6. The Midnight - Monsters
Genre: Synthwave, Pop, Electronic, Ambient
Put On A Playlist With: Gunship, Kalax, Mitch Murder
Synthwave's most popular dynamic duo play around with genre conventions to great effect on Monsters, occasionally bringing in trap and ambient influences with interesting results throughout. While a pretty ace pop record on its own merits, there's a deeper story / theme of sorts being pushed throughout Monsters about kids growing up out of the 80's and into the adolescent disillusionment of 1990's America as the early aughts and Internet became a pervasive specter on the horizon, showcasing a rather keen awareness about the limitations and strengths of synthwave as a genre that the less popular bands and artists could learn from.
5. Lunatic Soul - Through Shaded Woods
Genre: Pagan Folk-Dance-Prog
Put On A Playlist With: Comus, Midlake, early Fleet Foxes, Riverside
Polish progmeister Mariusz Duda goes Elder Scrolls Oblivion on everyone's asses and it sounds glorious. Moving away heavily from Riverside's metal sound (mostly) and the electronic-oriented productions of the last few Lunatic Soul outings, this one is folkish, ruminative and surprisingly dancey. And at the very least, it'll get you some cred with hot Wiccan babes and/or dudes you want to impress that spent a lot of time pre-Covid at Scarborough Fair.
4. Kyle Jameson - View From Above
Genre: New Age, Ambient, Vaporwave
Put On A Playlist With: FM Skyline, I d o l, Richard Souther, Harold Budd, late 80's Tangerine Dream
Kyle Jameson is the guy behind KJCMuzique, one of the biggest smooth jazz channels on YouTube for people who love obscure, forgotten elevator tuneage from the 80's and early 90's. He's extremely enthusiastic about the genre (maybe almost as much as I am), and is a huge vaporwave fan. On top of that, he's an accomplished musician who has allowed his obsession with these smooth sounds to culminate into his own musical debut with View From Above, which sounds like it could have been produced and released on GRP or Windham Hill in 1986-89...and he even bought all the analog keyboards and equipment necessary to pull it off. The authenticity and passion behind this is quite something - it doesn't really sound like anything else created "from scratch" in 2020. If you don't like the 80's jazz or ambient styles of the era, this won't be your cup of tea. However, I love it to death and it has a gorgeous airy production that befits the cheesy goodness within.
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