Synthwave Sunday: VHS Glitch, Evil Technology

For more info on Synthwave Sunday and why we’re doing this, click here. 

One of the many characteristics of Synthwave that makes this genre so appealing to me is the mythology that comes along with the music; many of the artists have a story they’re conveying… or at least a rough idea of one they’re channeling. Robots and virtual reality and evil corporations and zombies and serial killers and Russia and mass paranoia! It’s a version of the ’80s that existed in movies more so than real life, but one that evokes strong feelings of nostalgia nonetheless.

So peep the back-story concocted by VHS Glitch for his 2014 album Evil Technology (how perfect!), which comes with the following disclaimer:

New york city 1980.
The most successful technology companies met for an important meeting, the main topic, create a single company called Neotech Corporation to manufacture different types of hardware with a single software who can control the minds of the general population of society.

Meanwhile somewhere in Tokyo, a clandestine company finished the project to fight against Neotech Corporation
The project was recorded in a VCR which was programed to play the VHS in an unknown date.

Today is the day, a couple of glitches and it will happen.
VHS Glitch is here, the war is ready
END OF TRANSMISSION.

Does the story make perfect sense? Not really, but it establishes the mood well enough, and who gives a fuck when you’ve got synths this gnarly? VHS Glitch is kind of the slow-jam king of synthwave artists; his grooves are more subtle than the buzzsaw bass rips and hard-hitting beats of the genre’s heaviest purveyors like Perturbator and GosT, but sometimes you just wanna slow fuck your lover on the side from behind when you wake up in the morning, not pound / get pounded mercilessly after a drunken night out, ya know? And VHS Glitch still packs plenty of punch.

Stream Evil Technology below via Bandcamp. VHS Glitch also just released TWO video game soundtracks within the past couple of weeks, one for the iOS/Android title Space Spacey and the other for Demons with Shotguns. Both of those are available at Bandcamp along with the rest of the VHS Glitch catalog.