Music
Welcome to my music page! Here I'll write about music I'm enjoying.
I'll probably mainly cover stuff in the retrowave genre and all its associated genres and subgenres. What is retrowave, you might ask? You can find a comprehensive treatment here, but in short: retrowave is a type of electronic music that adheres to the sounds, moods, themes, and aesthetics of 1980s pop culture. I love a wide variety of retrowave music, and I especially like listening to it while I'm working. One great thing about the genre is that you can support many of the artists directly by purchasing their music and merch on sites like Bandcamp; it feels great to support independent musicians in this way, and it's fun to explore the online scene of retrowave artists and fans. To see what I'm listening to, you can check out my Bandcamp page; which is where I get all my retrowave music.
My entry point into retrowave was (as I'm sure was the case for many people) Stranger Things. The guys who did the synth score for that show, Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, are also in the electronic music group S U R V I V E, and I got way into their music. From there I discovered artists like Mitch Murder, Arcis, Michael Weber, and many others.
A disclaimer about my music writing: I'm not super knowledgeable about music theory or the behind-the-scenes aspects of electronic music production. I can't give a technical explanation for why a sequence of notes works musically, or discuss the differences between one synthesizer and another. My writing will focus on the things that draw me to retrowave— the aesthetics, the feeling of the music, and the unique styles that each artist explores. With all that in mind, please check out articles about some of my favorite albums below!
2025 Update: Hey, remember how in the paragraph immediately preceding this one, I wrote about not knowing how retrowave music is made? Well, one of my goals for this year is to change that! I've bought an analogue synthesizer (the Korg Minilogue XD) and have been working to learn more about oscillators, envelopes, cutoffs, and all that kind of stuff. I'll probably write more about that on this page in the future, and perhaps even post some music too. Stay tuned!