#synthwave sunday

Halloween is this week, so I’m going to plug my Synthtober playlist!

Maybe this is cheating because it’s not 100% synthwave- there are some synthpop and electro tracks in here as well. But I made sure they were all sufficiently spooky.

The playlist includes artists such as Dance With The Dead, Carpenter Brut, The Midnight, and Caspro, who is also the artist behind this great cover of Spooky Scary Skeletons (included in the playlist of course):

This week I’d like to highlight Dead Girls Don’t Dance by NIGHTSTOP:

The song shares its name with its source album, Dead Girls Don’t Dance. I discovered this album yesterday and have had it on loop ever since. I was previously familiar with this artist, NIGHTSTOP, as a synthwave producer, but this album explores other genres as well, dipping into electro, industrial, and jumpstyle. It’s all very diverse and stylish.

This song stood out to me in particular, not just because it’s my favorite on the album, but I was surprised by the vocals being provided via Vocaloid. I think this might be first time I’ve encountered a synthwave artist utilizing Vocaloid in this manner, and I think it suits the album quite well.

The band has confirmed that Vocaloid is used in this song, but I can’t exactly tell which one it is. I think it’s Miku and at least one other; probably Luka? But it’s hard to tell. Maybe someone with a more discerning ear can figure it out.

Anyway. This was my reaction upon listening to this song for the first time.

This week I want to highlight a whole album, UNICORN by GUNSHIP:

First off, the mashup of references to different cyberpunk/sci-fi media is front and center in this album's marketing. (It was released just a few days ago, on September 29th). Gunship definitely wasn't shy about making allusions to cyberpunk in their previous albums, and they really leaned into it in this new one. I think it's fun.

Seeing the album art, I immediately thought, "that has to be a Blade Runner reference, right?" It seems like my suspicions were correct, if the album's announcement trailer is anything to go on:

(The origami unicorn from the ending of the movie, for reference:)

There's a ton of other little references to other sci-fi media throughout the album, too. One of the song titles is a WH40K reference, and I caught a reference to Portal in one of the songs as well. There's probably more than I noticed on an initial listen, they're like little easter eggs. Maybe it's a little campy, yeah, but I think it's fun.

I'm having trouble picking my favorite song off the album, so I'll talk about a few.

If you pay attention to the posts I make about music, you probably know I like Carpenter Brut. I was pretty excited to see that they collaborated with Gunship in this album. The song they collaborated on, DooM Dance, is a direct reference to DOOM, of course. Fitting for Carpenter Brut.

Another favorite artist of mine, HEALTH, collaborated with Gunship as well, in the song Blood for the Blood God:

I wasn't expecting a song featuring HEALTH to be so dancey, but I think it works really well. This whole album as a whole is much dancier and upbeat than Gunship's previous albums, in my opinion. Their second album, Dark All Day, is much more gloomy in comparison, for example.

I also noticed that the album contains a sequel to a song from their very first album Gunship, Tech Noir:

The song is somber and slow, evoking visions of fleeing from a city on fire. The sequel, Tech Noir 2, is much more hopeful in comparison:

Tech Noir 2 urges the listener to persevere, and to rebuild something new from the ashes.

"My son, the gift of survival is yours. Please, may you never submit. There will be more."

Overall, I was blown away by this album. It's been a while since I found an album that made me this excited. I think I'll be listening to it for a while. It's a fun, catchy, energetic love letter to the cyberpunk genre. Hopefully I've my scattered ramblings have convinced you to give it a listen, haha.

I'm going to cheat and feature a song by The Midnight for the second time in a row, because this one has been stuck in my head for well over a week.

"Neon Medusa" is from The Midnight's album, Horror Show. The whole album is full of chilling, ghostly synthwave and it's very much worth a listen.

This song ended up getting stuck in my head because I thought the lyrics were particularly evocative. I especially love the phrase "A neon Medusa's got your heart". It makes me think of something being so captivating that it immobilizes you completely, turning your heart to stone.

This week I'm highlighting Days of Thunder by The Midnight:

I've listened to a few of The Midnight's songs before, but recently I decided to do a deep dive into them and found a couple of new songs I really liked. My favorite is Days of Thunder; it's super catchy and the saxophone solo gave me chills the first time I heard it. I might feature a few more of The Midnight's songs in the future, because they've grown on me quite a bit.

This week I'm not highlighting a single song, but a whole playlist!

I noticed that a lot of songs in my synthwave collection mimic the music used in those old dance workout videos from the 80's, so I collected them into a playlist:

I also put songs in this playlist that aren't exercise-related per se, but have similar rhythms and upbeat vibes.

It's been a while. I haven't forgotten about this project, and I'd like to keep making posts while I'm able. I might not be able to post every Sunday going forward, but I'll try my best!

This week I'm highlighting Power Fighter 3000 by Isidor:

I discovered this album, Lord of Synth, recently, and was blown away. It combines a lot of different styles (this song in particular leans more towards electronic, I think), but they're all unified by their heavy use of synth, which I quite enjoy. I suppose it's befitting of the title!

I'll post a new favorite song of mine soon!

This week I’d like to highlight Julienne by Duett:

I like this song because I found the lyrics particularly striking in a personal way. I first heard this song during a very chaotic time in my life; I was about to graduate college, and things were not working out the way I had planned. However these lines from the song struck a chord with me:

It’s only one year Time flies by Look at me and know that You’ll be fine

I was paralyzed by the idea of not knowing where I would be in the future. However the line “You’ll be fine” was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment. I eventually decided that I should worry less about accomplishing my goals as fast as possible and focus on doing things at my own pace.

It’s a bit silly that I got all of that from one line in a song, but music is just like that sometimes, I suppose.