Synthetic Villains by Synthetic Villains

Debut album.

Only 6 tracks, but at just under 40 minutes long, I call it an album, not an EP. I mean, Pharoah Sanders' 'Karma' only has 3 tracks on it. And that's definitely an album.

"Bouncy electro-funk from Synthetic Villains has a nostalgic synth palette and an experimental, slightly off-kilter approach to songwriting"
As featured on Bandcamp's New & Notable homepage

"weeping guitars and gloomy electronics...with strings overlaying the melancholy like curtains swaying as a coffin moves through them."
8/10 Louder than War

"fresh and fun" Derek Walmsley (Wire Magazine)

The original idea for the album was to create an electronic backing for some guitar playing - in a similar vein to Robert Quine (Voidoids) & Jody Harris' (Contortions) album "Escape" - they used an Oberheim DMX drum machine and overdubbed guitar and bass.* Although that was the basic impetus, once the basic beats were laid down, more electronic textures seemed to suggest themselves and it became a (mostly) electronic album and the guitars took a back seat.

The album was influenced by everything from drone music, synth-pop, classic electronic music, and also hip-hop, electro and No Wave music.

The album garnered radio play from Kites & Pylons, Phantom Circuit, I Heart Noise, Sunrise Ocean Bender and more. Tracks from the album featured on the Active Listener Sampler, Speak & Spell Records' Let it Radicalise You, and Front & Follow's Isolation & Rejection Vol.5 (a remix that had featured on a Dark Outside broadcast). Support also came from bloggers Trust the Wizards and Colourhorizon.

* Quine/Harris also used episode titles from the Three Stooges which I thought was a good enough idea to steal for this album too.

Tracklist

1.	Idiots Deluxe	3:07

2.	Rhythm & Weep	6:41

3.	How High Is Up?	8:37

4.	The Captain Hates The Sea	4:48

5.	Time Out For Rhythm	11:02

6.	Yes, We Have No Bonanza	3:22

Credits

released March 31, 2020

WRITTEN, ARRANGED & PLAYED BY RICHARD J TURNER.

RECORDED, MIXED & MASTERED BY SAM PARKINSON AT STONEGATE STUDIOS.

FLOOD OF SOUND RECORDINGS - FOS001-CD

License