Some super-accessible pop, some more experimentally-leaning synthpop and more Digital Logic vaporwave.
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Category: Pop
Every side an A-side!
Hip-hop and post-punk synthpop: Ich habe der fahr’n fahr’n fahr’n auf der Autobahn blues.
I don’t often see it noted just what was happening with early hip-hop and English and European synthpop in and from the post-punk era. Hip-hop histories gloss over it, and the reconstructed histories of techno somehow jump straight from about 1988 back to Kraftwerk, as if all that stuff from 1978 to 1984 never happened.
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Reviews: Nápoles, Damsel in the Dollhouse, Digital Logic (2016).
So I use the Bandcamp new arrivals as a radio, so what, so should you. Jangly guitar indie, goth-industrial dance and some straight-up vaporwave.
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Links: Psychoacoustics for recording, blockchain band names, Dépèche Mode demos.
Scurvy recording trickery, scurvier buzzword-compliant scams and Dépèche Mode so too has the accents in.
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Reviews: Crack Cloud, Night Trap, Ivy Fae (2016).
Angular post-punk, synthpop and witch house with songs.
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“Oh, I already wrote the greatest pop song of the 21st century. Did that in 2006.” The National Pep.
Andrew Hickey reminisces on “Jaded” by The National Pep, from the EP Love Punks Want To Make You Cry.
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Theodor Adorno wrote all the Beatles’ songs as a Cultural Marxist assault on America. Possibly.
One of the finest conspiracy theories in popular culture is the claim that Theodor Adorno, a main figure in the Frankfurt School of “cultural Marxism” fame, secretly wrote all the Beatles’ songs.
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Reviews: Möss, Ladylike Lily, Faderhead (2016).
Soundscapes with songs, indie pop with synth and guitar, and industrial gone synthpop. Three excellent finds today.
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Spray: Living In Neon (reissue) (2002, 2016).
Spray’s first album Living In Neon from 2002, with a disc of new tracks, additional remixes, alternate versions and compilation appearances. What Abba would have done had they been just that bit crankier.
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The overwhelming historical importance of the Beatles, and why Live At The Hollywood Bowl is revelatory.
The trouble with the Beatles is not that they aren’t mindbogglingly important (they are) or indeed actually good (they are), it’s that you can’t get away from them even in 2016. They are actually so famous and so important that it’s almost impossible in the present day to understand how and why.
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Synthpop: Crystal, Vile Electrodes, Hante (2016).
Synthwave with vocals, English synthpop scene and the darkwave end.
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Synthpop: Syntec, Torul (2016), Curxes (2015).
Industrial mellows out to EBM, and synthpop goes the other way.
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Links: Beatles, Prince Buster, Freddie Mercury age 12, Freddie Nietzsche.
The Beatles’ Live At The Hollywood Bowl recovered, Prince Buster obituary, Freddie Mercury aged 12, Nietzsche the composer.
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All guitars: No Sister, Dot Dash, Susan, Strange Passage (2016).
Post-hardcore indie rock, punk pop, power punk pop and jangle punk.
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Post-punk: La Femme, Nothing, Les Panties (2016).
Post-punk via yéyé, shoegaze and new wave revival.
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Reviews: MRCH, Chelan, Floor Cry (2016).
Electronic indie delights, with guitar.
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Reviews: Denj, Water From Your Eyes, New Horror (2016).
Ambitious but endearing synthpop, catchy new wave pop and authentically recreated mid-’80s UK indie rock.
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Reviews: Los Perlas, Seven Waves, Warcrimeriot$, Fossey (2014, 2016).
It’s been a good weekend in the Bandcamp salt mines. Here’s some more: demo synthpop, early ’80s-style indie, trollclash and a young pop talent.
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Reviews: Massenhysterie (2015), The Big Sun, Dyan (2016).
Shouty electropunk, indie pop and cinematic folk.
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Reviews: Kromak, Arsenio Archer, Mirreya (2016).
Industrial-tangential trance, cinematic pop and vocal synthpop from Russian label SkyQode.
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Reviews: Fredrik Croona, Amelie Prime, London Plane (2016).
Futurepop, impassioned grunge and some new wave power pop. All with good tunes and a beat.
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Reviews: Deerful, Brandy Kills, Milan (2016).
Political indie pop, goth rock with tunes and perfect synthpop.
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Electronic reviews: Boy Harsher, Syrian, Kuoko, Metroland (2016).
Post-punk synth, futurepop and synthpop.
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Heaven 17 and Paul Morley: how to age.
Paul Morley interviews Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 in 2010 on the joys of having been a pop band for over thirty years, and how to appreciate pop now we’re all old. It’s thirteen minutes that’s well worth watching.
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Synthpop: BOO (Battery Operated Orchestra), Zürich ’81, Deerful (2016).
Three stone winners today. A pleasing selection.
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Spray: Enforced Fun (2016).
Spray are a couple of old goths doing semi-novelty synthpop straight out of The Manual. They do a brilliant job of it and you should listen to everything they have ever recorded.
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Reviews: nTTx, Foot Spa, Kites With Lights, Stars Crusaders, Kepler.
Two industrial, one post-punk, one synthpop, one indiest indie.
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A nice interview with Alan Rankine of the Associates.
I named my old fanzine Party Fears after the hit single by the Associates, so I’ve always had a soft spot for them.
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Synth Britannia: the synthpop surge in ’70s Britain.
A wonderful 2010 documentary from BBC Four, covering the late ’70s synthesizer bands. Interviews with the (original) Human League, Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manoeuvres, Vince Clarke, Gary Numan, New Order and the Pet Shop Boys.
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