The Gamers Arms

This thread is to celebrate and discuss Synthwave (AND OTHER MUSIC WHICH IS ELECTRONIC AND COOL)!

First up:

Magic Sword - In The Face of Evil



First heard this on the Hotline Miami soundtrack, which I was really into a couple of years back. Then it was used on the Thor: Ragnarok trailer (still not seen that film, by the way). Anyway, it's a catchy tune, and one of the better examples of the genre. Sweet logo too.

That is such an excellent album, I'd recommend listening to the full thing if you haven't already.

I haven't; I didn't even know they had a full album (to be honest I didn't bother checking ¬_¬).

I'll listen it tomorrow while I'm preparing our Advanced Hero Quest session.

I am a fan of New Retro Wave. This is among my favourites because of its heavy use of synth:

I've decided to change this thread to being all about Synthwave/New Retro Wave. You can share and discuss all your favourite examples of the genre here. Having three fans on the forum is enough to justify such a thread. ¬_¬

Oh boy, where do I start.

So how did you discover the genre?

For me it was after watching Drive and spending time with a particular work colleague who both loved that film and, being born in 1980 and being financially well-off throughout that decade, had something of an 80s obsession. He listened to the Drive soundtrack at least once a day in our office (it was just the two of us in there) as well as other 80s classics. After a while I started listening to artists featured on the Drive soundtrack myself on YouTube, and then just clicking about on related videos, which led to my discovery of NRW.

Though I've just realised the genre is properly called "Synthwave". Better change the title again. ¬_¬

I actually can't entirely remember. I'd heard a few bits of the genre beforehand, namely Perturbator, but I think it was Hotline Miami 1 in 2012 that really kickstarted my interest in it. It was all still very underground back then, it's kind of sad seeing it slowly being subsumed by the modern music industry. I've used it to branch off into so many subgenres through Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Spotify though, it's been an excellent few years of delving deep into pretty much every kind of electronic music. A far cry from pre-2012 where I only really ever listened to the various forms of rock/metal/prog.

Most of these just about fit the synthwave bill.

Interestingly, all of the pioneers of the genre who were present back in the very early days have all moved onto revitalising that more aggressive 90s industrial sound. Perturbator's New Model album last year was absolutely fierce.

Mantis wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:09 pm

A far cry from pre-2012

You know what else is a far cry? Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. I heard about that, not because I was into gaming at the time, but because the soundtrack kept popping up during my YouTube explorations following the Drive soundtrack.

This one really got my attention:

Stormbringer wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:02 pm

So how did you discover the genre?

The trailer for Kung Fury. I managed to track down the music used in that, and the album it came from. That led to discovering that the 80's style synth-filled music I really like from old films etc was part of a genre called Synth Wave, and I found the New Retro Wave YT channel shortly after. That said, I MAY have listened to the Far Cry: Blood Dragon soundtrack for a long time before digging deeper and finding a name for the genre with the Kung Fury soundtrack.

Ha! Kung Fury was excellent.

Turbo Kid had a similar vibe. Le Matos did a pretty nice soundtrack for that.

Hey, I really like the Fantastisizer - Breaking Point and Fixions - Under the Crystal Shroud tracks.

One more from me tonight:

Lazerhawk - Electric Groove

Shit, I really liked the soundtrack to Drive so I should probably listen to some of these.