Today is about shameless self-promotion. A new ‘NeonTimeTravel’ album called VHS Weekend was released today.
This is a soundtrack album, meaning that each of the tracks are composed for fictional movies, those we all watched (or heard of) in the 80s. Yours truly went to the videostore (not Blockbuster it was nowhere available in Central Europe at tha time) and rented it for a weekend, then watched it to bits.
These particular movies the album is about were never made and probably will never be. Usually these soundtracks only featured for a few seconds or maybe longer during the credits but it was up to anyone’s guess who made them - or one was curious enough and picked it up from the end credits.
Each track has a synopsis added on Bandcamp about the movie it was supposed to feature in.
The main inspiration for this album interestingly is not a synthwave artist but ERA who made soundtrack CD-s for non-existing movies. The idea was planted then when I met these albums about 20 years ago or so.
The real challenge however was to make music which does not deviate much from the style but at the same time aligned to the genre of the movie. It is also not obvious how where the soundtrack would be used and to what extent.
Since these movies does not exist, it is (almost) left up to imagination what scenes would play them. I gave subtle hints in the track names where I imagined them, but the listener may feel like it would fit elsewhere. After all the movie will look different to everyone and hopefully the soundtrack can paint a picture what it would look like.
Some notes and behind-the-scenes facts:
The track Net Rift meant to be cyberpunk from the era. I didn’t even go there what others do and do well. It pays a homage to those great movies we all know. Originally it would be called Net Rift Grid but it was redundant. Fun trivia: I owned gridrift.com for a while and was wondering why it was available. Obviously no one wants a company with this name apparently.
The album features an officewave track. I know, there are people who think it’s not a subgenre and people who think it is. I am a fan, I believe it’s real.
There was Knight Rider then Street Hawk and even Airwolf. The track Vector Dragon is a salute to these great TV series I grew up with. No one actually knows what a Vector Dragon is but the synopsis may give a hint.
Tracker 8 was not inspired by a movie but a fellow artist. Cassetter is one of my great influences and both his music and artwork made a great impression on me.
Hawthorne looks very unassuming. For a hint what gave the inspiration look at the map. Locals probably already know what movie was the connection.
Operation Vortex was meant to be a millitary-themed song but instead it is a happy end credits one. The main idea came from a Commodore 64 game and its soundtrack called Platoon. Although the game depicted as happy when everyone finally can go home, the movie didn’t do so. Still, that end screen and music stuck with me.
Finally, Crawling Shade is a foray into horror-themed movie. It does not give any hints what the main inspiration was so I give one here: Critters, even if the particular movie didn’t feature such a soundtrack but was dark enough.
The album will be available at the major outlets such as Spotify, Amazon Music and Audius as well. I hope you will have as much fun listening as I had while making it.
Until Next Time,
NeonTimeTravel