Synthetic Villains, by Synthetic Villains

Synthetic Villains

by Synthetic Villains

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⸸CoughCool⸸ This had sat in my wishlist for about a year... it was time to cough up the dough.
Amazing instrumental music Favorite track: Idiots Deluxe.

Trust the Wizards Brilliant instrumental music with a bit of everything, love it
Favorite track: Yes, We Have No Bonanza.

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Synthetic Villains
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Limited edition of 50 hand-assembled recycled cardboard digi-pak with individually spray-painted inside cover and hand-numbered mini-Polaroid-style photo.

Photos are self-portraits ripped off Cecil Beaton's Aldous Huxley portaits. No, it's not a shower curtain, it's a muslin sheet.

Includes unlimited streaming of Synthetic Villains via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.	Idiots Deluxe 03:06	info	buy track
2.	Rhythm & Weep 06:40	info	buy track
3.	How High Is Up? 08:37	info	buy track
4.	The Captain Hates The Sea 04:47	info	buy track
5.	Time Out For Rhythm 11:02	info	buy track
6.	Yes, We Have No Bonanza 03:22	info	buy track

about

Debut album.

Only 6 tracks, but at just under 40 minutes long, I call it an album, not an EP. I mean, Pharoah Sanders' 'Karma' only has 3 tracks on it. And that's definitely an album.

"Bouncy electro-funk from Synthetic Villains has a nostalgic synth palette and an experimental, slightly off-kilter approach to songwriting"
As featured on Bandcamp's New & Notable homepage

"weeping guitars and gloomy electronics...with strings overlaying the melancholy like curtains swaying as a coffin moves through them."
8/10 Louder than War

"fresh and fun" Derek Walmsley (Wire Magazine)

The original idea for the album was to create an electronic backing for some guitar playing - in a similar vein to Robert Quine (Voidoids) & Jody Harris' (Contortions) album "Escape" - they used an Oberheim DMX drum machine and overdubbed guitar and bass.* Although that was the basic impetus, once the basic beats were laid down, more electronic textures seemed to suggest themselves and it became a (mostly) electronic album and the guitars took a back seat.

The album was influenced by everything from drone music, synth-pop, classic electronic music, and also hip-hop, electro and No Wave music.

The album garnered radio play from Kites & Pylons, Phantom Circuit, I Heart Noise, Sunrise Ocean Bender and more. Tracks from the album featured on the Active Listener Sampler, Speak & Spell Records' Let it Radicalise You, and Front & Follow's Isolation & Rejection Vol.5 (a remix that had featured on a Dark Outside broadcast). Support also came from bloggers Trust the Wizards and Colourhorizon.

* Quine/Harris also used episode titles from the Three Stooges which I thought was a good enough idea to steal for this album too.

credits

released March 31, 2020

WRITTEN, ARRANGED & PLAYED BY RICHARD J TURNER.

RECORDED, MIXED & MASTERED BY SAM PARKINSON AT STONEGATE STUDIOS.

FLOOD OF SOUND RECORDINGS - FOS001-CD

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about

Synthetic Villains Lancaster, UK

Debut release: 8/10 Louder than War, Bandcamp New & Notable

Obstacle Navigation:
"a great album....well produced, finely honed and full of tasteful texture...an album that works on a Friday night or a Sunday morning."
Iniquitous Glory

"an inventive and very relaxing album"
Monolith Cocktail

"great synth-pop...repays repeated listens."
Louder Than War
.
"playful and mysterious"
NARC Magazine ... more

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