Stratford Ct. : Amicus Curiae 2014 Retrowave Compilation

The Stratford Ct. bandcamp page also provides a helpful listing of all the artists' SoundCloud pages.

These are some particularly nice tracks from this compilation:
Sazabio - Monki,
SHY WOŁVE - coincé à nouveau,
HOME- - Bohemian Grove,
DINOSAURUS REX x AZTC - Brassier,
and『Tora Tora』 - Skyline

Tycho - Awake Album

Via NPR:

The instrumental music San Francisco's Scott Hansen makes as Tycho splits the difference between post-rock's melodic architecture and pop ambient's immersive, uplifting environments. Hansen's aims felt a little harder to grasp on the sprawling Dive, the 2011 predecessor of his fourth album as Tycho, Awake. The latter is a slickly constructed album that finds him streamlining both his setup and his aims — the sounds he uses and how he deploys them are more considered and purposeful. 

Awake is focused on the dynamic between driving rhythms that wouldn't be out of place in M83's '80s-worshipping work and the stargazing romanticism of Ulrich Schnauss. In all of these songs, electric bass and live drums are locked on cruise control as litanies of guitar and Minimoog lines peel off in divergent, kaleidoscopic patterns. Things never crystallize into narrative song structures, but Tycho never loses the plot, offering the listener a steady succession of thematically united vignettes. In contrast to both the tension-and-release tactics employed by the likes of Mogwai and the wintry narcolepsy of Kompakt's Pop Ambient compilations, this succinct album — clocking in at just under 40 minutes — contents itself with being a seamless, vaguely melancholic reverie. 

Awake humbly suggests itself as the soundtrack to a sunbaked road trip, capturing the inexplicable nostalgia you feel imagining a new life in a new town glimpsed from the highway. Transitions within and between individual tracks take place so smoothly they register mostly as changes in atmospheric pressure rather than plot points. So when the album concludes with the floating "Plains," there's a nagging sense that it has done so prematurely. Music often requires some acclimatization before it can be fully appreciated. In Tycho's case, it's returning to the real world that takes effort.

The full album can be streamed from the NPR posting, found here.

Update: 

The full album is available for streaming/purchase links on SoundCloud:

Interview: Tycho - Awake

There's an interesting interview out with Tycho (Scott Hansen) at The Fader.

Tycho is one of the few electronic artists I've followed since my university days. It's interesting to read about his changing approach to his music, in particular the difference between the production of 'headphone music' with what he called an "instagram" approach - and the cleaner, higher fidelity band-centric approach of his new record. Having experienced Tycho live in Toronto last year, I'm excited about this new approach.

I've always found Hansen's music very introspective, like you're drifting through positive - if sombre - memories. It was interesting to read in the interview above Hansen's comments about his music in this sense:

"...one of the beauties of instrumental music is that it doesn't define, it implies. I try to use the music as a framework for you to transpose your own emotions onto it, just like you've articulated it."



 
I'm really enjoying the new tracks he's posted on SoundCloud (above). If you're new to Tycho's music, I'd strongly suggest picking up his previous album, Dive.

   

On a related point, I used a few of Tycho's tracks in a mixed set I made 2012.  Download here, or listen below. If you like his music, check out the track list of the mixset for similarly sounding music.

Com Truise Remixes Mix

A fellow on YouTube posted a mix that compiles 24 different Com Truise remixes. 



It'd be great to hear some of these spun before Com Truise plays live at his Toronto gig (Feb 12th @ Wrongbar) this year.

Also worth listening to are two Com Truise tracks originally released in his 6th mixtape series Komputer Cast ("Surf" and "Subsonic"). Polished/redone versions of Subsonic can be found in Com Truise's next EP.

New Beat

Apparently in late 1980's Belgium, there was a genre called "New Beat" which straddled the divide between New Wave european dance music and the electronica genre that would ride to popularity in the 1990s with raver culture.

The 'new' aspect of the beat came from it's contrast to the HiNRG ('high-energy') sound that dominated most New Wave Dance music of the time (i.e: Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Right Round).
While not specifically New Beat, this fan video for French Coldwave act Trisomie 21 certainly captures the aesthetic of the era.




Like any genre of music, there's quite a range within New Beat. A lot of New Beat sounds very much like New Order backing tracks from the '80s, while others feel like playing them will suddenly cause sweaty dude dancing in front of industrial fans to appear.

The first New Beat track I heard was Tragic Error - Tanzen (in English, "Dance"). The video is beyond strange, but taps into my love of '80s dark synth dance music.




It's little wonder that Front 242's early works (including 'Headhunter') are often considered "New Beat":



A fellow on YouTube's posted a few mixes of music played in Belgian clubs in this era. They're well mixed and have a good track selection. However, some do include 'edgy' 1980s German dance tracks that reference WWII though. Your mileage may vary.

It has consistently surprised me how many samples from these tracks I recognize, and how familiar the "New Beat"-beat was. For example, Pleasure game - Le dormeur is a pretty clear example of the "New Beat"-beat structure, and it sounds eerily similar to the classic "Mortal Kombat Theme song". 


I did some research and figured out why: the guy who wrote the Mortal Kombat theme was Praga Khan, a Belgian techno, and originally New Beat musician. It's fun to find odd cultural connections like this - and goes a long way in explaining why this style of music seemed so familiar. I don't think I was in any Belgian dance clubs when I was 5 years old, but who can really be sure?

Further listening:

For more "New Beat", check out this Youtube playlist on the topic. 

A Split Second - Flesh [Link]

BOW CHURCH / b()w(hur(h

I've meant to post about Bow Church, or "b()w ( hur ( h" in that bizarro ascii-style - or a few weeks now. 

Regardless of how you write the name, I'm thoroughly enjoying their mix of predominantly instrumental, Witchhouse-esk, crunchy dark electro tracks.



 
Currently their track 'The Flesh is Weak' is Free/Pay-what-you-want at Bandcamp, while the full self-titled EP is listed at ~5GBP.

There's also a few videos made for Bow Church tracks, viewable here.

TimeCop1983's Synthetic Romance

I first encountered TimeCop1983 on Soundcloud with a demotrack titled "Slow-synthpop3". It's since been replaced with the polished/extended version "Childhood Memories":

An interesting mix of instrumental analog/digital synth sounds comprise his work. Be sure to check out the EP  "Synthetic Romance" he's released via Bandcamp - a nice blend of synthy, futuristic sounds reminding you of a future that never was.