Tag: darkwave

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Velatine Returns with Brooding, Trip Hop-like “Playing With The Orbits”

Melbourne-based songwriter and producer Loki Lockwood is the creative mastermind behind the darkwave/goth recording project Velatine. For the bulk of Velatine’s history, Lockwood collaborated with different vocalists while crafting a unique and fresh take on the familiar and beloved darkwave/goth sound. 

Last year’s “Till Death Do We Art” saw Lockwood collaborating with Nocturna. Lockwood discovered Holly Purnell through an Instagram ad. Purnell collaborated on “Oh See Me — The Siren,” and while working on that song, she joined as the project’s full-time vocalist.

Released in April, “Whisper Park,” the first Velatine with single with Purnell as a full-time member was a change in sonic direction, showcasing a more forceful goth and doom-like direction. Their latest single, “Playing with the Orbits” is a return to form featuring Purnell’s siren-like delivery over a broodingly atmospheric and glitchy production that seemingly draws from trip hop, industrial electronica and darkwave.

Written five years ago, “Playing with the Orbits” is inspired by Bianca Devins and her unfortunate murder. As Lockwood says, “her story shook me, and if you know the story, then the lyrics reveal its underlying complexity. It’s a song about her murder, it required sensitivity in its delivery. I didn’t see her naive, she was intelligent, creative, an individual, but sadly missed that this was coming. She was exposed and became a target, A song that somehow waited for Holly to express all of this.”

“Bianca was 17 when killed by an obsessed man, who she met online. Referred to as an ‘E-girl’ by the media, she was hardly that,” Lockwood continues, In her teens she had struggled with anxiety, depression and the net had been an escape where she had bonded with others with similar struggles. She worked hard to resolve her own personal issues, finished school and planned to study psychology.

“In her case, her killer spread photos of the aftermath on social media that exploded her into ‘stardom.’ Hardly an influencer, just popular and likable online, she had about 2,000 followers on Instagram when her short life ended. Within days of her murder though, that number had risen to more than 160,000. Incel groups were the main perpetrators spreading the pictures, also sending them to family members with vile messages, such as ‘She deserved it’,”says her mother Kim Devins. “Bianca was everything they hated. She was a really smart girl, very pretty; a lot of guys liked her. She was also intuitive and aware. She recognized grooming in her online community and had helped a lot of girls get away from some dangerous situations.”

Had she got this attention when she was alive surely she would have used it to warn others, but sadly she missed the signs herself. We all crave to be liked, but like her, most of us are happy to expose ourselves to others we don’t know. Innocent normal behavior right? Well it should be, but it’s also about what happened after she was killed that triggered the song. One of the last ‘brag’ posts her killer made was ‘You’re going to have to find someone else to orbit you fuckers.’

Her murder was a carefully planned and executed affair by someone who wanted to maximize their own notoriety. His images were seen, spread and celebrated by an online community of ‘Incels,’ who called her killer ‘a legend.’

There is plenty on-line if you want to dig deeper and so no need for me to say more except read the lyrics and hear Holly’s performance, the story is there,” Lockwood explains in a statement that includes some repurposed and edited material from articles written by Anna Moore, which appeared in The Guardian.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Velatine Shares Forceful “Whisper Park”

Melbourne-based songwriter and producer Loki Lockwood is the creative mastermind behind the darkwave/goth recording project Velatine. For the bulk of Velatine’s history, Lockwood collaborated with different vocalists while crafting a unique and fresh take on the familiar and beloved darkwave/goth sound.

If you were frequenting this site over the course of last year, the Aussie producer and musician collaborated with Nocturna on “Till Death Do We Art” and Holly Purnell, who was discovered through an Instagram ad for “Oh See Me — The Siren.” While working on “Oh See Me — The Siren” Purnell joined Velatine as the project’s full-time vocalist.

Velatine’s latest single “Whisper Park” is a subtle change in sonic direction, seeing the band leaning more towards a forceful, goth and doom-like direction than their previously released material. Anchored around slashing, angular guitar attack and dramatic drumming, the cinematic “Whisper Park” channels contemporary fare like Bonnie Trash and others, while showcasing Purnell’s remarkable vocal.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Belated 68th Birthday, Gary Numan!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates Gary Numan’s 68th birthday.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Fantôme Paradis Shares CInematic “Ámes sœurs”

Fantôme Paradis is the synth wave/darkwave recording projecting of a mysterious and emerging French producer. The mysterious French producer’s latest single “Âmes sœurs” features glistening synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rattling thump as a lush bed for a yearning, female French vocal.

Sonically nodding at a synthesis of The Weeknd and John Carpenter soundtracks, “Âmes sœurs” according to the mysterious French producer explores a relationship in crisis, caught in an uneasy conflict between devotion and hatred.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: BLXCKFLAMINGO Tackles a Beloved Post-Punk Classic

BLXCKFLAMINGO is a Jersey City-based goth/darkwave duo, who over the course of the past year have released a handful of singles, which saw them quickly establish an urgent and intense sound featuring driving drum machines, thumping ass lines, ethereal shoegazer textures and pain-fueled riffs paired with an eerily cold and brooding baritone vocal.

The New Jersey-based duo begin 2026 with a goth/darkwave-tinged yet lovingly straightforward cover of Joy Division‘s 1980 signature tune, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” that maintains the song’s conflicted, heartache and remarkably catchy hook.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: White Birches Share Brooding and Stormy “Breathing”

Formed back in 2013, the Swedish synth pop/darkwave duo White Birches — Jenny Gabrielsson Mare and Fredrik Jonasson — quickly received attention across Scandinavia with the release of 2014’s debut EP Stands of White Birches and 2015’s full-length debut, Dark Waters, which saw the pair establishing a eerily moody sound that some compared to the likes Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins and The Sisters of Mercy. Adding to a growing profile across the region, the duo’s full-length debut received a Best Synth nomination at that year’s Swedish Indie Grammy Awards, Manifestgalan.

The duo signed with Progress Productions, who released their sophomore album, 2017’s When The Street Calls, which featured the 4AD Records heyday-like “Howl.”

The Swedish synth outfit’s highly-anticipated third full-length album, A New Reign will feature their latest single “Breathing,” which the pair says sets the tone for the entire album. Featuring thunderous, industrial-like thump, layers of eerily atmospheric synths and bursts of scorching feedback as a brooding and stormy bed for Gabrielsson Mare’s dreamily intense delivery.

“Breathing,” captures a narrator, desperately holding on to a thin thread of what might be left of their sanity, and under intense pressure, trying to take long, slow breaths to get themselves right; to get their mind and heart to stop racing . . . It shouldn’t be surprising that the song might evoke how unsettled, unstable and desperate you might feel right this moment. Keep breathing.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Velatine Teams Up with Holly Purnell on Brooding “Oh See Me — The Siren”

Loki Lockwood is a Melbourne-based songwriter and producer and creative mastermind behind the darkwave/goth recording project Velatine, which for the bulk of is history saw him crating a unique and fresh take on a familiar and beloved sound through experimenting and working with different vocalists.

Earlier this year, the Aussie producer and musician collaborated with Nocturna on the slow-burning and broodingly cinematic “Till Death Do We Art.” But with Lockwood’s latest Velatine single, “Oh See Me — The Siren,” the Melbourne-based musician and producer collaborates with Holly Purnell, who was discovered through an Instagram ad seeking a vocalist and then recruited to be the project’s full-time vocalist.

On “Oh See Me — The Siren,” Purnell’s remarkably Siouxsie Sioux-like vocal is paired with a brooding and glitchy industrial-meets-post-punk production that continues to showcase Lockwood’s unerring knack for catchy hooks.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Cardiff’s Red Telephone Share Sleek and Brooding “Sentimental Dreaming”

Cardiff, Wales, UK-based quintet Red Telephone features two sets of brothers, alongside the first full-time drummer in their history. Their debut, a double A-side vinyl was released by Welsh cult label Popty-Ping and received praise from Huw Stephens and Steve Lamacq.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the Cardiff-based quintet’s full-length debut, last year’s Hollowing Out, which saw them firmly establishing a blend of psych rock and darkwave, received attention from Clash Magazine, Under The Radar and others, as well as airplay from BBC 6 Music.

The Welsh band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Delay The New Day is slated for a January 31, 2025 release. The album reportedly sees the quintet building upon their melodic blend of psych and darkwave while also drawing from cinematic influences.

Delay The New Day’s last pre-release single “Sentimental Dreaming” is an arena friendly tune anchored around a propulsive, hypnotic bass line, driving four-on-the-floor, glistening synth arpeggios, ad a brooding bridge paired with incredibly catchy hooks, a rousingly anthemic chorus. Seemingly drawing from Simple Minds, MGMT and 80s post punk, “Sentimental Dreaming” can trace its origins back to a 14 minute acoustic guitar session originally intended to fix the chorus of a different song, but quickly became one of the first songs the band worked on for the album.

The song eventually went through several iterations. including a foray into Robyn-inspired pop before finding its final version in a spontaneous late-night studio session. “We started listening back to practice recordings of all the different versions we’d attempted and there was this one phone recording with this really rhythmic, catchy bassline by Dom,” the band’s Declan recalls. “We were basically recording it ten minutes later on the fly and didn’t leave the studio until about 2am. There was definitely some late-in-the-day chaos as we scrambled to get it over the line, but it added a different energy & even brought about one of Kieran’s favourite guitar parts on the album, which he put down off the cuff going into the outro almost in some jaded desperation to get it done.” 

Thematically, the song focuses on the trials and tribulations of contemporary artists, touching upon the gaping chasm between romanticized versions of creative pursuits and the bitterly harsh realities of chasing one’s artistic dreams, including the exhausting juggling act of day jobs and creativity, the bombardment of conflicting advice on achieving success and more. The song subtly touches on the self-doubt, unease, paranoia and determination that it takes to make it in any creative field — especially music. But it also touches on refusing to compromise on one’s artistic vision, and the mentality needed to keep creating for the right reasons.

“There’s obviously this idealistic sentimentality in dreaming – it almost sounds like a sweet, harmless thing to do – but it’s deceptively powerful, because it can send us down paths that end up dictating not only behaviour but entire periods of our lives and ways of living,” Dom says.

Cardiff, Wales, UK-based quintet Red Telephone features two sets of brothers, alongside the first full-time drummer in their history. Their debut, a double A-side vinyl was released by Welsh cult label Popty-Ping and received praise from Huw Stephens and Steve Lamacq.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the Cardiff-based quintet’s full-length debut, last year’s Hollowing Out, which saw them firmly establishing a blend of psych rock and darkwave, received attention from Clash Magazine, Under The Radar and others, as well as airplay from BBC 6 Music.

The Welsh band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Delay The New Day is slated for a January 31, 2025 release. The album reportedly sees the quintet building upon their melodic blend of psych and darkwave while also drawing from cinematic influences.

Delay The New Day’s last pre-release single “Sentimental Dreaming” is an arena friendly tune anchored around a propulsive, hypnotic bass line, driving four-on-the-floor, glistening synth arpeggios, ad a brooding bridge paired with incredibly catchy hooks, a rousingly anthemic chorus. Seemingly drawing from Simple Minds, MGMT and 80s post punk, “Sentimental Dreaming” can trace its origins back to a 14 minute acoustic guitar session originally intended to fix the chorus of a different song, but quickly became one of the first songs the band worked on for the album.

The song eventually went through several iterations. including a foray into Robyn-inspired pop before finding its final version in a spontaneous late-night studio session. “We started listening back to practice recordings of all the different versions we’d attempted and there was this one phone recording with this really rhythmic, catchy bassline by Dom,” the band’s Declan recalls. “We were basically recording it ten minutes later on the fly and didn’t leave the studio until about 2am. There was definitely some late-in-the-day chaos as we scrambled to get it over the line, but it added a different energy & even brought about one of Kieran’s favourite guitar parts on the album, which he put down off the cuff going into the outro almost in some jaded desperation to get it done.” 

Thematically, the song focuses on the trials and tribulations of contemporary artists, touching upon the gaping chasm between romanticized versions of creative pursuits and the bitterly harsh realities of chasing one’s artistic dreams, including the exhausting juggling act of day jobs and creativity, the bombardment of conflicting advice on achieving success and more. The song subtly touches on the self-doubt, unease, paranoia and determination that it takes to make it in any creative field — especially music. But it also touches on refusing to compromise on one’s artistic vision, and the mentality needed to keep creating for the right reasons.

“There’s obviously this idealistic sentimentality in dreaming – it almost sounds like a sweet, harmless thing to do – but it’s deceptively powerful, because it can send us down paths that end up dictating not only behaviour but entire periods of our lives and ways of living,” Dom says.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: STOLEN Shares Dystopian Anthem “I-Generated”

Formed back in 2010, STOLEN is a pioneering and award-winning, Chengdu, China-based electronica quintet that specializes in a high-energy, dance floor friendly sound that features elements of techno, darkwave and post-punk. 

Since the release of their full-length debut, 2015’s Loop, the Chinese outfit has built an international profile: Through collaborations with renowned brands like Hermés, Burberry and BMW, they’ve managed to merge their unique sound with current fashion trends. And adding to a growing international profile, they opened for New Order during the British New Wave legends’ 2019 European Union tour. 

2024 has been a busy year for the Chinese outfit: Earlier this year, they released the Remanufactured EP, which featured the slow-burning and brooding “Drown With Me,” a song that reminded me ab it of Trentemøller’s “A Different Light” and Goldfrapp’s Tales of Us.

Their second EP of the year, the recently released, three-song effort, I-Generated is a journey into the world of AI. Each track is a separate chapter in the story, with each song focusing on three different moments in AI’s history. Sonically, the EP features a much more electronic sound, driven by catchy keyboard melodies and subtle guitar work.

The EP’s first single, EP opening track “I-Generated” is a Nine Inch Nail-meets-Tool-meets-Rush-like ripper featuring driving rhythms, glitchy bursts of electronics, oscillating synths, rousingly anthemic, shout along worthy hooks, arena rock friendly power chords. It’s the sort of song that sounds as though it would fit perfectly within the universe of The Matrix or some near-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller that closely misers or our seemingly dystopian world.

The song’s lyrically talks about present-day humanity in seeming free-fall, about to put its fate in the hands of AI as a desperate, last resort. Both lyrically and musically, the song evokes the hope and unease that we all feel at this particular moment.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Divine Decadence Shares Angry and Anthemic “No Turning Back”

Led by Sabrina and Tatiana, Nice, France-based outfit Divine Decadence can trace their origins back to 2020: While confined to the home studio as a result of COVID-19 quarantines and restrictions, the band had the opportunity […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chengdu, China’s STOLEN Shares an Industrial Banger

Formed back in 2010, STOLEN is a pioneering and award-winning, Chengdu, China-based electronica quintet that specializes in a high-energy, dance floor friendly sound that features elements of techno, darkwave and post-punk.

Since the release of their full-length debut, 2015’s Loop, the Chinese outfit has built an international profile: Through collaborations with renowned brands like Hermés, Burberry and BMW, they’ve managed to merge their unique sound with current fashion trends. And adding to a growing international profile, they opened for New Order during the British New Wave legends’ 2019 European Union tour.

The Chengdu-based outfit will be embarking on a UK tour in October. The tour will feature newly remastered old and new tracks with enhanced avant-garde VJ visual effects, which promise to be a jaw-dropping live performance. But in the meantime, their latest single “Chaos,” is a darkwave-meets-industrial club banger featuring relentless, Giorgio Moroder-like synth oscillations, glistening synth melodies, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling beats, bursts of angular and discordant, post punk guitars and rousingly enormous hooks and choruses serving as a lush and brooding bed for breathily delivered vocals.

Written, directed and edited by Formol, the accompanying video for “Chaos” is cinematically shot, black and white fever dream featuring one of the most brilliant uses of cassette tape I’ve yet to see.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Golem Dance Cult Shares an Anthemic Ripper

Split between France and England, the emerging, self-described “industrial heavy rock dance” duo Golem Dance Cult features longtime friends and experienced musicians: producer, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Charles Why, who has played in Lotsa Noise, Nexus and L-Dopa and vocalist Laur, who has played in Sparkling Bombs, Kevin K Band, Vague Scare and Other-ed. In many ways, Golem Dance Cult can trace its origins back to when its members were teenagers, playing in their first band together, a band in which Laur played drums.

During most of the band’s short run together, the duo have written and worked on material remotely, as a result of the distance between the pair and because of pandemic-related restrictions. But their work is structured around a couple of simple, agreed-upon parameters:

  • They had to work spontaneously, with each member following their instincts.

  • Mistakes should be expanded upon.

What the duo eventually settled on was a rock-inspired approach with electronic production but without the formal structure — or strictures — of either genre.

Back in 2021, the duo released their debut EP Grotesque Radio, which featured the Bauhaus-like “Nosferatu Waltz,” a goth/horror track with a playful nod to Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. The duo start off the year with “Dalek Rhetoric,” a song which derives its title from the Dalek in Dr. Who. As the band explains: “Dalek are extraterrestrial killing machines with a binary thinking pattern: you are either a Dalek or they were will destroy you. This seems fitting with the mentality of the world we live in.”

Centered around buzzing power chords, thunderous drumming, rousingly anthemic hooks and arena rock bombast, “Dalek Rhetoric” manages to bring White Zombie and others to mind — with a nasty, gritty edge.

The accompanying video features footage of the band performing the song in desolate and forgotten places paired with edited footage of the Dalek in Doctor Who, reels of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which the band has dubbed another Dalek-like move, and edited footage from Phantom from Space, Plan 9 From Outer Space. Max Schreck’s Nosferatu and Bela Lugosi’s Dracula also make return cameos — because, of course.

Golem Death Cult’s sophomore album Legend of the Bleeding Heart is slated for release this year.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Stockholm’s Me & Melancholy Shares a Brooding Banger

Peter Ehrling is a Stockholm-based electronic music producer, musician and creative mastermind behind the solo electro pop recording project Me & Melancholy. Inspired by Depeche Mode, New Order, Camouflage, and Swedish synth acts like The Mobile Homes and Elegant Machinery, Me & Melancholy focuses on melancholy synth pop that blends retro and contemporary sounds to create a nostalgically upbeat yet introspective vibe.

Since starting the project last year, Ehrling has been rather prolific: he has released three singles, an EP and his full-length debut, You and me, Melancholy.

“I let you down (Dark Version)” is a brooding bit of goth-meets-industrial synth pop centered around tweeter and woofer rattling thump, glistening synths and guitar paired with Ehrling’s plaintive delivery and enormous hooks. Sonically, the song brings Violator-era Depeche Mode while rooted in self-flagellation, disgust, despair and heartache.

Ehrling explains that “I let you down (Dark Version)” is a complete and thorough remake of the the original, which appears on You and me, Melancholy.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Houston’s Victorian Death Photos Release a Brooding Single and Visual

Victorian Death Photos is a Houston-based post-punk/darkwave act that’s shrouded in a cloak of mystery: The Houston-based act features two anonymous artists, a man and a woman, who publicly go by He and She. The duo’s latest project can trace its origins back to a series of multimedia collaborations between the pair. Interestingly enough, the duo initially intended for Victorian Death Photos to be a metal album — but the best laid plans of mice and men, as they say.

Once they started working on original material together, they wound up zeroing in on a “haunted synthy post-punk electronic sound,” which wound up comprising their Victorian Death Photos debut, The Basement Tapes EP released earlier this year. “We went with it,” She says in press notes.

Back in July, I wrote about “Radium Girls,” a song, as the duo explained was based on a true story: In the early 1920s, female workers in watch factories, painted watch dials with radium paint. The women were repeatedly told that the paint was harmless. But after being around and ingesting massive amounts of radium, the female factory workers wound up contracting severe radiation poisoning: the factory workers wound up with their teeth falling out, and bone deterioration in the jaw — to the point of having bones removed.

Ultimately, the track with revealed the duo’s ability to craft a rousingly anthemic hook within a song that bearded a resemblance to Garbage‘s self-titled debut and Version 2.0.

The Houston-based act ends 2021 with “Home.” Centered around glistening synth arpeggios, skittering, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and She’s yearning vocals, “Home” is simultaneously a brooding and icy bit of post-punk/darkwave seemingly inspired by early Depeche Mode and an earnest ballad expressing profound heartbreak and longing over a relationship and lover, who was confusing and dysfunctional.

Shot in a gorgeous and cinematic black and white, the recently released video for “Home” begins by following a young boy, who dreams of being an astronaut and of space exploration. In one of his dreams, he lands on an Earth-like planet, where he sees a woman digging in the sand. We see the boy as he explores a forest. The video ends with the boy being flung out into space.