Four years ago Michael Oakley, a certified titan of synthwave, wrote in these very pages about the scourge of “copywave,” a somewhat self-explanatory term used to describe knockoff artists mimicking the sound and even visual aesthetic of more popular musicians in the genre’s scene.
Hop in the DeLorean and travel to today: Oakley’s just released the 10-track powerhouse LP Prologue, a display of craftsmanship and artistic adventurism that will surely yield its own imitators in the years ahead. Although this time it might be jackals with ill-fitting Suno prompts, rather than sample packs, who water down the genre. This is a bit fitting: Oakley’s followup to 2021’s Odyssey finds him tackling topics that include the erosion of trust and general artifice and outright lies that pervade our modern times.
No doubt the onslaught of ever-unreliable AI platforms is merely the latest caustic in a world of post-truth ingredients, but at least you’ll be able to dive into this NRW Records release knowing that flesh-and-blood, no-bullshit human beings are giving you a rewarding sensory experience. (More than a dozen humans, actually, according to the credits.)
One thing that struck me initially when I was diving into this record is the curious title: it’s interesting to give one’s fourth synthwave album since 2017 the title of Prologue. It tells us that it’s the beginning of something new, or at least is setting the stage for it. The music isn’t an entire 180 — this isn’t country, trap, or something vastly outside his creative foundation. This isn’t darksynth, and there are no Carpenter Brut cameos, but clearly Oakley is “feeling it” along with the rest of us. It is in a blend of despair, cynicism, and a giant, hopeful heart that the artist finds his prologue.
The first single off the album, “World of Promises,” deeply emanates the concern about trust in any dynamic withering away. Oakley sings “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,” over eroding synths and searing guitars (the latter courtesy of John Kunkel and Dimi Kaye).
The buoyant, minor-key “Memory of You” brings scarred rumination to the dance floor. Oakley belts, “I’m trapped behind a thousand lies/But I see through your sweet disguise/It’s over, no room for second chances/Because I’m nobody’s fool.” The chorus has a kinetic, Italo-disco quality that he’s deployed well in the past.
The ever-delightful Holly Dodson of Parallels joins Oakley on the staggeringly catchy “Hurts Like Heaven,” a killer number that blends heart-on-the-sleeve confessions and sugary synths with a heavy rhythm and some classic late-1980s and early-90s pop sonics. Their lyrics tap into the more traditional idea of damaged love, but they do it in a way that creates one of the album’s top songs. The repeat-listen quality of “Heaven” is profoundly high, and as an added bonus you’ll be quite eager for more Oakley-Dodson joints.
“Falling Skyward” is a standout song on the album (and not just because the lyrics reference Brooklyn, ha). It kicks off with a flurry of arpeggiated and crystalline synths before unleashing a host of dark-purple sounds that flow robustly over a club-ready beat that oscillates between Italo and old-school trance. Atop this deft instrumentation are powerful vox from Oakley and synthwave pioneer Dana Jean Phoenix (whose background vox are on four of the album’s cuts and who has a history of Oakley collabs). It’s just a well made song, really.
Album closer “Use Your Illusion” does not sound like Guns N’ Roses, but it does indeed make one feel like Disintegration-era The Cure and Treasure-era Cocteau Twins teamed up with a fellow Brit with vocals as smooth as butter. The result is a massive, even cinematic, way to end the record.
Those dozens of musicians I referenced before contribute to this record serving as an antidote to the very community and interpersonal erosion Oakley laments throughout the songs. For starters, it’s a meeting ground for creative types from the active synthwave scenes of Toronto, Los Angeles, and the various areas in the United Kingdom. (Oakley is originally from Glasgow, lives in the general Toronto area, and frequents LA, so perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise.)
I mentioned Phoenix, who was for many years a member of the Toronto synth scene before moving to Wales to be with her now-husband. Other synthwave pioneer Dodson was also based in Toronto for a long time before moving to LA with her husband, Oakley’s art director and go-to filmmaker Brad A. Kinnan, a few years back. Missing Words’ James Meays is also from LA. (Well, those last three are in Long Beach, but it’s the second-largest city in Los Angeles County.)
English musician Ollie Wride — one of the most famous synthwavers out there and who has a big audience for both his solo work and his contributions to now-classic synthwave songs by FM-84 — sings backup on “Memory of You” and co-wrote all of the songs on Prologue.
Dimi Kaye, the other notable synthwave name on the record, hails from Greece, which doesn’t have as well-documented of a tight-knit scene but it did give us Kristine, who was making synthwave a good six or seven years before Stranger Things. The other musicians on the record are all linked to those various scenes (aside from perhaps that of the Hellenic Republic).
So you see, even as institutions have lost our trust, politicians find innovative ways to worsen things, relationships get soured in a curdled vat of social media, and all forms of art get cloned and debased by resource-hungry AI, there’s still hope for all of us. We’ve just got to embrace the good aspects of technology and connectivity in service of the art and the community. We know what the problems are — and fuck, are they legion — but we also have a way forward. We’re in the prologue and it’s time to start filling the subsequent chapters with the good stuff.
Or, as Oakley says on “Warriors of the Wasteland,” the most forthrightly synthwave-sounding song on the album: “I can start to see the light/With every swing and take down/But I, I know we can break their lines/Cos’ all of us are heroes.”
Prologue is out now in digital and many physical forms and versions on NewRetroWave’s Bandcamp page. You can also find the album on your favorite streamers.
Speaking of Toronto’s synth community: For fun, here’s an interview Oakley did with The Vehlinggo Podcast back in 2019 to discuss Outland Toronto, one of Toronto’s biggest synthwave events ever. Some of the people on Prologue were performers.
