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80s style synth-pop/electro synth/cyberpunk music

Ixion

Member
Vantablack has really grown on me, it's a fantastic song.

I just listened to it for the first time yesterday, and I loved it. I read the comments about the vocals being odd, but I don't understand that complaint. If anything, the vocals didn't add much, but they were fine.

I also loved "Tactical Precision Disarray" from last year, so I'm pretty hyped for the EP. I dig the Industrial/Experimental direction Perturbator is taking.

Dan Terminus “Automated Refrains” [2017]

21125565_1542763589114296_1892215028027885093_o.jpg

How can anyone look at that album cover and not want to listen? Really excited for this.
 

drotahorror

Member
Perturbator is now Dan Terminus, and Dan Terminus is now...Perturbator?

Dat plot twist.

I dunno, to me it sounds similar to stuff off The Wrath of Code? Pert and DT have always had similar styles to me, especially the past album from Perturbator.

5 more days..........
 
The new Perturbator does nothing for me

It's produced well and I understand why he wants to shift to a new direction, but it sounds like background music. Dense soundscapes over beats. I don't even mind the more subdued/percussive approach but the lack of the strong melodic stuff he's built his sound on is a bummer

Meanwhile, the new Dan Terminus is the hottest of fires
 
The new Perturbator does nothing for me

It's produced well and I understand why he wants to shift to a new direction, but it sounds like background music. Dense soundscapes over beats. I don't even mind the more subdued/percussive approach but the lack of the strong melodic stuff he's built his sound on is a bummer

Meanwhile, the new Dan Terminus is the hottest of fires

Yea same way i feel 🤔.
 

Yeah I'm of two minds with this EP. Loved how it started with Birth of the New Model
then Tactical Precision Disarray, Tainted Empire was a bit much on first listen, but might grow on me. But what damped my enjoyment a bit was the lyrics of Vantablack.

I usually dig vocals in his tracks; my fav Pert tracks (eg. Sentient, Hard Wired, Minuit, Meet Jimmy) and synth-wave in general usually have them. But 'shut up, or i'll smash every tooth in your mouth' and the whole rape context just makes me pretty uncomfortable. Not sure if the girlfriend is going to enjoy the gig in Nov...
 
The new Perturbator does nothing for me

It's produced well and I understand why he wants to shift to a new direction, but it sounds like background music. Dense soundscapes over beats. I don't even mind the more subdued/percussive approach but the lack of the strong melodic stuff he's built his sound on is a bummer

Meanwhile, the new Dan Terminus is the hottest of fires

agreed, The Uncanny Valley was perfection to me. New Model lacks melody.
 
Yeah I'm of two minds with this EP. Loved how it started with Birth of the New Model
then Tactical Precision Disarray, Tainted Empire was a bit much on first listen, but might grow on me. But what damped my enjoyment a bit was the lyrics of Vantablack.

I usually dig vocals in his tracks; my fav Pert tracks (eg. Sentient, Hard Wired, Minuit, Meet Jimmy) and synth-wave in general usually have them. But 'shut up, or i'll smash every tooth in your mouth' and the whole rape context just makes me pretty uncomfortable. Not sure if the girlfriend is going to enjoy the gig in Nov...

Its not only rape but also murder.
 
Its not only rape but also murder.

Yeah. I mean, that's pretty typical edgelord material though. But the combined rape/torture/murder is just a bit too much for me to be able to ignore for the sake of enjoyment. I think what also sets it apart from the previous brooding vocal tracks is that it's lyrically in first person and playing the sadism straight-faced. It's not even like a romanticised (yeah I know) sexploitation deal like the end of Sentient was.

Would love an instrumental version but that's apparently off the cards.
 

Mush

6.0
Now that I've actually read the full lyrics to Vantablack, I think I like the song even more whereas before I wasn't really into it.

In no way am I an advocate for any of the subject matter depicted in it, though.
 

drotahorror

Member
New Model is good shit. Not really into Vantablack (don't care about lyrics, I don't like the guys voice nor the way he sings sort of off beat), or Corrupted by Design. Tactical Precision Disarray is still amazing. I will keep Corrupted by Design on my playlist though, it may grow on me.
 
Now that I've actually read the full lyrics to Vantablack, I think I like the song even more whereas before I wasn't really into it.

In no way am I an advocate for any of the subject matter depicted in it, though.

To each their own. Maybe i just need to loosen up a bit.

Not really into Vantablack (don't care about lyrics, I don't like the guys voice nor the way he sings sort of off beat)...

Also this. His voice/style just doesn't fit this track imo.
 

Vorg

Banned
This new perturbator release did nothing for me. The compositions are so weak. It's like he doesn't know what he wants to do with the tracks and they all have these weird shifts and breaks midway through. I can't believe he released this thing after the uncanny valley. I guess this is what happens when you release too much stuff in such a tight time frame.
 

RDreamer

Member
Digging the new Perturbator. I'm off and on about the vocals on Ventablack. The content is kinda blah, and some parts of the song I really like the style of the vocals. Some parts I don't. Oh well, overall it's good.

I assume the song is about androids getting revenge or malfunctioning. Could be wrong, but I assume everything he writes is about machines fighting with humanity.

Yeah, pretty sure it's an android. Anyway that's what the writers on Bandcamp think. They have a new interview up with him, too.
 

Mush

6.0
I'm a relative newcomer to the whole synth/retrowave thing as I only hopped on the bandwagon probably around this time last year. For the longest time, I had had the Hotline Miami OST playlist saved to my Spotify and thoroughly enjoyed throwing that on whenever and loving it, but I never delved any deeper beyond that. I listened to a little bit of Kavinsky because of that one movie with the guy who likes stuff but outside of that, nothing else. Perturbator was the guy that I happened to check out first because I loved Miami Disco, and from the opening few moments on Meet Jimmy when the music starts to build up and the vocals kick in, I was hooked.

The thing I enjoy the most about this genre is the dystopian/cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic/whatever settings and themes and the "untold" narrative that is present throughout that you have to piece together yourself or is largely open to interpretation, something that in my rather admittedly narrow-minded music taste I've never really experienced before. Considering how little reading I've done in the past few years (basically none, which is something I constantly feel guilty about) it's been about as close to it as I've gotten.

But once I got around to listening to The Uncanny Valley, oh boyo. I had never expected to enjoy that album as much as I did. It ended up basically turning into a daily listen front-to-back for a good while and was one of my favourite records from last year (which was pretty meh outside of my favourite band releasing their first album after a 6 year hiatus).

The dark(er) themes throughout TUV is what made it so memorable for me, and obviously that is a stark contrast to Perturbator's earlier work so for y'all that have been fans of the genre for longer than I have and have been following him for a while I can understand why you aren't so down with this new release. Obviously the lyrics for Vantablack are a topic of discussion and I realise that they aren't very comfortable to listen to. Do I think they are unsettling? Of course I do. But for the sake of the narrative of the project I think it works because that is exactly what that song is trying to do.

I enjoy all of his work (the entirety of Sexualiser is right up there) along with his more ambient stuff like Last Kiss, There is No Love Highway etc but his more recent work is the stuff I keep coming back to.

I'm an edgelord at heart who spent his adolesence (and now adulthood) mostly listening to people yelling at him over the top of loud guitar noises so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Good timing! I'm seeing the 'bator tonight in Denver so I'm giving this a spin now. The album is fantastic so far (with the exception of Vantablack, everything about the vocals and lyrics make me want to cringe so hard I implode into myself). Oh well, plenty of great albums have skipper tracks.

If you see this post before you go, bark twice and let me know if he's doing merch because I would really really like to grab a shirt and would happily pay someone to get one for me. He's coming to Australia in November and I was considering going but it's too soon for me to save up for flights. :(
 
I'm a relative newcomer to the whole synth/retrowave thing as I only hopped on the bandwagon probably around this time last year.(

Welcome aboard the synthwave train! I totally agree re: part of the appeal is the unspoken narratives and often ethereal vibe of much of synthwave. I've followed Perturbator for years, so when he dropped Tactical Precision Disarray I was pretty taken aback, but it's a favorite now. Loved TUV; the transitional period. Pretty crazy if you go back to something like Miami Disco or even the stuff on the Sexualizer EP and realise it's the same guy and how different his compositions are at this stage.

He's coming to Australia in November and I was considering going but it's too soon for me to save up for flights. :(

Can't wait to see him in Sydney! Going to be a helluva night. If there's a merch table I can grab you something and post it.
 

Mush

6.0
Welcome aboard the synthwave train! I totally agree re: part of the appeal is the unspoken narratives and often ethereal vibe of much of synthwave. I've followed Perturbator for years, so when he dropped Tactical Precision Disarray I was pretty taken aback, but it's a favorite now. Loved TUV; the transitional period. Pretty crazy if you go back to something like Miami Disco or even the stuff on the Sexualizer EP and realise it's the same guy and how different his compositions are at this stage.

Can't wait to see him in Sydney! Going to be a helluva night. If there's a merch table I can grab you something and post it.
Thank you, and I'll definately be in touch re: merch if nothing else is released.
The time I saw Perturbator last year his merch pricing was kind of ridiculous

I think basic t-shirts were like......$35 or something. Like Iron Maiden pricing lol

It was a neat Metropolis looking design but nah dude

Here's the shirt online for $19.99
Yeah, I've had that bookmarked for a while now but I'm holding out hope there'll be some other designs to choose from as well. I emailed Blood Music a few weeks back asking if there will be anything to coincide with the release of New Model but they weren't too sure.
 
Just got back, the show was amazing. He played a ton of stuff from Dangerous Days and Uncanny Valley, a handful of older tracks, and then near the end he played a few things off the new album which sound absolutely huge live. Crowd was super into it, even a few of the bartenders were taking breaks to snap shots and videos. Here's a link to an album with two pictures, I'm too tired to figure how out to resize and embed:

https://imgur.com/a/S7fSD

If you see this post before you go, bark twice and let me know if he's doing merch because I would really really like to grab a shirt and would happily pay someone to get one for me. He's coming to Australia in November and I was considering going but it's too soon for me to save up for flights. :(

Sorry, didn't catch this before I left. There are 3 styles of shirt. 30 US bucks, which is pretty damn pricey, but I picked one up anyway because it's rare to get a synthwave show here and I figured I should put some money down.
 

Mush

6.0
Sorry, didn't catch this before I left. There are 3 styles of shirt. 30 US bucks, which is pretty damn pricey, but I picked one up anyway because it's rare to get a synthwave show here and I figured I should put some money down.
Would you mind posting a pic? Thanks!
 

Fjordson

Member
Yeah, the Perturbator EP isn't really my thing either.

Vantablack is especially bad. I'm probably in the minority, but for some reason when it comes to retro synth / electronic music in general I like instrumentals. Vocal tracks almost always come off as corny to me.
 

drotahorror

Member
Yeah, the Perturbator EP isn't really my thing either.

Vantablack is especially bad. I'm probably in the minority, but for some reason when it comes to retro synth / electronic music in general I like instrumentals. Vocal tracks almost always come off as corny to me.

Naw, I'm with you (in terms of vocals). Especially male vocals. I loved Perturbator's Sentient though, sometimes I do like some good female vocals.

I think the EP is sick, some really heavy shit, minus Vantablack.

This is much better than anything from Seas of Infinity

Yeah, I didn't like the tempo of most of the tracks on SoI. This is more back to MegaDrive's roots.
 
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