Levay – he might take a long time to answer, or sometimes not answer at all!…)))
Here’s another great album from Max Cruise: Neon Vice. It’s also very 80s and cinematic!
Glad you’re latching on to synthwave, Ruslan! It’s a rabbit hole to get lost in, for sure, but in a positive way. I mentiond Waveshaper to you earlier (my favourite synthwaver), hope you got to check him out. Or the other major acts of the genre.
I think once you have proper overview of the actual synth music from the 70s, 80s and 90s – which I know you have – you can start exploring all these new synthwave artists that pay tribute to the periods. It’s very rewarding, as they add a certain ‘oomph’ and smoothness to the retro stylings. I think darkwave is my favourite sub genre of synthwave, if I were to pick just one.
I was curious if any of you are familiar with Shpongle – the electronica duo spearheaded by Simon Posford?
I came to them in the mid 2000s when I started to seriously explore psychedelic trance, but at first, I was taken aback by their laidback style — something very different than the hardhitting grooves of acts like Juno Reactor or Infected Mushroom. Closer to ambient, in fact. But then I learned that the psytrance genre roomed many different things, including the crossover sub genre “psybient”. Well, I’ve arrived at them now, in my seemingly neverending collection walkthrough, all seven albums that I own, and it’s a great revisit as always. Sumptous depth, hypnotic textures, almost loungey. Favourite album is a toss-up between NOTHING LASTS BUT NOTHING IS LOST (2005) and their debut album ARE YOU SHPONGLED? from 1998.
Yes, he’s a multi-talented fellow. Of course, he also his other project Hallucinogen, which is more traditional psytrance. I love the classic TWISTED album from ’95, a cornerstone of the genre, but less thrilled with the follow-up THE LONE DERANGER.
He’s credited with two short film scores and one feature film score on IMDB (A WOMAN CALLED JOB from 2014). If they’re correct, I’d love to check them out – he would be perfectly suited for cinema.
It was Jon who alerted me to Sunglasses Kid, and I have to thank him for it. I have this album, as well as SOPHOMORE and NIGHT LIFE, and they’re all great (the instrumental versions, the song versions aren’t quite there). Great synthwave. Hope he gets to do a film score some day.
I haven’t heard Graduation and Sophomore much, I thought they were in another style with vocals.
I also highly recommend Internal Affairs.
SK worked with Balfe on BHC4.
I haven’t heard Graduation and Sophomore much, I thought they were in another style with vocals.
There are two versions, with and without vocals. The instrumental versions are far superior.
There is a tiny, tiny chance that I get to interview Daniel Lopatin when he visits Oslo in early April to hold a concert. So I’ve started to explore his non-film work. Quite interesting. Vaporwave, hypnagogic pop, whatever you want to call it. An extension of noise music and ambient, perhaps. I want to hear some of those beautiful Vangelis or Tangerine Dream elements he incorporates into his film scores, but so far haven’t quite heard that yet.
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”.
He, he. Sort of, I guess.
But then again, ‘imaginary soundtracks’ aren’t really a new thing. Brian Eno’s MUSIC FOR FILMS album, for example, and that’s as far back as 1978.
I did eventually find out that it’s the composer Andy Fosberry who’s the brain behind the project.
In today’s AI age you are lucky that there is actually a composer behind an “imaginary soundtrack” at all 😉
Though at least there was no fake backstory behind Eno’s “Music for Films”.
True, he was more straight-up about it.
To be fair, I did a lot of this myself in my young years. Created comic book characters, short stories and novels and even back stories to games I was playing (like one for the manager I played in CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER, he, he). But I grew up. It’s really something I associate with childhood and adolescence.
And I really think these albums could have stood on their own legs. Everybody knows that synthwave is a genre that points back to the 80s. There’s no need for this extra ‘imaginary reality’ thing.
Oh well, no big deal. At least it’s better than A.I., as Malte says.
I don’t see any issue with the creation of fake scores for nonexusting movies.
Like you said, Thor. It has that juvenile flair of that alternate fan universe, kind of a genre tribute.
Why not?What was Joel McNeely’s Shadows of the Empire different than a fan’s soundtrack for a non-existing movie?
In the composer thread on JWFan.com Fans are sharing excerpts of their scores for imaginary movies all the time. What’s the problem?
It’s a little bit like these old science fiction illustrations for stories never told. In art there should be room for such stuff.
SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE was based on a book.
I mean, it’s not a big problem or anything. It’s just that, in the case of synthwave, there’s really no need for the juvenile extra layer of imaginary realities. The whole of synthwave is really one big imaginary reality.
I’m not a big fan of that Gorillaz band that Damon Albarn spearheads either, a virtual band. But at least there’s no pretense there. It’s the pretense that irritates me a bit, I think, and that you have to dig really hard to find the actual people who made it.
It’s all about inspiration and what the music is supposed to induce in your head.
Since people reportedly listen to soundtracks sometimes to revisit the respetive movies in their head, why not indicate “here is the soundtrack of such a movie. Now you can associate the imaginary movie in your head.
I suppose there’s a market for that. I try to disassociate myself from the film as much as possible when I listen to soundtracks. Even real soundtracks.
I try to disassociate myself from the film as much as possible when I listen to soundtracks. Even real soundtracks.
Ok. Unlike you I am still member of that pre-visual-home-media- pre-VHS generation for which a soundtrack album was the only way to revisit your favourite movies (apart from books). That might explain that slightly different connection. 🙂
I try to treat albums as such too when listening but I am never able to disassociate it totally. Given that I actually saw the movie which as for many of use is not always the case certainly.
I do admit it’s tricky to listen to, say, STAR WARS or JURASSIC PARK without having some form of filmic connection in my head, but I think I’ve managed quite well over the years. I’m now at a point where I can listen to anything – even scores to movies I’ve seen countless times – and just let it be about the music, and my own personal imagery.
The less famous the movie and the less familiar one is with it the easier the disconnection works indeed.
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