#echosoft

[tropichalys]

Gravitar - Echosoft | Electronic / Synthwave

[tropichalys]

Blue Eye Horizon - Echosoft | ChillSynth / Electrowave

[thespoonfling]

Echosoft - Echosoft

It’s funny when art and entertainment is build on an homage to a past that you never experienced. It brings upon you the most innocent of nostalgia because the aesthetic is so pure and without context that you feel like you experience the essence of a past long gone.

The 80’s brought us a lot of great music. It is hard to argue otherwise. Personally, this is mostly represented in 80’s thrash- and early death metal, which layed an important layer in the foundation of all extreme metal to come. However, synthwave is so quintessential to the popular memory of music from this time that an 80’s revival could hardly be complete without it.

As hinted at earlier, the decade was over some time before I was even born, so I could never tell you if any kind of art fully brought back that period of time like it was; I have no such authority. But I can speak a little to the simple experience of listening to music that was made with the intention of bringing back the 80’s.

The music is cool. There is no way around it. Like myself, you might listen to it with an ironic distance at first but you will be hard pressed to not feel it so much that you start not caring and just enjoy it. There is a care free playfulness to the simple beats and melodies that brings pure joy. Don’t be too cool for this, because this is most likely too cool for you and me both.

This EP is exactly what I want to listen to while driving along the American west coast, roof down, sunglasses on and a cigarette hanging from my lips. The harking back to the past actually becomes totally irrelevant to the much more universal feeling you’ll get from it that oozes from the cool synth blaring into the view of the setting sun. This may take you back to the 80’s if you were there back in the day (I mean, the Karate Kid samples in the song ‘Heart of Wax’ certainly will). I rather hope it will make you feel that such music is not restricted to history but that it goes any time as long as you’re into happy times.

I recommend this album to anyone whether you want to experience the 80’s because you were there or because you never were; to see that it doesn’t belong there more than here and now.

The EP is available for purchase and streaming at: https://echosoft.bandcamp.com/releases

The song ‘Heart of Wax’ on YouTube: https://youtu.be/C5bZdG1Cke0