SEATTLE-BASED DARK ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC DJ
BEST OF 2023
SYNTHPOP & FUTUREPOP
Neuroticfish
The Demystification of the Human Heart
This one dropped before I released my lists for the year, but after hearing the first couple of tracks to this I knew I had to hold off finishing them until I had a chance to listen to a record I've been waiting for a good year or so when it was announced that Neuroticfish were making music again. While the first track "Imposter Syndrome" starts us off on a somber and downtempo note, it comes right at you with the classic Neuroticfish futurepop sound with "Bring The Noise" and "Echokammer" before sliding into some liquid drum n' bass territory with "Light My Way" to help shake things up a bit. Sascha's vocals and lyrics remain just as powerful and profound as they did twenty years ago. Electronic Body Music? Futurepop? Whatever it is, it's not dead.
Nuovo Testamento
Love Lines
One thing I've learned in these last five years or so is that whether or not they want to admit it, goths love italo. Hell, it was just last year where we were seeing how busy Pablo Bozzi was releasing this new wave of italo body music and darkwave onto the world, and a beneficiary to this revival is LA's Nuovo Testamento and their 2021 release New Earth, which was one of my favourite releases that year. Back two years later with Love Lines and it's got the words "guilty pleasure" written all over it, and I mean that in the best possible way! Songs like "Heartbeat" and "Heat" make you feel like you're in a dance club in 1987, and had this album been released back in the day you would see it being spun alongside peak Madonna. While they may not be necessarily goth, opening for acts like Molchat Doma will get you noticed by them, and releasing music like this will make them all fish out their legwarmers and dance whether or not it ruins their "cred".
Sturm Café
Zeitgeist
This Swedish duo has always skirted the lines between EBM and synth pop, and their 2021 release Fernes Land ended up in the EBM favourites. While Zeitgeist comes at you two years later with even catchier synth leads and rhythms than the last record, it has a retro polish that lands it into the latter description. In classic Sturm Café fashion sonically it doesn't take up much space yet it sounds rich and full, giving enough room for each of these few parts to show off what makes them special from the gated-reverb drums to the short stabby leads and of course Jonatan's distinct vocal sound. Like with Fernes Land, I couldn't see myself feeling miserable while listening to this. Another fun listen from start to finish!
unitcode:machine
Critical Fault
I remember hearing of this project upon meeting Eric at Cold Waves in 2021, and would play stuff from Themes Of A Collapsing Empire on my streams for a while. This release on COP International really shows the growing maturity of this project over these past couple of years, adopting dark pop elements on top of the electro-industrial/coldwave-ish sound. A few I kept spinning all year included "Blind", "Keep Above The Water", and "Cold" (which was released as a single earlier this year with some great remixes by Stabbing Westward, Beborn Beton and Blackcarburning), but very few tracks set themselves completely apart from the others (in a good way) as each one solidly stands on its own. I'm really fascinated to see how Eric develops this project in the coming years.
X Marks The Pedwalk
Superstition
It's 2023 and we're talking about a release by X Marks The Pedwalk? Yeah that's what I said in 2021 when they released New/End so it's not like they've been dormant all these years. Their twelfth studio album maintains that continuity from that release as well as the preceding Transformation and Secrets but with even more powerful songwriting. Estefania's voice compliments the intricate programming that are as complex as the human connection and its vulnerability in which the album illustrates. "Who Is Right" and "Fading Waves" ended up being the more memorable tracks on this with a deliberate force that many club tracks require, despite the fact they mesh well within the rest of the record.