various / 14 tracks

14 tracks: Memory Wholesale

Nostalgia for the mid-late '80s is endemic at the moment. Contemporary culture appears to be trapped in an ever-decreasing feedback loop on the cusp of the analogue-to-digital crossover, inspiring a mesh of mixed musical messages and emotions. The underground is knowingly afflicted with a flux of analog bubblegum and cynical digital futurism, which is where we find these 14 tracks, tracing that metallic grey and LCD-green period where the visionary pop and dance productions of Trevor Horn, Prince, Arthur Baker and Juan Atkins melt into the imagery of John Hughes and Paul Verhoeven movies like false memories of futures past, implanted Total Recall styles. This manifests itself in the heady H-Pop of Rangers and Matrix Metals, the impressionistic Chillwave of Summer Camp, the tacky gloss of VHS Head's incidental edits and most acutely in Autre Ne Veut's breathtakingly unsettling R'n'B emotions. Feel free to create your own escapist montage to this selection, or maybe even write your own storyline and send it us. We'll contact you, yeah?