Music Monday: How Synthwave Tells Stories Through Sound

For the majority of this decade, Western culture has been reminiscing about the 80’s. For better or for worse, this wave of 80’s nostalgia has infiltrated every part of pop culture from movies to TV shows, commercials, fashion and music.

The entertainment that has come out as a result of this trend has been a mixed bag. The good entertainment from it uses the 80’s aesthetic to enhance what is already trying to be accomplished. It doesn’t merely sell itself as a nostalgia vehicle. It only takes pieces of the past and incorporates those pieces into something new and original.

One of the better music trends to come out of the 80’s nostalgia trend is the genre of synthwave.

Synthwave is more or less what it sounds like. It takes the synthesizers that were often used in 80’s music and movie soundtracks and incorporates the synths along with guitars, drums and the like. The resulting sound is one of the coolest genres I’ve ever heard. I’ve yet to meet a person who didn’t utter the word “cool” when describing how they felt about synthwave.

I discovered the genre earlier in the decade because of a horror movie called It Follows. The movie had a fantastic and addicting soundtrack that was a throwback to the musical scores of old John Carpenter movies. Though I didn’t have a word for it at the time, the It Follows soundtrack was basically synthwave.

After listening to that soundtrack often, the Spotify algorithm eventually caught on and suggested to me a song called “In the Face of Evil” by a little trio known as Magic Sword. They say not to judge a book by its cover, but everything about the cover of this book looked pretty interesting, from the song title to the group name to the cover art depicting a fantasy sword. When I hit play, I discovered one of my favorite songs ever by one of my favorite artists. It sent me down the rabbit hole known as synthwave.

From there, I discovered many new artists, all of them using the conventions of the genre to make their own unique sound.

Besides its inherent “cool factor,” the strength of the genre is how it uses cinematic conventions to help tell stories through sound alone. Every synthwave artist has a different sound, and with every sound comes an entirely new narrative that their music writes. However, for me, there have always been two standouts from the rest. The first is, obviously, Magic Sword.

Magic Sword is without a doubt one of the coolest, most original and mysterious music groups I’ve ever encountered. Before we even talk about their signature sound, we have to address the way they present themselves to the public.

Every member of Magic Sword is adorned in black robes and hoods, making them look like Ring-wraiths from The Lord of the Rings. If that wasn’t enough, they also wear masks which bear no facial features except for eyes, which are represented by a single strip of neon light going across their face. They look like a cross between medieval knights and cyberpunk robots. All of this is topped off by their stage-names, which are “The Keeper,” “The Seer” and “The Weaver.”

All of this unique presentation plays into their music. Like their physical appearance, their music is a cross between fantasy and science fiction. It sounds like what The Lord of the Rings might have been if it were made in the year 2089. So many tracks from their debut album Volume 1 sound like the score to an epic battle sequence between two great armies, or perhaps a duel between two hardened warriors in a dystopian, sci-fi fantasy wasteland. It’s incredibly easy to get lost in your head during one of these tracks as you imagine a visual narrative to go along with the music.

The reason their music feels so large and cinematic is because of their keen understanding of cinematic tropes. Magic Sword is a group that not only emulates the sounds of great film scores, but also incorporates things like the three act story telling structure, tension and conflict into their music, all without uttering a single lyric.

Their track “In the Face of Evil” is a great example of this. It starts out with an introduction to the action, a synth keyboard playing a fast, inspiring melody. The music here portrays tension rising right before a huge battle or conflict. Soon, drums kick in and give way to bass synths that kicks off the first act and makes the world of the music feel alive. The moment the bass kicks in, it’s like the two sides clashing in glorious combat.

As we transition into the second act, the tempo in the volume stays largely the same, but with different elements, like electric guitars, added to the background to create layers of sound that are all building and releasing tension.

Soon, high pitched, siren-like synths pierce through the melody, and our third act begins as the volume is cranked up. The chorus melody kicks in once more, but with every aspect of the song sounding more passionate and intense than before. The battling sounds all fade away until we’re left with a lone, triumphant guitar, repeating the same chorus. Musically, it harkens back to the way the song began, but narratively, it’s as if the guitar represents a lone warrior who stands victorious among the bodies and the debris of a climactic scene. Listening to the entire song feels like an incredibly satisfying journey.

Obviously, all of this comes with a fair amount of corniness that you have to be on board with, but thankfully the music is good enough to overshadow that aspect. Magic Sword also doesn’t stop at telling stories through their music. A limited edition of their debut album came with a comic book detailing the story of the music and expanding upon the lore of the mysterious trio who composes the music. So yeah, they’re really into it.

The second artist with the best knack for telling stories is Carpenter Brut. Like Magic Sword, his music tends to remind of cinematic scores, but the influences and style is incredibly different. His sound is very obviously inspired by horror films, mystery movies and thrillers. He’s also been very upfront about taking influence from extreme underground metal acts like Meshuggah, making him the perfect synthwave artist for me.

Brut’s music feels a lot like an amped up version of the It Follows soundtrack. The sound is a callback to horror movies and thrillers from decades past, but as the creepy atmosphere continues, the tension rises to a chaotic crescendo like on the track “Escape From Midwich Valley.” It’s cool 80’s-vibe horror music, but it’s horror music that was meant to be played live in front of an audience ready to mosh.

Again, much like Magic Sword, Carpenter Brut takes advantage of cinematic convention to create sounds that inspire distinctive feelings and visual images from the listener. However, unlike Magic Sword, he doesn’t get caught up in his own image and attempt to tell some epic narrative. While the music serves as a fantastic experience, it’s also great party music.

Brut’s music is more suitable for casual listening compared to Magic Sword, especially considering Sword’s best songs hover around seven minutes and demand your full attention. Meanwhile, Brut can crank out a total banger track in four minutes. Magic Sword is the demanding and time consuming three-hour epic played at an IMAX. Carpenter Brut is the 90-minute Friday night crowd-pleaser at your local theater.

For a long time, Brut was my favorite synthwave artist, and honestly, even after his disappointing sophomore album, Leather Teeth, he is still the best in my eyes. He encapsulates everything I love about the genre.

It takes a sound from the past and uses it to create something that sounds new and original. It takes advantage of our familiarity with cinematic tropes to evoke a visual story. It’s great music for creative brain-storming, it’s great for parties, it’s good for reading or gaming, it’s great if you just want to fill the room with a specific atmosphere, and it’s fantastic nighttime driving music. The added bonus with Brut, though, is that his music is actually pretty great to work out to.

Speaking of music that’s great for workouts, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what I think is Brut’s best song, and without a doubt, one of my favorite songs ever recorded, “Turbo Killer.”

Brut’s extreme metal influences really come out on this track, as the song comes right out of the gate with a blisteringly fast and loud sound, before retreating into a quiet melody, then ramping right back up into total chaos. If it weren’t for all the synths, this would definitely be a metal song.

It’s a song that’s been so addictive and ever-present on my “recently played” section that it has been my number one most listened to song on Spotify for the past several years. No matter what I do, this song remains king, and I never grow tired of it.

Conversely, I have grown tired of 80’s nostalgia. I was never super fond of it anyway. It’s not a decade I ever lived in, so there’s an existential disconnect between me and the 30-40 year-olds that the trend is targeting. At this point, the nostalgia trend has gone on for so long that it’s over-saturated the market and over-stayed its welcome. I’m hopeful that the gimmicky marketing of 80’s nostalgia won’t carry over into the next decade.

However, I do hope to see synthwave grow and strengthen as a genre in the coming years and become something that survives past the fleeting trend it was born from. Synthwave is something that isn’t stylistically bound to that trend and has proven that it has worth beyond nostalgia. It is a genre that has good stories to tell, and unlike cultural trends, good stories are timeless.