Trip Tease’s “Acapulco Wave” sounds like the opposite mood of winter and its bright, saturated synthwave tones are a welcome bit of musical warmth during the colder months of this writing. The upbeat piano melody and accented electronic drums brings to mind a scene from a 1980s action movie or thriller during a period of celebration or leisure between the darker and more menacing scenes. Or perhaps more accurately it is like music for a Mexican, police procedural version of Miami Vice created today but set in the 1980s and the music was the perfect companion to scenes in which our heroes are about the business of investigating. But all cinematic considerations aside it’s a fine song for the dance floor on the DJ nights catering to modern synthwave with its sensuous tones and expertly syncopated rhythms. Listen to “Acapulco Wave” on Spotify and follow Trip Tease at the links below.
DJ Tower aka Tim Alexander has been a fixture in the Denver music scene since the 90s. With early gigs and residencies in the Goth scene, Alexander has gone on to be one of the resident DJs with Lipgloss, the nation’s longest-running indie dance night run by founder Michael Trundle. As a teenage fan of heavy metal and synthesizer music it seems inevitable that Alexander would become fascinated with the nascent synthwave movement that emerged in the mid-to-late 2000s in France and Western Europe. The fusion of analog synth composition and bombastic rock guitar was also inspired by 1980s film soundtracks in the realm of action, science fiction and horror where artists like John Carpenter, Vangelis, Jan Hammer, Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre and Giorgio Moroder reigned supreme. Modern synthwave perhaps came to prominence outside of niche musical circles when Kavinsky’s song “Nightcall” appeared on the soundtrack to Nicolas Winding-Refn’s 2011 action noir film Drive starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. It cemented in many people’s minds the American past time of night drives and their attendant sense of romance and freedom. The track made its way onto Kavinsky’s 2013 classic album OutRun, a title that became a term closely affiliated with the genre. Alexander himself borrowed the name for his monthly synthwave night Outrun which has been a regular event every first Saturdays for nearly a decade.
Alexander also tried his hand at making synthwave music of his own as a member of the musical trio TetraKroma for a handful of years but has gone back to focusing on his ability to explore the art form and other styles of music and share his passion for the music with others via his DJ gigs. In 2023 Alexander lanched his inaugural synthwave festival Synthbanger’s Ball (a clear nod to MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball program) to be held Saturday, September 2, 2023 at The Oriental Theater in Denver, Colorado with Los Angeles-based headliner Droid Bishop as well as local synthwave stars Elayarson, Star Farer, Patternshift, Jacket, Bob Sync with between music pre-recorded music sets from DJs Tower, Jay, Eric and Niq V. In this interview we dive deep into Alexander’s roots in music, his entry into the world of being a regular DJ and how his fascination with synthwave came to be as a youth in the 80s when epic, popular heavy metal and synthesizer music were developing into the forms that would directly influence synthwave as well as the modern form and how it has evolved and continues to grow and thrive.
The stream of distorted white noise give Alex Nauva’s “Vivid” the feeling of flying through the air in a dream. The phasing on the main melody line and pulsing rhythm under the soaring higher tone second melody is reminiscent of something you might have heard on an early 80s Gary Numan album. But the composition has breezy, bright quality that feels like a modern re-imagining of the early, experimental syth pop. Nauva is the frontman of Swiss post-punk band OGMH but on “Vivid” there are no vocals, rather layers of contrasting textures and emotional shifts that are both introspective and uplifting. Like listening to the song will cleanse your psyche ever so slightly and in the current period of amplified angst and turmoil we all need a bit of that. Listen to “Vivid” on Soundcloud, connect with Nauva at the links provided and take a listen to his new EP Yume from which this track hails.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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