Synth Single Review: “SYS 49152” by Sonic Gap

by Karl Magi

Sonic Gap’s “SYS 49152” travels down technological pathways as it sweeps into life with a computerized glow. Whirling sonorities carry images of vast digital landscapes, over which Sonic Gap guides me. A technological miasma is pierced by cascading digital sounds which slice cleanly. Urgency permeates the foundational flow while the melodic feeling is one of branching code, tendrils speeding across cyberspace. A melody which floats in the ether combines the haunting and the peaceful as it roams widely.

Rhythmic percussion forms underlying weight as tension intertwines with sharp edges. Computerized peril permeates the speeding tonal pattern while echoes propagate in the low end. Feelings of triumph, images of a programmer venturing into colossal structures within virtual space, emanate from the track, capturing me. Intensity flashes from tumbling, shadowy sounds cut by tightly wound nervousness above before silence falls.

AWITW - Valley Girl

Review by Karl Magi

Overall Album Impressions

AWITW’s “Valley Girl” spills out in jewel-like tones, swirling me away on an auditory journey. Through layers of intermingled tones, textural elements and melodic expression, the album unfolds in scenes of affection, adventure and moments of more melancholy contemplation. The way in which AWITW reflects experiences and imagery adds to the complexity and depth of the musical experience. I'm also enamoured of the performance by Ross Lustre on “Running Wild,” as it gives further weight to the music’s emotive nature.

A tide of layered synth sounds sweeps through “Valley Girl”  bearing me along in its flow. Luminosity intermingles with density and fragility with strength, sliding together in a welter of ear-catching auditory complexity. Each different element emphasizes another image or feeling, elucidating the artist's creative view. His ability to choose sounds that suit the different tracks allows the music to expand and encompass the atmosphere and mood which they radiate. As a result, the music clearly communicates to the listener.

Melodically speaking, “Valley Girl” packs a punch. Each track contains within it a melodic morsel that drives home the message within the notes. Every melody is full of unique signatures and radiates a different emotive sensation. As I move through the tracks, each one illustrates a different aspect which the artist wants to highlight, engaging me in his creative process and allowing me to experience the atmospheres and sensations which he seeks to evoke. In addition, harmonics reverberate throughout and add yet another aspect to the album.

It's clear that AWITW wishes to evoke an experience that has touched and moved him in this album. He uses all of his musical skills to deliver a listening experience which puts one in touch with those different emotional states. The way in which he presses home the message makes the album one in which I've become invested.

My Favourite Songs Analyzed

“Moving Shadows” takes form with umbral darkness rising from towering foundational walls. Shining with soft luminosity, reverberant tones drift, lonely and haunted, while the patterned underpinnings throb. Hypnotically shifting sounds move behind vibrant brushing notes which resolve into filigree as hovering synth echoes in an evocation of empty wandering. Emptiness and disconnection touch me, expressing themselves in my heart with intense emotion. Gliding away from me, open notes trace and fade as the track ends.

Broadcasting swelling light, tones which speak of powerful emotion glow and bring “Valley Girl” to life. Hints of roughness shiver at the edges of the sweeping tones, blown by a lonely wind. Solidly expanding underlayers rise to meet a ticking rhythmic throb as the breezes swirl. Impressions of wide-open spaces slide from the broad tones, transporting solitary sensations deeply into my mind. 

Emotional impact, mingling affection and feelings of vistas stretching away, flows from the synth as it exhales in hushed peace. Harmonies that grasp my heart intermingle as the melodic line carries tremulous caring, transported by hushed drum motion. Below everything, a dense bass cloud hovers while silken notes slide. Evocative and warm, peace tinged with melancholy spreads outward before quiet falls.

“Running Wild” breathes to life with whispering notes that add caressing emotion while the guitar entangles above the bass pool below. Echoing out, full of feeling, Ross Lustre’s words hang in reverberant space. Rushing foundations underpin the ardent fire burning in the vocal performance, like a flaming arrow to the heart. The rhythm pounds as tremulous tenderness mingles with the defiant swell of Ross Lustre’s voice.

Heartbeat pulsations shift as a breeze slips past. Brilliance defines notes that rise and flare while escape permeates the vocals and the drums punch. Reaching for joy and love, Ross Lustre carries the words with conviction. Like a sunset bursting from a dark cloud, the melody gleams and spins out before the song ends on the drifting emotion within the vocals.

Exhorting the song’s subject, “Let’s go run, running wild,” our storyteller says, “Let’s go make the world a place where we can be.” As their eyes meet in the garden, he beckons the song’s subject and says, “Come over, fuck the warden.” He adds, “You are friends with her and them and I work there, do this and that.” He notes that the song’s subject is working there too, he liked their smile and wanted to talk.

After traveling far and wide, the song’s subject found their peace, as the narrator says that “one like them” learned release. They sit close together on the train and their thighs touch through their clothes. The narrator asks, “Why am I so cynical?” and as they watch everyone around them, he adds, “I know you see what I mean, ’cause you laugh at my remarks.” He points out that although the other person doesn’t think it’s so grim, “you must admit the line is thin.”

To conclude, our storyteller says, “Let’s go walk to spite the rain, hand in hand across terrain. See the sun rise in the bay, hear the stories, learn the way.”

An expanding colour spectrum broadly levitates as “Your Glowing Hands” takes shape. Spectrally drifting, whispering notes tremble out into open space in a carpet of lush sound. Strumming guitar spins in a funky figure, washed by prismatic light. Percussion forms a shaping tide while melodic patterns create meditative states as the beat reverberates.

Luscious layers move one through the other, a tapestry of luminosity exuding contemplative tranquility. A breath in, a breath out and I fly, cradled by sonic peace, roaming above a thousand landscapes. As twisting tones intertwine, hushing the babble of voices in my mind, the track drifts like scudding clouds through blue sky. Weight undulates below, cut by vibrating sounds like diamond sparkles. Drums break with echoing motion and synth casts iridescence as ripples spread outward and silence falls.

“Here Together” is tinged with fluting ethereality and reverent warmth while sweeping winds float. Metallic and tender, a melody reverberates, filled with affection as it spreads out above the tranquil, thumping percussion. Ringing illumination flashes, slipping through airy peace as tiny notes vibrate. Drums, like a steady heartbeat, guide a melody tender and light and I wander with it in cloud-like ease.

Rainbows refract and rising summer air becomes a melancholy caress from the synth. Slow arpeggiation suffuses the music with crystalline prisms as broadly echoing tones slip between and bass like a giant tide flows. Hopeful encouragement bursts out from scintillating sonic lines, hang drum tones tapping before the track exhales in one glittering breath and grows silent.

Gargantuan sharpness slices through misty meditation to start “Now Playing.” Otherworldly pan pipes expand with celebratory speed while giant power moves urgently underneath. A melody grows with encouragement, delivering a joyful memory, putting me in mind of good times past but not forgotten. 

Panpipes sing like a choir of extraterrestrial voices while chords cast sunlight into the bass well below. A synth, breathing with gentle touches, swirls and mingles, transporting me to dreaming realms while the panpipes frolic with cosmic energy. A heartbeat shifts evenly while piping sounds levitate. Reverence shimmers from the tune before the music sweeps to a close on galactic exhalations.

Conclusion

“Valley Girl” bubbles with lushness and complex layering, exuding emotions that run the gamut from excitement to passion, with stops along the way for tenderness and joy. The end result is music that lives and breathes with positivity and a sense of fullness as it evolves.

Exposure Kills - No Sanctuary

Written by Vero Kitsuné

Being one of the most prolific producers of the underground dark electronic and alternative scene, Electronic Artist and Hacker Tess LaCoell has always carried a broad range of genres in her pocket — often blending them, breaking them and defying them. Her style has never been easy to categorize, but we all know the coolest things always defy genre expectations. But with her new project Exposure Kills, she’s clearly intent on pushing even further beyond familiar boundaries. Known for her work across underground electronic circles and tech culture alike with remixes for both indie and big stars alike, LaCoell’s debut EP under Exposure Kills No Sanctuary reframes club music as something more conceptual and confrontational. Across five tracks, she channels themes of surveillance, control, and digital autonomy into a sound that fuses synth pop immediacy with prog-leaning structures and industrial grit. Drawing on her background in hacker culture and open-source communities, the record feels less like a stylistic pivot and more like a calculated system breach — one that turns technical frameworks and real-world cyber logic into something visceral, rhythmic, and unexpectedly cinematic.

I couldn’t help but feel like I’m roaming around neon-lit circuit boards in some super cute Y2K cyberpunk outfits while listening to the EP from start to finish.

Opening track “No Sanctuary (feat. Rebecca Bammert” kicks things off with a slick blend of hyperpop gloss and proggy electropop twists, with vocoder-heavy harmonies giving it that cool, robotic edge. It’s a fun, high-energy bop on the surface, but the lyrics dive into digital warfare and system sabotage, making it feel like a playful yet slightly menacing hacker anthem.

“Detect, Deny” keeps the momentum going, but leans into a rougher, more experimental vocal style — glitched-out, heavily vocoded, and even a bit dissonant in ways that give it a colder, dystopian edge. The electronicore-flavored breakdown hits hard, and paired with the back-and-forth perspective in the lyrics, it feels like a tense cyber battle unfolding in real time.

Then the EP rolls into two remixes of “No Sanctuary” — the “Lunar Paths Remix” by Violet Wanda and Lunar Paths, and “Disaster by Design” by Dharmata 101. Each one, in its own way, drops you straight into a gritty, Matrix-style underground club — follow the white rabbit, right?

The EP closes with “The Signal,” easily my favorite track, which pushes things into a wild hybrid of hyperpop and Drum-and-Bass, topped off with some genuinely fun, powerful and brilliantly-executed distorted metal screams.

All in all, No Sanctuary feels like a bold and fully realized introduction to Exposure Kills — equal parts concept-driven and just straight-up fun to listen to. It balances glossy hooks with darker, tech-laced themes in a way that never feels forced, and if this is just the starting point, there’s a lot to be excited about moving forward.

Follow Exposure Kills here: https://exposurekills.bandcamp.com/

Fury Road

Review by Karl Magi

Overall Album Impressions

“Fury Road” drips an unadulterated retrowave atmosphere into my veins with each song. Romance, dystopian destruction and aching loss spill from the words and mingle with richly layered synth sounds to paint neon imagery with cinematic scope. Adding in the skillful saxophone player and a female vocalist combining range with engaging emotive performances only deepens the intensely affecting nature of the music.

A series of compelling vocal performances beats at the center of “Fury Road.” Rob Fox has a voice suited to the atmosphere and emotional tenor of the album and the songs he’s written. It exudes moving sensations and punches home the lyrics with conviction. His female counterpart captures pure feeling in a voice that moves like spring air. Together, they weave atmosphere and emotion into a single, beautiful thread.

Lyrically speaking, Rob Fox shows his ability to craft words on “Fury Road.” The songwriting is chock full of well-considered imagery and metaphor, producing a unique vision of the particular world he wishes to create. Raw emotion is on clear display in each song, with the words drawing me in more fully. Each song builds on the others to increase the desire, heartache and retrofuturistic scenery that moves through the album. In the end, I find myself moved by the feelings spilling from the songs.

As saxophone and synth intermingle, the album throbs with all of the sensations of rain-wet streets lit by neon, the glow of destruction on the horizon and pavement unfolding with freedom and a sense of escape. Each synth tone and colour adds a new layer to the tapestry being woven from its musical threads. The saxophone player rips his solos with absolutely nothing held back and carries melodies that touch and breathe with pure feeling. As a whole, the musical background and melodic writing refine and intensify the atmosphere that moves through the album.

My Favourite Songs Analyzed

“Skylight Overdrive” comes to life as mysteriously rippling notes move with a clean saxophone that floats out in passionate lines. Rob Fox’s expansive voice rises with intense feeling as the guitar glimmers in the distance. The saxophone erupts with blazing dynamism as the pounding beat drives and notes go supernova.

Rob Fox seizes the music with his expressively forceful voice as the melody flames with fierce aspiration. The guitar rips while the saxophone howls with unbridled feeling and the low end slams with terrific muscle. Rob Fox presses home this song’s message with emotion that punches into me as the drum beat surges ferociously.

The saxophonist fills the music with wild abandon and honest feeling as exploding drums blast. The saxophone tears into the music with a solo that captures freedom and release, spinning out with madly driven momentum before the track ends with the satisfying vocal performance.

“Headlights in my eyes, cold air, both hands tight,” as he sees the city receding in the rearview mirror, he feels his heart on the dashboard. He “outran every excuse, burnt through all the gas.” The song’s subject tells him that the future is fragile, but he just wants to turn it up loud and “feel that orbit rising, pull us off the ground.”

It’s “skylight overdrive,” and tonight they aren’t looking back and as they “hit the line at 95, heart is in gear and locked in time.” Our storyteller says that if they crash, at least they tried while they “turn the dark to neon sky, you and I in overdrive.”

“We were stuck in slow frames, paused between the days,” but now they’re slicing new lanes and “burning all the gray” as each doubt fades in the airy rush. “If the road keeps changing, we’ll just meet it there,” as all of the wrong turns and lost time “fold into this single fast line.”

To conclude, our storyteller says, “if this is the start, let it feel like a flame. Say my name as we jump the light.”

Arpeggios tremble nervously as “Riptide” glides to life. Anticipation and tension spin out from the vibrating notes as drums hit hard and bass cuts in angular motion. Chords that blow out with brilliance join a melodic line which evokes oceanic phosphorescence and adventure, singing a story of excitement to me. 

Shivering, round-sounding tones circulate as the drums speed and the melody arcs, reaching skyward in thrilling acceleration. Swirling arpeggiation casts radiance like a diadem as shimmers of brilliance flash and the main melody carries uplifting joy. Tiny droplets of synth descend, blindingly gleaming, while the undulating heartbeat shifts. With an aggressive laceration, a guitar snarls into the music, accompanied by the active arpeggiation that grows quiet.

“Montana” slips into being with lithe flows while tonal silk emerges from the saxophone before the vocalist releases her bittersweet performance. Melodically, the song radiates sensitivity and yearning while the vocals emphasize the shattering desire within the lyrics. Rhythmic pulses drive as the surging underlayer lifts the vaulting lyrics, full of emotion that slices into me. 

Passionate engagement forms from swelling notes, floating freely and freshness wraps around Rob Fox’s vocals that push feeling out with irresistible soul. Words which are woven with beauty become filigreed by illuminating sound and embellished by singing that extends with trembling hands. 

The saxophone shimmers briefly before the unadorned words are carried by a voice which delves deep into humanity as the foundational heartbeat thunders. The ending is delivered by a dance between incandescent saxophone and gripping vocals.

With a phone cord twined through her fingers, the storyteller’s heartbeat is “louder than the waves.” She can hear her friends laughing on the beach, but “you’re the only name I crave.” With the “sunset dripping down the water,” her friends call her to swim with them, but “I pretend that I’m still listening, but all I want is you again.” She’s been hiding all of her feelings, becoming “just a shadow on the sand,” and she trembles as she dives, hoping the song’s subject will understand.

Resolving to tell the song’s subject all of her secrets and lies, the narrator adds, “Every time I tried to fight it, I just fell a little more.” She asks if the other person can hear in her voice how “you never were a choice” because they’ve always been “something I’ve been waiting for.” Now they’re in a nightclub and “everyone is busy dreaming to a language made of jokes,” but she’s “pressed into the corner with your number in my hand, jukebox playing future love songs while I’m losing every plan.”

Despite all of the strangers who are “shining, dancing,” she is off in a distant place as “every color keeps on blurring.” The song’s subject is “listening to life through the static and the light,” and each time our storyteller tries to fight the feeling, it only comes back stronger. She adds, “I was scared you’d only left before I let the silence cut in two,” as she traces “little circles on the spots I’ve worn in you.”

To conclude, the narrator says, “If I say I see forever in the way you say my name, will you hold this trembling secret or will everything just change?”

Vocals wordlessly capture anticipation and resolution as circling tones ride a bass tide to bring “Satellite Strangers” to life. Quickly glinting notes arpeggiate as Rob Fox uses his deeply expressive voice to carry a melody of affection, while the female vocalist layers her own voice into the mix. 

Intermingling emotion slips from the melody, vocals reaching out with hope before whispering passion pours from the female singer’s voice. Vibrancy fills the melody as the two singers trade off charged energy. Melodically rich synth gives life to the music’s heart as the foundation floats. The rhythm shimmies as vocal sounds without words hover, full of piercing emotion until silence falls.

“Steel blue skyline, neon on your skin,” as the second narrator gives the first narrator a half smile as she opens the door. In the club, “chrome reflections cut across the floor, every face’s a barcode, dancing like they’ve been here before,” as they move through the “chromed out paradise” with bodies catching the light. “All the strangers feel like satellites, spinning closer, burning bright.” 

Even if “this is just a copy life, I don’t care, it fits us right,” because on this night our first storyteller says the future feels like it was made for him and the other person. “Black glass ceiling flares above the crowd, synthetic constellations falling through the sound,” as the first storyteller leans toward the second storyteller. She says there’s “static in your laugh,” adding that it was “programmed to be perfect, but this moment glitches fast.”

As the two narrators trade parts, they conclude, “Touch my wrist, your pulse goes gold. Numbers racing, secrets told. If this is cryptic, let it run.”

“Simulation” swells with desolation and tentative emotion, glittering on the edge of a dark void. A whispering voiceover carries a message of eternal shadow in contrast with technologically swooping tones. 

Computerized and impersonal elements are balanced with warmer notes that cry, while the robotic voiceover encapsulates existential contemplation, compelling me to my own consideration. 

In a veil of lustrous gentleness, chiming notes descend and synth blurs with digital glow, the voiceover tinged with danger. Percussive power vibrates while melancholy loneliness cries out from Shane Grandison’s wheeling guitar tones, extending skyward before the track ends.

Our storyteller reminds the audience that you will be haunted by death; it’s a state to which consciousness holds no answer. They ask, “In the vastness of stars, what do you see? Darkness.” The voiceover goes on to point out that despite being “finite and fragile,” consciousness can create tremendous inventions but is destined to “a painful demise.”

Speaking of “formless energy constrained in finite shapes,” the voiceover asks if it’s any wonder that the Great Filter exists. The narrator reminds all of us to look where we’re standing as we find ourselves “repeating every day, towards a void.” We are told that no matter how much we plead for it to stop, we are “always the next in line for eternal darkness.”

A hollow and haunting synth moves with surging darkness to commence “Crash the Skyline.” Urgent muscle pulsates while Rob Fox permeates his voice with dystopian, portentous emotion, before a cry of worry and need infuses the female singer’s delicate vocals. The chorus climbs with yearning, driven by powerful weight, the vocals shot through with desperate desire to be close. A spectrally floating synth carries the ghostly melody, the female singer filling her tones with terrified want.

The chorus again slides with piercing passion, washing through with urgent, fervent wishing for the presence of the other. Percussion shatters into silence as a piano trembles, my heart hurting for the characters, as hope and fear mix together with an ultimate sense of defiance in the face of loss. In the end, the passion of the characters will outlast the apocalyptic destruction.

The night is lacerated by sirens as “red clouds bleed across the blast.” Roads choke with “stalled confessions,” each breath possibly the last, while the radio stutters numbers, “static prayers for shattered towns.” The first narrator kills the headlights, grips the wheel “you’re the only thing I count.” The second speaks of a crash in the air, “names on my tongue” if it’s the end, she isn’t done.

Their voices entwine: “Crash the skyline, I’m comin’, hold the door, don’t fade from me… if the world burns by morning, let the last thing I see be you.” He races the night, seconds splitting in two, “I want the last collapse with you.”

She waits in a blue-lit room, neighbours sobbing through paper walls. She lays out photos like tarot cards, begs the night to speed his car. Smoke, rain, fear in his lungs, together: “If this is the end, I won’t die young, alone.”

“Crash the skyline, you’re comin’… let the last thing you see be me.” She urges him faster. Streetlights drown in flame as she says, “If I don’t make it…” “Don’t you dare speak that fate,” he cuts in. She pleads: run every red, cut through smoke and glass, as she traces his outline on the tiles, waiting.

“If the road disappears, crash straight into me, let the ending find us tangled.” He arrives. The door is unlocked. She trembles in his arms. “If the world burns by morning, let it burn where we stand.” Sirens scream: if the sky “falls hard and heartless,” let the last of it fall on them.

Conclusion

“Fury Road” is classic synthwave with an especially galvanizing mixture of vocal power, melodic beauty and instrumental skill. The way in which I am drawn into a city in a future that is strangely like the past, moving through midnight streets and confronting love, loss and fear, makes this an exceedingly enjoyable listening experience for me.