SF0212 Synth Punk Today

This episode may be called “Synth Punk” but is longer on synth than it is on punk.

When did synths first surface? Well, synthesized sounds first became a thing in modern popular music with the success of the Number 1 song, ‘Telstar’ by The Tornadoes in 1962, fittingly the year I was born. This was composed and produced by the strange phenomenon of Joe Meek, who had earlier emerged with his electronic wizardry on hits such as ‘Johnny, Remember Me’. (Ultimately, Meek killed his landlady Violet Shenton and then himself, at his Holloway Road residence.)

A key group in the late 60s was Silver Apples who experimented with a synth-based sound almost entirely. Then George Harrison who, after dabbling with a sitar, dabbled with a synth on ‘Here Comes The Sun’. Next, in the early 70s, the German bands led by Kraftwerk started laying down electronic riffage. In fact the second of all Sombrero Fallout episodes looks at the Kraftwerk legacy; some would argue the most influential band in twentieth century musical history.

But the key reference points for the bands in this episode were the godfathers of the current synthpunk scene from the late 70s and early 80s.Suicide’s eponymous debut album with tracks such as ‘Ghost Rider’ is critical, as is the English influence of Gary Numan, early Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Fad Gadget, Throbbing Gristle and on the continent more Teutonic bands, starting with Nitzer Ebb and DAF, heralding the German synthwave scene of the early 80s. In the UK in the 80s the scene split between a hardcore but fringe industrial sound, with bands such as SPK and Test Department, while the charts became populated with more accessible synthpop.

The bands in this episode include one or two SF stalwarts with Water From Your Eyes, Molchat Doma and Automatic, just so you can get your bearings, but mostly cover new artists. As I say, I wouldn’t myself regard any of this as punk rock, but I guess ‘synth punk’ distinguishes it from the more bombastic end of synth rock and the more commercial silo of synth pop. Good synth stuff, in a nutshell, mostly from the last few years, but with one or two slightly older tracks.

I know synths aren’t for everyone, but pretty sure there’s plenty to like for everyone here.