Synthwave – Page 12 – 7th Level Music

Rewind Review: The KVB – Unity (2021)

Kat Day and Nicholas Wood, otherwise known as The KVB, released their Unity album around Thanksgiving Day in 2021 as the world was undergoing separation from a lot of relatives and friends. People were missing each other, missing connections, conversations, coffee dates, and control over, well, anything in and around their lives.

Unity, with its striking cover image of giant, linked circles at the edge of a cold mountain lake, explores these themes. Even the opening instrumental track, “Sunrise Over Concrete” symbolizes hope in bleak times. “Unité” bounces and bumps with krautrock beats and called for all of us to meet at the club once the pandemic was over. I read that “Unbound” (Becoming free of the shackles of lockdown, one’s ego, or both?) harkened back to classic Slowdive and Ride tracks, and I don’t think I can put it any better than that. The dual vocals are the Slowdive part, and the soaring guitar solo is the Ride part.

Day’s breathy vocals on “Future” are an interesting new touch than I’ve heard from her before as she sings about the uncertain future ahead of her, and I suppose the rest of us. A lot of Unity was written in 2019, so the pandemic wasn’t yet here, but one can’t help thinking that The KVB had a crystal ball and saw it coming when you hear tracks like this.

“Blind” is the longest track on the album (5:35), and I’m happy for it, because Kat Day’s thick synth-bass alone could just play the entire time and I’d be delighted. The whole track is downright sexy and a bit menacing…which makes it sexier. The build-up on “Ideal Living” is outstanding. It takes its time in the first minute to get to the dance beats, which I’m sure fill the floor wherever they play. “World on Fire” was the first single from the album and it was a good choice with its bright synths, anime chase scene beats, and a guitar solo that sounds like it was played in orbit.

The synths on “Structural Index” intertwine like crystal formations and almost seem to be playing in a different song than the guitar chords. Trust me, it works. “Lumens” is, appropriately, bright and sunny. I can’t help but wonder if the closer, “Omni,” is named after the great science magazine published by Kathy Keeton and Bob Guccione. The sound of it fits in with Omni‘s science fiction-meets-paranormal aesthetic, as does all of The KVB’s work.

The album came out at the right time for a lot of people, giving them something to dance to in their living rooms or to spin while sipping tea and looking out their windows at a world that was pretty much losing its mind. It encouraged all of us to hang in there a while longer, as the reunion would be great.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Rich Aucoin – Synthetic – A Synth Odyssey: Season 2

Rich Aucoin has one of those hobbies that I might have if I won some massive Powerball jackpot. He collects and plays vintage synthesizers and puts the results onto albums like Synthetic – A Synth Odyssey: Season 2.

You know you’re in for something special as soon as the first notes of “Wav” start playing from a 1939 Hammond Novachord (considered the first analog synthesizer) and the stacking, beautiful beats begin to lift your heart. It sounds like Fatboy Slim could’ve recorded this yesterday, but he didn’t and he’s probably wishing he could raid Aucoin’s storage facility as a result. “Shift” definitely shifts the feel of the record, sounding like the music you’d hear as you race alongside a magnetic track bullet train on your personal hover-bike in the year 3023.

Aucoin’s label describes “Pure” as sounding like 1990s French house music, and I’m not sure I can describe it any better than that. It’s a delightfully fun track. “Space” does indeed send you out of orbit and toward a distant nebula full of stars and growing planets. “Tech Noir” gets a bit symphonic, and, by the way, uses the same EMS VCS3 Prototype (on the cover, fourth column, four down from the top) used on Dark Side of the Moon.

“Roger Luther” is named after (and played on) the Moog synthesizer (on the cover, third column, second one down from the top) that’s named after a Moog employee who eventually became the company’s general manager. It peppy and a bit dangerous, reminding me of some darker Devo tracks.

“Lyra” has kind of a hip-hop sound to its beats and synth bass (and vocal loop). “Prophet” is at first what Pimpbot-3000 plays on his Sony Walkman as he struts down the street, and then it blooms into a video game hero’s anthem. The closing track, “Liminal,” is a subtle one that helps you slowly float back down to Earth and leaves you feeling a bit giddy and warm afterwards…like good sex.

It’s a neat project and a neat record, and Aucoin makes all these vintage synths sound like they’re brand new.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jessica at Ramp Global PR.]

Review: Ladytron – Time’s Arrow

Returning with their first full-length album in four years, Ladytron are back with their distinctive style of electro-pop music with Time’s Arrow – an album that, like most of their catalogue, hypnotizes you into an altered state and also makes you want to dance at the same time.

“City of Angels” might be about Los Angeles, but it seems more about a city inhabited by beings of light to which Ladytron can readily travel through their use of heavenly synths, electronic beats, and ghost-like vocals. “Faces come from yesterday and arrive tomorrow,” sing Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo on “Faces” – a song about how people drift in and out of our lives and how we struggle at times to remember them. “Misery Remember Me” is flat-out beautiful with soaring synths and vocals that sounds like they’re bouncing up from a canyon at sunset.

On “Flight from Ankor,” Aroyo sings above shimmering synths about waking from a dream and realizing that the life around her is just as incredible as the dream. “I hear whispers on the wire,” Marnie sings on “We Never Went Away,” a dreamy reassurance to their fans that is a little bittersweet now since one of the band’s founding members, Reuben Wu, left the band earlier this year to focus on his photography and fine art. “The Night” brings the pop to their electro-pop with snappy beats that melt into “The Dreamers,” a darker synthwave track that might have you folding up an origami unicorn.

“Sargasso Sea” sounds exactly like you think it should: Floating synths, seagull calls, bubbling bass, and siren vocals. “California” is possibly a callback to “City of Angels,” and is a song about how the state is a mix of luxury, mystery, and misery. The title track ends the album and has a bold, almost off-Broadway brashness to it with its thudding percussion and swaggering vocals.

Time’s Arrow is a nice return for Ladytron, whose synthwave seduction is always welcome.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Sound Cipher – All That Syncs Must Diverge

What do you get when Tim Alexander (on percussion) of Primus and Skerik (on saxophones and synths) of Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade have a jam session one night and later invite bassist and synth-player Timm Mason from Wolves in the Throne Room to the party? You get something that sounds like Neu! mixed with Aphex Twin. You get Sound Cipher.

Their debut album, All That Syncs Must Diverge, is a wild mix of electronica, pulsing beats, saxophone skronks, and glitchy android synths. “Grind Incursion” is the sound of panic in a robot disco. “Ransomwar” reminds you of faraway desert oasis fires and beautiful dancing maidens…and all of it is a slightly unnerving hologram. The way Alexander’s percussion drifts into “Church Turing” and slowly takes over the song like dusk turning to night is a cool effect.

“Permissive Action Link” starts the second half of the album with bad-ass synth bass and growling percussion that will inspire you to throw on a black faux-leather coat and ride a futuristic motorcycle fitted with flame throwers and rockets into a post-nuclear war wasteland in order to rescue someone lovely from a band of mutants. “God Mode” is the song that plays when that quest takes a strange turn after you accidentally fall into a missile silo that’s now used as an underground temple for a strange cult that worships the AI computer that started the war. The song rolls straight into “Entropy Pool,” threatening to pull you down into an even deeper abyss, but showing you a way out of it: a pulsing light in the distance and the sounds of tribal drumming and smoky saxophone reminding you of the lovely companion you came here to rescue. It won’t be an easy climb out of the old missile silo, but it can be done. It must be done.

So, yeah, All That Syncs Must Diverge is pretty much the soundtrack to a cool 1980s European post-apocalyptic / future dystopia film you found one night while scrolling through a weird Roku channel. I hope this project isn’t just a one-off thing. I’d love to hear more from them.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Kevin at Royal Potato Family.]

Review: Bodywash – I Held the Shape While I Could

The title of Bodywash‘s new record, I Held the Shape While I Could, is a perfect summary of how it feels to be barely holding your life together and then finally, sometimes blissfully, being able to drop that façade when you’re alone and just cry your eyes out.

The record was made as both Rosie Long Decter and Chris Steward were coming out points in their lives that had resulted in dissatisfaction, alienation, boredom, and heartbreak. Opening track “In As Far” sets up a major theme of the album (breaking through ennui by being willing to face it head-on) with Steward’s synths that burst open like the sun through clouds. “Picture Of” has Decter reminiscing about a past lover and how sometimes the memory is better than the relationship truly was (“You were hard to believe, asking everything close. You were hard to prove. Something to see and not know.” / “I decide to lie and wait, picture of desire in a frame.”)

“Massif Central” is Steward’s buzzing shoegaze tale of losing his Canadian work status in 2020 due to a typographical error, thus leaving him alienated and unemployed just as we were all hearing the early warnings of the pandemic. “Bas Relief” is an instrumental, sounding like ocean waves and wind and some kind of early 1990s mall music tape that’s been left near a space heater.

Steward sings about trying to fit in as half-Japanese, half-British (“To feel half is not to feel whole.”) and Canadian. “Kind of Light” is about Decter trying to fit in after after the end of a relationship while others are enjoying love around her (“Pull back all the ways you count her gone. Spend a year living trying to hold yourself to a certain kind of light.”)

“One Day Clear” is almost a spoken word piece as Decter tells a lonely tale and Steward plays simple, hypnotic, looping synths behind her. “Sterilizer” is a tale full of bright shoegaze guitars while discussing the idea trying to make a relationship work, but knowing, in your heart, that, while it feels good now, it’s probably going to make both of you bitter in the long run (“We talk inside of swallowed pride, still I warm your sleep tonight.”).

“Dessents” floats right into the snappy, electro-thumping “Ascents” – which is a lovely song about Decter and Steward’s friendship forged even harder during their long drives to gigs while working out their relationship woes. The shimmering sound and wispy vocals on “Patina” (another song about moving past an ended relationship) remind one of some Besnard Lakes tracks, which isn’t surprising when you consider that Jace Lasek from The Besnard Lakes recorded and mixed the album.

Decter is at least in the process of healing by the time we get to “No Repair.” Her vocals are a bit melancholy, but her voice doesn’t seem to be carrying as much weight, and the instrumentation behind her helps rejuvenate her and us. Lyrics like “And sometimes when I’m quiet and alone, I need no repair. If this is as far as it goes, write it in handfuls of air. You were there.”

That’s a lovely lyric to end a lovely album.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Sound Cipher release “Grid Incursion” ahead of their debut album due April 21, 2023.

Sound Cipher is the surreal, pulsating audio vision shared by three of modern music’s most uncompromising sound sculptors. It’s the sort of thing that emerges when Tim Alexander (Primus, Puscifer, A Perfect Circle) finds himself inside a thunderous duo improvisation with Skerik (Critters Buggin, Garage A Trois, Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade) during a soundcheck for Primus’ Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory tour in Oakland CA. One person surrounded by a circular percussion station of preposterous proportions, another person hurling psychedelic saxophonic screams into the hellfire of analog and digital circuitry.

Skerik and Tim Alexander knew they were onto something. The first official Sound Cipher excursion was scheduled for January 2, 2017 at Studio Litho in Seattle WA with Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Six Organs of Admittance, Akron/Family) at the production helm. He would bring aboard Timm Mason (Master Musicians Of Bukkake, Wolves In The Throne Room, Eyvind Kang & Jessica Kenney, Jóhann Jóhannsson) to assist with modular synth processing during this first session, generally a technical advisory role involving lab coats and clipboards and chin-scratching. The participants arrived and were surprised to find Mason setting up in the live room instead of the control room. As the recording unfolded, Mason’s direct in-the-moment sonic manipulation of the proceedings made it clear that he belonged at the creative core of the project where he remains today.

Listeners and innocent bystanders have reported spiritual resemblances to the experimental German scene of the ’70s with traces of Can, Faust, Neu and early Kraftwerk, the dark manic rumble of Peter Gabriel‘s early work and the complex digital hardcore first birthed by Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, all of it wrapped in an unsettling atmosphere that verily reeks of familiar ingredients: a tumbling machine-tight groove, a wash of analog synths direct from your midnight movie memories, a snippet from your grandpa’s old Louis Armstrong records stretched across miles of fizzling voltage and contorted into barely recognizable and altogether quite mind-altering new shapes.

Initial plans to release the 2017 session as Sound Cipher’s unveiling were revised when the trio found a new level of clarity in shaping their ideas following a series of live performances in 2018. Further recording and mixing took place in 2018 at Avast Studios, also in Seattle. Now, six years after that initial studio date, the finest flowers from those multiple sessions are available to adventurous listeners everywhere in the form of Sound Cipher’s debut LP, All That Syncs Must Diverge, to be released April 21, 2023 on vinyl and digital formats via Royal Potato Family. The opening track “Grid Incursion” (listen/share) is out today on all streaming platforms. In addition, Sound Cipher will reconvene for three live sonic adventures in accordance with the album’s release.

SOUND CIPHER
All That Syncs Must Diverge

Track Listing:
1. Grid Incursion
2. Ransomwar
3. Church Turing
4. Permissive Action Link
5. God Mode
6. Entropy Pool

Out April 21 On Vinyl & Digital Music Platforms
Pre-Order / Pre-Save Here

Album Release Shows

April 21 – Seattle WA – Clock-Out Lounge
April 22 – Portland OR – Star Theater
April 24 – Livestream – Nugs.net

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Kevin at Royal Potato Family.]

Nuovo Testamento release new album, “Love Lines,” and tour dates.

Press Photo By Yvette Aispuro & Silvia Polmonari

Los Angeles / Bologna based trio, Nuovo Testamento, has taken over dance floors with their uniquely dark Italo disco-flavored pop hits in just a few years. Following the release of the coldwave cult hit Exposure EP back in 2019 (Avant! Records), their acclaimed full-length New Earth exploded onto the scene with its graceful 1980s-influenced club elements, contagious rhythms and a powerful punch of synth-pop. The release was widely considered across genres to be one of 2021’s best underground albums of the year.

Today they return with the release of their highly anticipated second LP, Love Lines, on which Nuovo Testamento continue to explore the light, the dark and exultant personal power in what will undoubtedly become an instant dance classic.

Love Lines is an album about proof of life and the joy of survival. Vibrant with Italo disco and Hi-NRG celebration, the record invokes a sense of motion in an often stagnant time and place. Inside the eight new tracks, rich synthesizers and driving percussion testify to the need for movement, connection and autonomy.

Produced by sound engineer Maurizio Baggio (Boy Harsher, The Soft Moon)with vocal recording by Riki, Love Lines is reminiscent of the work of Shep Pettibone, Chris Barbosa and serves as a reminder of the power of pop music.

Nuovo Testamento includes members of hardcore and dark punk royalty Tørsö, Horror Vacui, Crimson Scarlet and touring members of Sheer Mag. In May the trio hit the road on an extensive North American tour supporting Molchat Doma; see below for a full list of dates.

Love Lines is out today via Discoteca Italia – purchase here.

Nuovo Testamento Live Dates:

Mar 24: San Diego, CA – The Whistle Stop
Mar 26: Ft Collins, CO – The Coast
Mar 29: Milwaukee WI – X-Ray Arcade
Mar 30: Chicago, IL – Riviera Theater ~
Mar 31: Detroit, MI – St Andrews Hall ~
Apr 01: Toronto, ON – Phoenix Concert Hall ~
Apr 02: Montreal, QC – M Telus ~
Apr 04: Boston, MA – Roadrunner ~
Apr 06: Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer ~
Apr 07: New York, NY – Terminal 5 ~
Apr 08: Washington, DC – 9:30 Club ~
Apr 12: Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel ~
Apr 13: Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse ~
Apr 14: Orlando, FL – Plaza Live ~
Apr 15: Saint Petersburg, FL – Jannus Live ~
Apr 16: Ft Lauderdale, FL – Culture Room ~
Apr 19: Louisville, KY – Old Forester’s Paristown Hall ~
Apr 20: Nashville, TN – Eastside Bowl ~
Apr 21: St Louis, MO – The Factory ~
Apr 22: Kansas City, MO – The Truman ~
Apr 23: Oklahoma City, OK – Tower Theatre ~
Apr 25: New Orleans, LA – House of Blues ~
Apr 26: Houston, TX @ Bayou Music Center ~
Apr 27: San Antonio, TX – The Aztec Theater ~
Apr 28: Austin, TX – Stubb’s Amphitheater ~
Apr 29: Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom ~
May 01: El Paso, TX – Lowbrow Palace ~
May 02: Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre ~
May 04: Denver, CO – Ogden Theater ~
May 06: Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot ~
May 09: Boise, ID – Knitting Factory Concert House ~
May 11: Vancouver, BC – Harbour Event Centre ~
May 12: Seattle, WA – Showbox Sodo ~
May 13: Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom ~
May 16: Santa Cruz, CA – Catalyst ~
May 17: San Francisco, CA – The Warfield ~
May 18: Los Angeles, CA – TBA ~
May 19: Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren ~

~ w/ Molchat Doma

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Bailey at Another Side.]

Miss Grit assures us “Nothing’s Wrong” on their new single.

Miss Grit — the New York-based, Korean-American musician Margaret Sohn (they/she) — will release their debut album, Follow The Cyborg, February 24th via Mute. Leading into the release, Miss Grit has released a string of stunning singles, and today they reveal a new track, “Nothing’s Wrong.” There is a profound tenderness resonating throughout “Nothing’s Wrong.” A tone of lament seeps from Sohn’s vocals, as they sing “Nothing’s Wrong // And so I can’t feel, can’t hear, can’t figure out how to make things right // I’ll never know // Why I was built without a throat // So I can never stomach growth // Or see outside this world I know.” The song’s instrumentation is rich and immersive, with melancholy guitar and piano, ticking drums, and illustrious strings.

Listen to Miss Grit’s “Nothing’s Wrong”

Across Follow the Cyborg, Miss Grit pursues the path of a non-human machine, as it moves from its helpless origin to awareness and liberation. Miss Grit’s impetus to conceive an album about the life of a cyborg stems from their own connection to this way of existing. As a mixed-race, non-binary artist, Sohn has always rejected the limits of identity thrust upon them by the outside world, in favor of embracing a more fluid and complex understanding of the self. In their exploration of the life of a cyborg, they subtly and overtly refer to films, including Her, Ex Machina, and Ghost in the Shell, as well as essays by Jia Tolentino (from Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion) and Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto.

At times gentle and sparse, at others volatile and explosive, Follow the Cyborg occupies a sonic world of electronic experimentation and stirring electric guitars. It was recorded mostly in solitude in Sohn’s home studio, with the exception of a few guest collaborators joining: Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint, Aron Kobayashi Ritch of Momma, and Pearla.

“Nothing’s Wrong” is the follow-up to the “clearly anthemic” (FADER) “Lain (Phone Clone),” the “beguiling and elastic” (Stereogum) “Like You,” and the title track. Following the release of Follow The Cyborg, Miss Grit will play a pair of album release shows in New York and Los Angeles. Following, she’ll head down to SXSW (more details to come). Tickets for the release shows are on sale now.

Watch the “Follow the Cyborg” Video

Watch the “Like You” Lyric Video

Watch the “Lain (Phone Clone)” Video

Pre-order Follow the Cyborg

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Das Beat have the “Last Laugh” with their new single.

Berlin-based duo Das Beat, made up of Agor of Blue Hawaii & German actress Eddie Rabenberg, are today sharing their new single “Last Laugh“, which is out now via Arbutus Records. T

Speaking about the track, the band said “Who laughs last does not necessarily laugh the best. There’s always more to any situation than meets the eye and it’s hard to see it from any one perspective. The song plays with German sayings and inspires one to just let go and have fun.”

Listen to “Last Laugh” on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/9uu7eg9xTx4
Listen via other streaming services here:https://found.ee/583sb

Blending sounds of New Wave, Dark Disco, Indie, & Dance, their sound is unified by the vocals of Eddie Rabenberger, sung and belted in both German and English. Amidst the spirited lyrics lies a strong dancey pulse, pinning down the duo’s dreamy atmospherics, guitars and percussion.

The duo is half-Canadian and half-German. Dj Kirby (Blue Hawaii), moved to Berlin from Montreal in 2018. Eddie is a theatre actor originally from a small town in southern Germany. Together they find an alluring symbiosis – like Giorgio Moroder meets Nico, or Gina X Performance finds The Prodigy.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Mandy, Indiana return with a new single – “Injury Detail.”

Today, Manchester, UK-based band Mandy, Indiana return with new single, “Injury Detail,” via Fire Talk Records, their first new music since the release of 2021’s acclaimed ‘…’ EP. Mandy, Indiana – Valentine Caulfield (vocals/lyrics), Scott Fair (guitar/production), Simon Catling (synth) and Alex Macdougall (drums) – meld experimental noise and dance music, from drum machine snaps and pulsing bass to white noise and lo-fi scuff. Produced by Fair and Robin Stewart of Giant Swan, “Injury Detail” is a dramatic reintroduction, opening with a grand organ before morphing into a thumping dance track fit for a warehouse rave. “‘Injury Detail’ was inspired by the idea of being trapped in a liminal space, with the guitars creating a seemingly limitless and undefined landscape. The vocals act as a guide to possible salvation, or perhaps something of a more sinister intent,” explains Caulfield. The accompanying video was directed by Thomas Harrington Rawle.

Watch the Video for Mandy, Indiana’s “Injury Detail”

Formed out of the fertile Manchester independent scene, Mandy, Indiana generate a sound that is at once chaotic and precision engineered – abrasive beats and gnarled guitars sit in thickets of distortion around Caulfield’s commanding vocals sung in her native language, French. Their songs, which incorporate found samples and field recordings, are recorded in a variety of spaces, from rehearsal rooms and home studios to cavernous industrial mills and shopping malls. Mandy, Indiana’s first recordings emerged around 2019, culminating in their debut, 2021’s ‘…’ EP, which featured a heavy-hitting remix from Daniel Avery. Its single, “Bottle Episode,” was named a Best Song of 2021 by Pitchfork, who recognized the “perverse playfulness” of Caufield’s grim lyrics, and Paste, who hailed it “an exhilarating darkness for the bold to brave.” The EP also led to Stereogum naming Mandy, Indiana a Best New Band of 2021. Since then, they’ve become a live favorite in the UK, supporting the likes of Squid, IDLES, Gilla Band, Wet Leg, and SCALPING, along with festival appearances at Pitchfork Paris, End of the Road, and more. The band will be making their US debut at SXSW 2023 as part of the official lineup. “Injury Detail” is a taste of more music to come from Mandy, Indiana this year.

Listen to “Injury Detail”

Mandy, Indiana Tour Dates
Fri. Feb. 3 – Manchester, UK @ Yes
Sat. Feb. 4 – Birkenhead, UK @ Future Yard
Sun. Feb. 5 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
Fri. March 10 – Sun. March 19 – Austin, TX @ SXSW

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Ahmad at Pitch Perfect PR.]