Music videos use to be one of the first ways (besides the radio) that people got introduced to material from new artists. In the reign of blogs though streaming Mp3’s have taken over as the vehicle for discovering new music (don’t get me wrong, I love a good Soundcloud clip) but there is something about the art of the music video that just resonates with a person. Soft Kill (comprised of Toby Grave and wife Shiloe Alia) seems to understand the allure of mixing visual with sound in the video for their demo An Open Door. The mysteriously haunting synth based track transfers harmoniously into a collection of darkly vague images ranging from a catholic prayer lights to shadows walking down pathways (defiantly has an David Lynch feel to it). The vintage, non descript feel of the video fits with the song’s 1980’s gothic feel and the ambiguous nature allows the viewer to place their own spin on what they think the video and/or song might mean. Be on a look out for Soft Kill’s full-length debut in March off of Fast Weapons.

Art Museums-Darling Are You Out of Your League Again

.San Francisco/Santa Cruz based Art Museums’ band camp page employs the tag “desert disco” to describe their sound. Although their music is more refreshing like a day in the shade as oppose to the hot sun their fun, 80’s laced bouncy sound certainty is dance worthy. The group’s 7-inch Shopping was released this New Year’s and packs two great jams, but Feel Like Dreams pulls ahead as the one to put on constant repeat.

Nervous: Pikachunes

As the colder months set in (along with Family-centric holidays) so does my desire to listen to The Smiths. But a girl can only listen to Meat is Murder so many times, so thank god for the recent discovery of moody, shoegazey, synth lovin’ MINKS. The group claims Brooklyn as their base, but I could swear from the perfectly shadowy vocals and dark sounding pop hooks that they hail from a dreary steel town (okay last Smiths’ reference I swear).  The group recently released a 7-inch entitled Ophelia on Captured Tracks that shows a wealth of promise of getting you through this wintery months.

“Starfield”

Italo Disco. Its been awhile since I heard a reference to the slightly arcane (well in America) genre that is responsible for the majority of 1970’s to 1980’s European electronic dance music. Although Italo Disco has faded in the past few decades, its’ influence holds strong in contemporary electronic music, as Los Angeles’ The New Division proves in their futuristic, ambient sound. The quartet produces a wide ranging catalog, encompassing both upbeat and dreamy electronic music that showcases their musical diversity. “Starfield”, a chilled out dance song serves as a middle ground for the group’s spectrum of sound. The synth serves as a focal point as a steady drum beat and guitar riff branch out from it. The seamless melding of synth and drum create an intriguing mid-tempo beat that one could either chill out or dance too.

Transmitters-Radio Studente

Transmitters-Epiclectics

Download The Transmitters HERE

The Transmitters were a British alternative rock band active during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Mixing elements of punk, jazz and psychedelia, the band were critical favourites throughout their lifetime and played support slots for a wide variety of underground and mainstream bands, although this did not translate into substantial commercial success. via FMA

The Green Pajamas-Green Pajamas

Guest post from John Fell Ryan of Excepter:

Factor 10-Ever Since You Went Away

D.H.S.S.-Together

Synthetic Romance is chalk full of emerging synth-pop artists from the early 80’s. Dark Entries has digitalized the origianl LP and has made it available for download below.  The back cover of the album reads:

“Synthetic Romance – for people wanting a collection of modern and futuristic music. The groups are varied, from all parts of the country and all walks of life, with one thing in common – the synthesizer – perhaps the most sophisticated instrument of our century.”

Crutchfield’s post DNA outfit Dark Day recorded the incredible Window and released it back in 1982 a very rare release featuring dark minimal synths and aggressive wet timbres. Windows has been compared to the Martin Rev’s first solo album but cleaner sounding, you can download a portion of the album and buy the whole thing through Darken Tries Records here.

Tom and Marty band-I had a dream

The Tom & Marty Band Formed in 1980, and they liked to experiment with early electronic equiptment. They have a rather crude sound infused with spoken word and angry synths. They have described their sound as “Electronic Folk Music” and claim to be inspired by film, love, space, and all the random sounds around them.

(Open post to download their full album if you dare)

Steaming Coils-Lexor Quarter

Stemaing Coils were an L.A. experimental underground group  that started back in 84′ . Their sound is bizarre and spans many styles and influences.  I was searching for the group Vas Deferens Organization and came across Steaming Coils. I was reading a comment on Ariel Pink post claiming that he shouldn’t be coined the godfather of chillwave because VDG invented it back in 93′ long before him.  Click the links below to get a bunch of free downloads from Steaming Coils at both Lastfm and Mutant Sounds.

(Open post to download more songs)

Death Wears White Socks brings us another great album download from the early 80’s. Listen to Lifetones rad track “Good Side” and download the whole album below.

Lifetones-Goodside

Download Lifetones album “For a Reason” here.

(make sure to unzip the downloaded file)

Artefact-Sex Computer

France’s Artefact mixes minimal new wave synth music with a funky twist, download their whole album below courtesy of Death Wears White Socks.

Download Artefact – Agit ‘Pop (1981)here

Les Aventures Sous La Mer-Determined Porpoise

Our vintage electronic buddy Mr. Nissness sent info over to us about the new compilation “Memories of the Future” featuring one of his tracks and a bunch of other cool instrumental synth artists. The compilation  features 76 minutes of instrumental electronic/chip and is  available for download here.

(make sure to unzip downloaded folder otherwise the songs wont play)

Band O Fun-Pi Phi

This is for all you weirdos out there who like rare  tape recordings from the 80’s. Bob Chaos Records was a cassette-only label out of Indiana. The label had only 15 releases between 1984-1988 which included strange bands ranging from rock to experimental lo-fi. Instead of letting these tapes deteriorate in a closet somewhere Bob Chaos converted some of his favorite songs into mp3 format for the world to download.

Mudhoney on myspace

Watch “Hype” on Netflix

Tommy Jay-Memories

(Open post to download full album)

Tommy Jay’s Tall Tales of Trauma,  was released on cassette in 1986. It is such a great album with its psychedelic folk energy mixed with influences from the the Violent Femmes, early Talking Heads and Lou Reed. The songs kind of rotate going from  beautiful folk pop songs to wierd 80’s synth pop with drum machines and then repeat that a few times and you have Tommy Jay’s Tall Tales of Trauma.

Karen Cooper Complex – Beeswax

(Open post to download whole album)

The Karen Cooper Complex is a six-piece band formed in 1970.  Their music was a marriage between rock and free jazz. The group of outsider artists  played loosely structured, improvisational rock that found itself in the realm of  the avant garde . Karen got pregnant and the band never played live  — in fact, from that point, they never played again at all. The member from the group Frank Daniel died of complications of Type I diabetes in 2004,  this volume of songs has been digitized  as a salute to his memory and in hopes that someone out there will listen to this music and say “Good work, Frank. Thanks.” We are left with this wonderful album, download it here.