Synth EP Review: “Retro Summer Dreams” by The Blue Book Project

by Karl Magi

The Blue Book Project’s “Retro Summer Dreams” captures dancing all night, hanging out at the mall and enjoying a day at the beach with '80s vibes. Nicolas Rixon  adds his unique style to the music to create an extremely enjoyable listening experience for me. 

“Mediterranean Wave” bubbles over like washing foam spilling onto white sand as a rhythmic underlayer gives shaping energy to the uniquely tumbling tones before a technologically groovy beat kicks in.

Oscillating tones add sharpness to the flow of sound, capturing a powerful motorboat slicing through blue water with a fresh breeze blowing through the driver’s hair. I feel myself transported to a Mediterranean paradise with each note that falls.

Evoking pastel suits and laid-back beach houses, the melodic pattern sings with pure ’80s joy and metallic cleanliness, adding to the feeling of freshness permeating the atmosphere. A disco vibe fills the underlayer while the brassy notes carry the chilled-out but dynamic melody, painting images of riding an undulating swell in a high-end motorboat.

Tightly wound tones wriggle with a unique sonic signature, interlocking with the bursting beats supporting them as the disco groove returns to shimmy smoothly past. An image of sunlight glinting on azure waters sparkles in my mind as glittering chimes spangle with summer light from a glowing synth. As the main melody returns to capture super-cool sensations, the track comes to an end.

Active, varied percussion moves with a sweep and tangled tones convey powerful desire and consuming passion as “The World Is You” adds a jazzy brass section that erupts above the catchy drum beat. 

Nicolas Rixon’s voice is like caramel, warm and flowing, capturing ardent emotion while the underpinnings drive forward. Harpsichord-like notes tremble along with his sensual performance, capturing all of the desire and fervour spilling out of the words.

The rhythm jams forward as a steady pulse vibrates. The brass section burns with intensity while the vocals spill out with zeal. A catchy horn line blares with positive strength and Nicolas Rixon captures me with his performance while metallic notes glimmer with soft brightness and the rhythm pulses.

The chorus floats out with fiery joy while vibrating tones create urgency above the locked-in rhythm section. Nicolas Rixon’s vocals are full of honey-sweet warmth and trumpeting tones erupt with sunlight before the song ends with joy and need mingling.

Walking down the city streets, our storyteller sees people as shadows. He shuts his eyes and takes a look around, glancing into his heart. He says, “I can’t tell what’s going over me since I saw you last night dancing. Now I know my life came to the point that the world is you.”

On the city streets, “the racing cars seem so still.” As he shuts his eyes and empties his mind, he says he will take her home in his heart. He asks if his feelings are getting through to the song’s subject and if she can hear his message. He adds, “I can feel and breathe it in the air that the world is you.”

In Barcelona, he imagines himself having a fight at the bullring and singing in New York City for the song’s subject. In Paris, he says that he loves the Moulin Rouge, while in London Big Ben marks the passing of time. He continues, “The world is you and you are my world, girl.”

When the song’s subject is crying, she calls on him and, even if “the timing is not so right,” he promises that he will not turn his back on her, though the moment is hard.

To conclude, he says, “People dancing on the other side of a rainbow-coloured disco. I’m alone with you and to my eyes the world is you.”

“Spaghetti Mex” surfs in on a funky disco pulse that undulates with hip-shaking energy, with a fat bassline dancing alongside reverberating percussion. Playful chimes shimmer over the shuffling melody, capturing a sense of fun and the feeling of dancing all night to the trumpeting tones soaring above the groovy foundation.

Shivering with blinding light, the synth is joined by active metallic percussion, creating feelings of motion and a bouncy vibe before the talk box adds a robotic sensation, conveying the image of a futuristic dance floor. As the glowing tones slice through with brassy life, an image of exhilarating partying fills the music before the track closes.

Scintillating notes flash with excitement above energizing percussion as “How Old Are You? (Miko Mission cover)” expresses longing for lost love while a peppy, gleaming synth dances in lustrous lines that rise with uplifting strength.

The low end pumps on as Nicolas Rixon’s voice unfolds with chocolatey smoothness, carrying the emotional tenor of the words. As the steadily pulsing synth oscillates, Nicolas Rixon fills me with a wistfully dreamy feeling above guiding weight. Radiant tones slide playfully as Nicolas Rixon reaches out with his distinctive voice.

Joyful relaxation dances from a lustrous synth as the groove throbs. Tonal pulses expand with luminosity as the underlayers press on. a frolicking chorus skips past easily while the low end intermingles. Brassy notes flash with engaging melodic energy as  Nicolas Rixon’s heartfelt performance moves before the track flows to an end on the happily singing melody.

The narrator reflects nostalgically while struggling with loneliness and an absent lover. The repeated question “How old are you?” symbolizes more than mere age. There are themes of emotional distance, change and the search for meaning. The song captures time’s bittersweet passing and memories that remain vivid despite everything that has faded.

“Aperitivo” is a fun and bubbly summer journey that begins as a throbbing disco beat skips and a nasal-sounding, pulsating synth jumps, while smoothly gliding notes slip underneath. The groove is intense as fiery light twinkles above a steadily tumbling synth pattern. A glistening horn-like  melody moves with dynamism and positivity, creating a feel-good vibe which I enjoy.

As the trumpeting notes ring out, sharp-edged sounds swirl between them and the drums create a solid pulse, funky and smooth, as piano notes shine and chimes glitter. The music’s floor-filling energy is undeniable as a wriggling synth spins with uplifting strength, swirling through the music with irrepressible joy.

 A descending note pattern locks in with the groove and the broadly glowing synth descends with a velvety motion. Now a trembling synth pulses as the piano forms an effervescent melodic pattern before the track ends.

Synth Single Review: “Nobody Blink” by EkohFlare

by Karl Magi

EkohFlare’s “Nobody Blink” feels hectic as percussion rushes, but calm prevails in the prismatic notes that flow above with steady peace and sunlight glinting, while the contrast creates complexity.

Tones with a diamond sheen spangle as the heavy rhythm collides with a melodic pattern reflecting a gliding gentleness, balancing the rush that happens below. Feelings of moving weightlessly above a cascading landscape spread through the music with each elevated tone.

Notes with an echoing glitter pervade the music with shining brilliance, capturing me in the gem-like beauty which surrounds them while the underlayer drives more fiercely. Circular sounds tap out into open space with galactic breath slipping around them, the beat falling away as a more thoughtful, floating feeling spreads out.

Hypnotically punching rhythms move with the contrasting elegance that unfolds above, a smooth feeling of relaxation spilling out as the drums create a trance before the track fades away.

Sleepless Nights - “Moments Lost In Time”

Review by Karl Magi

Overall Album Impressions

Sleepless Nights’ “Moments Lost In Time” is a gossamer reflection on times past, memories made and life’s ephemeral nature. The artist and his guests weave together melodies that are both evocative and moving, with vocal performances that touch the heart with wistful nostalgia and guitar solos which capture emotional depth and nuanced feeling. As the synth tones intermingle and intertwine, they paint images of midnight tranquility and wistful dreaming, completing the ethereal vision which this album represents.

As the sounds evolve through “Moments Lost In Time,” Sleepless Nights' guitar work takes hold of me with its ability to draw imagery and elicit emotional reactions through the solos he plays and the melodies he creates. Each performance reaches deep into my heart and tugs at it with loss, love and the beauty of a tranquil moment. The way in which he uses guitar to add filigreed beauty to all of his music is one of the most enjoyable parts of the album.

Sleepless Nights' choice of guests for “Moments Lost In Time” also gives it added depth of feeling and infuses the songs on which they appear with unique expression. It's clear that he carefully considered each contributor and incorporated them into the feeling of the album. They each appear in a way that contributes richness and musical power to the entire plethora of emotion which suffuses the different parts of this project. Each time I listen, I sink further into the auditory pleasure created here.

Each different synth sound and instrumental choice becomes a crucial part of the atmospheric nature of “Moments Lost In Time.” Sleepless Nights has thought out his approach in a way that paints images of slowly fading pastel sunsets, lonely highways opening out to twilight vistas and cloudy landscapes over which one drifts in serene motion. The way in which these sonic components combine results in intensely engaging expression on the album.

My Favourite Songs Analyzed

“11:55” comes to life with night noises and the jingle of car keys. The radio comes on as the subtle growl of the car's engine cuts in and the vehicle flows onto the road as pan pipes breathe with peace and midnight contemplation, capturing a drift down empty roads and through the long night.

Undulating underpinnings and a thudding kick drum produce highway motion as limpid pools of synth sound paint images of cruising through palm tree-lined boulevards, empty of traffic. A fragile web of tones intermingles to wash me with thought and peaceful relaxation, evoking the night drives which defined our youth.

The open voice synth transmits sensations of contemplative journeys, the asphalt of the highway drifting past under rolling tires. A distant radio voice and static float as the tender guidance of the drums slips on. All of the sounds are full of lulling calm, like the road stretching out into a long horizon.

Sleepless Nights plays a guitar solo with lissome elegance, unfurling like the night sky above, punctuated by phosphorescence from street lights. The solo paints pictures of thoughtful passion, crying out with the dulcet tones of the strings before sparkling notes glisten galactically. As everything pulsates and slips, the track settles into a warm voyage before ending.

Flaring with fiery light, underlying pulses interlock with glassy illumination and a saxophone captures blazing, ardent emotion as “Fixation” comes alive with drums beating out a shaping motion.

Percussion gives a guitar pattern energy to expand outward into space, drifting with a completely breezy motion, balanced with tiny lights flickering and tapping sounds wandering into the vastness around them. Sleepless Night’s guitar is imbued with serenity as it slides into the planes that sweep away from it, evoking journeys over great distances.

I feel myself slip away as the sonic tides draw me out into the brilliant luminosity around them, the saxophone adding a mournful but soothing element that exhales with gentleness. A feeling of late-night relaxation expands outward with smooth conviction, drawing images of a penthouse high above the lonely streets of a sleeping city. Wind-drifted, trembling tones roam outward before the track closes.

“Starstream” slides into eternity with glassy notes moving in serene waves, slipping around me like a swirl of light from ancient galaxies traveling across the unbelievable distances of the universe.

A muted drum beat moves into a rhythm that has conviction below tones that glimmer with crystalline light before Sleepless Nights’ guitar touches me with its cosmic tranquility. Drums give the music shape while iridescent notes suffuse it with brilliance and the guitar flows past on a tide of astral luminosity, carrying me with peaceful relaxation out across the timeless ranges of outer space.

Another solo from Sleepless Nights carries gentleness and weightless motion before the drums fade and sounds hover with anti-gravity elegance. Tones shine before the guitar swirls into wheeling life, climbing like a starship and dancing with intricate dynamism.

Images of vast interstellar structures, dust and gas cast in a thousand different patterns across the velvet canvas of darkness float through the music before it comes to a close.

Floating with spider-silk lightness, tenuous notes grow with unfolding fragility, carrying extreme delicacy as “Fade” comes to life. Drums softly pulse while tones hover like butterflies on light breezes, transferring all of their compassion and aching to my mind.

Broadly roaming synth carries melodic patterns which reflect the complete lack of tension pouring through me. Sandor Gavin’s voice is an expression of painful emotion before Silke captures the velvety sensations and hurting words in one breathy glow.

Like a faraway horizon, shimmering and uncertain, Sleepless Nights’ guitar wraps me in thoughtful grace, pressing in all of the emotional strength captured within the words. The guitar unfolds like a dream passing by faintly before the two singers harmonize with trembling lightness, ethereal and touched with broken-hearted feeling, as the rhythm slips past and the guitar quietly settles into misty silence.

The first storyteller speaks of escaping into the darkness with the second storyteller to “fade between the shadows of night,” and as they fade he is “safe beneath your halo.” The second storyteller says, “It felt like flying, but the moment I wake, it’s all just a faded dream.” Her heart still remembers, but the words evade her “like the sound of a distant melody.”

Both narrators say, “Your touch still lingers with the promise of pleasure” and the remnants of a hidden love. They try to keep hold of each other, but they vanish from one another’s sight and “like stars we fade into the night.”

“Memories” blossoms to life with reminiscent tenderness as chiming tones contribute webs of luminosity and Jonas Klintström Larsen’s sax carries a melody that is wistfully thoughtful and nostalgic, calling back to times past with heartfelt emotion.

Sleepless Nights’ solo evokes a dream of youthful love and happiness, tinged by the realization that it can never happen again. The saxophone slides like melted chocolate, pouring lusciously through the music to seize my soul.

Prismatic chimes shimmer as the guitar calls again, aching with all of the remembrance of life when it was young and fresh. There is something profoundly moving to me in the melody, carrying me along to my own fond memories of the past.

Sleepless Nights captures and transmits the hope that comes back to us from days gone by, while Jonas Klintström Larsen’s sax performance paints pictures of endless summer days and nights full of revelation and excitement before the track closes out.

The most delicate of astral sounds gleam as “Outlast” flows, carrying all of the subtle beauty of stars in a clear night sky and creating peaceful sensations in my mind as the notes expand outward.

Percussion is strong and shaping as the guitar calls out with tranquility and a feeling of moving past vast cosmic spaces with freedom and simplicity. A journey of calming, undulating tones slides past while the guitar tangles with graceful motion and the background breathes with galactic flair.

Another guitar solo cuts free like a ribbon of gas and dust through the emptiness of outer space, capturing a certain loneliness in the sobbing notes. Beneath the other elements, the drum beat continues while another soaring solo breaks loose, carrying sensations of escape, echoing endlessly into outer space.

An immense meditative depth seizes the guitarist’s performances, both of which encapsulate all of the endless night that veils the stars stretching out into an infinite universe.

Like a deep ocean swell, percussion moves with heft and undeniable force as Sleepless Nights’ guitar invokes all of the tremendous beauty and wildness of “Oceans.” Howling with the slow power of waves cresting as wind blows them into foam, the guitar paints an atmosphere of blue and sparkling sunlight, while the rhythm moves like the gigantic tidal undulation.

A vibrating synth moves with drifting tones that create a moment of flowing elegance before chimes draw images of fresh luminosity on slowly shifting currents, while the guitar suffuses me with feelings of journeying and being borne by the waters of the Earth.

Melodic beauty spills from the tumbling guitar, like seabirds wheeling above a yacht as it cuts through the slow drift of the great waters. Percussion patters like wind in the sails while the guitar grasps me with its deep feelings of floating before the music closes on washing water.

“Moments Lost In Time” moves with blowing wind and resonating notes that spread a misty orange glow through the vast spaces, now guided by retro drums that rebound while chiming tones transport a wistfully touching melody before Sandor Gavin’s hushed yet emotive performance comes in.

A rush of memories lit in neon light drifts from Sandor Gavin’s undeniably gripping voice as the melody floats with shimmery sensations. I feel myself held close to the song by the mixture of sweetly surrounding melody and the heartbeat which shapes the character of the music.

A pattern of notes sparkles with champagne bubbles and the remnants of the past as it brushes through one's mind. As the wind glides, the melody captures all of the hopes and lost aspirations of the past, filling the listener with reminiscence and a touch of sadness.

Rounded bells ring to evoke peace tinged with loss as a synth moves with cosmically crying notes that wander outward. A saxophone encapsulates all of the mixed passion and pain which characterizes the best memories of the past. Sandor Gavin reaches out with his tenderness and thoughts of times past to deepen the song's emotion before this music stops.

“Can you remember the days we used to share? With the sun on our skin, livin’ without a care,” says our storyteller as they drove around for the fun of it, the wind blowing in their hair as they sped down back roads. Our storyteller adds, “We had time on our side, we didn't know that it'd be our last ride.”

As a fleeting moment passes, the narrator says, “We let it slip away, caught in the sands of time.” All that the song's subject left behind were “moments lost in time, traces of a memory” which still reverberate through his mind. Those moments “twist and turn as the wind blows.”

“Don't you remember how it used to be?” our storyteller queries as he talks about a time “when our hearts were young, we weren't afraid to feel,” and they didn't fear being real with each other. As they gazed up at the stars, nothing seemed out of reach at the time and “we had fate in our hands, didn't know then we'd never get it back again.”

Conclusion

“Moments Lost In Time” is a voyage through all of the joy and sadness of nostalgia, capturing the melancholy as well as the happiness that characterizes our memories of the best parts of our past. The way in which Sleepless Nights and his guests create an atmosphere and permeate it with emotion makes this music to which I can return over and over.

Synth Single Review: “The Iron Tiger” by Ness Daniels

by Karl Magi

Ness Daniels’ “The Iron Tiger” shivers out a warning in pulsing signals, setting the stage for a tale of suffering and escape that will create a fighter of great strength, as a dramatic tonal sweep adds darkness. Brian Carbajal’s crashing militaristic drums join with a melodic line transmitted on haunting panpipes which cry out into the nocturnal shadows around it.

Erwin Amezcua and Nathan Sansom’s guitars bring added power and feeling into the song. As the percussion collides, slicing guitar climbs with dynamism and Annessa Hernandez's vocals soar with fiery strength in opposition to the suffering which she faces. Her voice exudes pain and defiance as the background glows with ferocious brightness and the rhythm drives while a guitar slashes like a razor.

Panpipes echo with a mysteriously levitating melody as the thumping beat accelerates with blazing speed. Alex Garcia’s saxophone attacks with wild, spectral ferocity as it tears into the night while the breathy panpipes cry out. The guitar carries its own melancholy and ghostly feeling.

Annessa Hernandez grips me with feelings of loss and resistance as she seeks an escape. Shattering power explodes through the guiding drums and flying guitars as Alex Garcia releases his intensely moving solo and the panpipes vibrate before the song ends on huge drums.

As the song’s subject calls the narrator’s name in the middle of the night, she says, “You’re calling your friends so I can meet you down below.” She wonders, “Does it ever end? Is this what I’m made for? Is this who I am?” The other person drives to her and meets her under the streetlight. She wonders if it will be the end tonight and says, “Almost there, closer to my end, don’t know where to go from here.”

Our storyteller is “dying in the arms of a stranger, dying to feel alive again,” as she adds that she’s dying tonight. She winds up in a demeaning situation between the song’s subject and another person. The other person is slowly killing her and she asks, “Is this all you’re good for? Is this who you are?”

As she succumbs to him, she says, “Can’t keep control of my body,” adding that “nothing pure is left in me, almost done.” The narrator is ready to leave and says she’s almost there, wanting the other person to finish what they’re doing to her.