Sunday, August 27, 2023

Entry 538 - Alex - X

 

Style: Synthwave, EDM, touches of ambient

Primary Emotions/Themes: Brooding, mystery, urban

Thoughts: Synthwave is a tough genre for me. When it's good it is truly excellent. The problem is that it is rarely excellent. So much of the genre repeats the same themes over and over. It's hard to find something that stands out. That's where X comes in.

Instead of blasting beats, saxophones and retrorave aesthetics dripping form every note, Alex takes quite a different approach on X. The music has a pulse to it, it fades in and out of existence much the same way a heart beat drives the human body through life.

While the music is predominantly beat driven like almost all synthwave is, where X distinguishes itself is how it executes that beat. The music phases in and out in both volume and intensity. Each note fades in and then decays out within a few seconds. Repeat this over the course of several instruments in unison and a beat that matches the throbbing intimatly and you have what gives X life, and it's unique identity. 

The result of this is more than just the sense of life it gives to the music. It also gives X a more subtle and subdued feel than most other entries into the genre. With the music pulsing as it does, many of the details that would normally be thrust right into your face are pushed into the background. This grabs my attention more as I'm curious about what the music is doing as it fades in and out of existence. 

Not every song has this "pulsing" sense to it, but enough of the album does for me to call it the defining characteristic of X. There are your standard straight forward bangers that you would expect on a synthwave album, including an excellent vocal driven one at the end of side A. The thing is, it's not every song, it's not the only thing the album has to offer. By creating diversity, Alex has moved the album from generic to extra-ordinary.

Written August 22nd 2023

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