Synthetic Villains by Synthetic Villains
Album #1 - File under: Electro Funk / Experimental Synth Pop / No Wave
Only 6 tracks, but at just under 40 minutes long, I call it an album, not an EP. I mean, Pharoah Sanders' 'Karma' only has 3 tracks on it. And that's definitely an album.
"Bouncy electro-funk from Synthetic Villains has a nostalgic synth palette and an experimental, slightly off-kilter approach to songwriting"
As featured on Bandcamp's New & Notable homepage
"weeping guitars and gloomy electronics...with strings overlaying the melancholy like curtains swaying as a coffin moves through them."
8/10 Louder than War
"fresh and fun" Derek Walmsley (Wire Magazine)
The original idea for the album was to create an electronic backing for some guitar playing - in a similar vein to Robert Quine (Voidoids) & Jody Harris' (Contortions) album "Escape" - they used an Oberheim DMX drum machine and overdubbed guitar and bass.* Although that was the basic impetus, once the basic beats were laid down, more electronic textures seemed to suggest themselves and it became a (mostly) electronic album and the guitars took a back seat.
The album was influenced by everything from drone music, synth-pop, classic electronic music, and also hip-hop, electro and No Wave music.
The album garnered radio play from Kites & Pylons, Phantom Circuit, I Heart Noise, Sunrise Ocean Bender and more. Tracks from the album featured on the Active Listener Sampler, Speak & Spell Records' Let it Radicalise You, and Front & Follow's Isolation & Rejection Vol.5 (a remix that had featured on a Dark Outside broadcast). Support also came from bloggers Trust the Wizards and Colourhorizon.
* Quine/Harris also used episode titles from the Three Stooges which I thought was a good enough idea to steal for this album too.
Tracklist
| 1. | Idiots Deluxe | 3:07 |
| 2. | Rhythm & Weep | 6:41 |
| 3. | How High Is Up? | 8:37 |
| 4. | The Captain Hates The Sea | 4:48 |
| 5. | Time Out For Rhythm | 11:02 |
| 6. | Yes, We Have No Bonanza | 3:22 |
Credits
WRITTEN, ARRANGED & PLAYED BY RICHARD J TURNER.
RECORDED, MIXED & MASTERED BY SAM PARKINSON AT STONEGATE STUDIOS.
FLOOD OF SOUND RECORDINGS - FOS001-CD
License
All rights reserved.Tags
Recommendations
"dinky beats and vintage bleeps"
Electronic Sound Magazine
Instrumental, mostly electronic music.
From the "experimental, slightly off-kilter" (Bandcamp New & Notable) synth-pop of the debut album to the "pulsing Berlin School synths" (Electronic Sound Magazine) of the latest albums, SV albums explore drones, repetitions, textures and riffs.