It’s been a fruitful week for synthwave fans who love well-crafted pop songs from talented Scots fowk. A week after we got a new FM-84 track, out comes the inimitable Michael Oakley with the massive single “World of Promises” (with backing vocals by Dana Jean Phoenix) and its impressively executed music video. Oh, and did I mention that Ollie Wride co-wrote the track?
It’s been about 8.5 years since the long-time Canada-resident Oakley released his debut album, California, and in that time he’s been crucial to helping expand the scene’s depth and breadth with evocative songwriting that deftly blends skilled musicianship, memorable hooks, and powerful pipes. (His handiwork is all over a wealth of Wride cuts, closing the circle of their well-developed-but-not-well-known songwriting partnership.) He’s also helped keep the genre and its scene honest, writing one of the most poignant pieces this publication has given the world. (Given the prevalence of Suno and other AI platforms, I suspect a second copywave article is a necessity.)
This new single, “World of Promises,” which features the axe work of John Kunkel and Dimi Kaye, finds Oakley both modernizing and 1990s-ifying his work. The song kicks off with glitched manipulation before unleashing a tense, minor-key, synth-driven lamentation about the erosion of trust — in relationships, among society’s groups, the world at-large, etc. There is a darkness here you’d find in some corners of ’90s electronic music, underscoring perhaps that even with time we can’t truly outrun this stuff: “In this world of promises/Do our words still mean a thing?/Where’s the truth in all of this?/I can’t take this anymore.” Same, my friend. Same.
Only it’s all far worse now than back then, and I’m not just saying this out of a fit of nostalgia for my teenage years. The internet is brimful of AI hallucinations and intentional manipulation, fake lives, fake happiness, fake people with fake motivations, and all other manifestations of artifice that bleed over into the “real world” in the most malignant of fashions. If we don’t know what’s real — if we don’t share the same basic truths, even if we disagree on the swirl around it — then where the fuck do we go from here? This is as applicable to the social fabric, as it is to broken romance. To put it simply: WTAF?!
What is true and obvious is that Oakley and crew have put together a strong and captivating opening statement for this new chapter of his career. True to form, he’s keeping us honest.
Ok, let’s check out this video, helmed by long-time Oakley collaborator Brad A. Kinnan and co-written by Kinnan, Oakley, Holly Dodson (leader of Parallels and Kinnan’s wife), and filmmaker/comics guru F.J. DeSanto. Watch closely and you’ll notice some familiar faces from the SoCal synth scene, such as Dodson, Glitbiter’s Florence Bullock, Elevate The Sky’s Scott Eric McClure, and award-winning journalist Dan Przygoda, among others. The video itself is a throwback to the days of story-driven, high-production-value videos that once graced living rooms via MTV, VH-1, Much Music, and The Box.
To be honest, you should just watch it. It’ll be more rewarding than reading what I have to say about it, because all I have to say is that it’s gorgeous and it rocks.
“World of Promises” is out now via NewRetroWave on Bandcamp and other typical platforms. The new album is coming soon.
