Artist spotlight today features an old school synthwave album: City Nights from Zak Vortex. This is an LP with 10 tracks no less. It is very 80s inspired and true retrowave.
The overall mood is peaceful, soothing and calm or even uplifting. We get traditional instruments here with nicely applied subtle reverb effects and nothing will disturb the journey as we progress. The mixing is very pleasant and there is a surprise amount of background guitar as well. We get all the old school tricks with sweeps, subtle looming pads, guitar solos at the right places and fun with filters and panning.
The real surprise though is the vocal. The track Saw You In A Dream is my favorite vocal track here with its nicely delivered and mixed arrangement.
This is not your average fast paced, rushing outrun album. This is bona fide synthwave for easy listening, perfect to lift the mood these days.
At the time of writing the world is suffering from a pandemic. I really do hope this will be only interesting for historical purposes later but as of now we need all the positive energy we can get.
Anyway, the LP is available on Spotify and Apple Music. Very much recommended.