Synth Single Review: “Starman” by Droid Bishop

by Karl Magi

Droid Bishop’s “Starman” charts a voyage across glimmering spacescapes as it opens with creaking tones mingling aspiration and desolation. An echoing voice calls out as the undulating, sharp-edged notes move, while cosmic sensations burst from the lead synth. Heart-aching emotion fills the distance with vast sound, the synth calling out with softness to enfold my mind.

Serenity from a gliding melodic line moves on a worshipful synth, starlight flashing from prismatic notes. Galaxies whirl in velvet darkness, the starman watching them pass him by. Distant and meditative, high notes radiate planetary luminosity. 

Across the open and lonely spaces, our starman floats with anti-gravity elegance, the guitar lushly and gruffly adding shape. Through the rising melody, the listener travels through colossal vistas, opening to create awe. As the lead synth sings, astral shine bursts free and carries out before silence falls.

Synth Single Review: “Serotonin” by Missing Words

by Karl Magi

Missing Words’ “Serotonin” travels down melancholy pathways as it begins with voices moving into an empty space before a rhythm pushes with insistence. Cascades of radiant notes spill into a melody that mingles emotional ache with dynamism as drums provide forward motion. 

Vocals unfurl from James Meays with broken sensations, moving in patterns of loss and hurt before the chorus is joined by vaulting synth which gently illuminates the music. A meditative moment touches the song before the beat creates energy, while James Meays tenderly fills me with painful feelings with his affecting performance.

Rising like dawn, the lead synth melody reaches out to connect with damaged affection before the song flows quietly for a moment. Bursting back into life, the underpinnings charge while the vocals are a mixture of hope and uncertainty. Contemplative patterns fill the lead synths before the surging rhythm fades to silence.

The storyteller tries to run and hide, but he can’t take one more night because “I’m falling in too deep again.” He sees images of faraway light and calls out, standing by its side. The light tells him he’s free again.

“Give it one more try, one last sigh, because I can’t live a lie,” as our narrator says he can’t and won’t sleep tonight. He adds that “it takes away the pain of yesterdays.” He concludes, “I said I’d change in so many different ways, but I’m still here on the floor.”

Synth Single Review: “Haze” by Ogster & Alex Boychuk

by Karl Magi

Ogster & Alex Boychuk’s “Haze" is a sonic exploration of deep peace that breathes into being with a piano drifting in space. Distant sounds, like sunlight breaking through, wheel and tremble with shifting perspectives while the ticking rhythm slips in. Warm waves spread from a strumming guitar as the beat shuffles with graceful propulsion and the melody blossoms.

Scenes of a lush landscape slowly coming awake unfold as a solar glow suffuses the receding fog. Misty clouds swell up and billow, cradling me as the guitar reaches out with feathery tendrils to brush away my stress. The clicking percussion interlocks with the breaking sun of the guitar, like a summer’s slowly dissipating morning haze.

The entire track exhales with glowing encouragement and peaceful energy. Freshly shaping, the drums are washed over by tiny sparkles of uplifting light, while the synth is as diaphanous as fog over a green meadow before the music ends.

Synth Single Review: “Computer Love” by UFO1982 & Rogue FX

by Karl Magi

UFO1982 & Rogue FX’s “Computer Love” delves into a fixation on digital worlds and virtual relationships. A pumping underlayer is joined by orbiting melodic motion, while chimes add a blurring shimmer to start the song. Rogue FX captures the computerized, technologically based melody with precision as Oswaldo Gonzalez plays a blues-inflected lick which gives off a sapphire feeling.

Rogue FX’s vocal presence is full of confident sharpness as UFO1982 creates explosive energy, her synth lines crisp and clean. Oswaldo Gonzalez’s melodic line is graceful, and the chorus calls out with precise strength. The rhythm beats with steady insistence as twisting tones wander like an unsettling screensaver and the bass growls.

I enjoy the way in which UFO1982’s luscious background mixes with Rogue FX’s unique vocals and Oswaldo Gonzalez’s skillful playing to create enjoyable engagement. A rebounding rhythm drives forward as the guitar solo unfurls with noble muscle and sunset effulgence weaves through the music. The guitar flies with uplifting strength one more time before sailing into silence.

Mingled emotions flow through the narrator “as the virtual insanity takes shape.” The silicon chips in his head blur every moment, mashing together reality and fantasy in his “computer love.” As the systems take control and “real love’s getting old,” he loses his own self-control and feels “like it’s swallowing me whole.”

Now our storyteller has “computer love running through my veins, artificial love, different and the same.” He asks for the doctor to help him because “I’m burning up from the perfect motion.” His addiction is cursed and blessed as he has to get his “kicks online, in my private time.” He’s too weak to keep control, and he just wants to “hear your voice and how you say my name.”

There’s nothing physical; everything is artificial, and as the narrator boots up the program, “it’s removing all intelligence of thought.” However, he feels deep shame as, over and over again, computer love takes hold, and it is “systematically resuscitating me” with an electrical jolt. He points out that “this weird science has put the virus in me,” to the point that he’s become the virus, “and now the drama is real.”

As the song concludes, he says, “no more physics, physical love.”