It feels official now that the 1980s are back, and I don’t just mean in pop culture style and throwback trends.
With everything from the overbearing sentiment of American exceptionalism to the multiple worrying worldwide war scenarios – both cold and proxy – to the omnipresent mass media and ballooning economic woes, it’s really starting to feel like the Age of Reagan has returned.
But just like the first time, the constant dread and boiling tensions within the global underground are already starting to result in some characteristically dark and creatively disaffected new music with a return to the benighted minimalism of goth and the cyber-dystopia of electro and dark techno.
Just as some of the most enduring and influential artists of the 20th century did once upon a time, some of Oklahoma’s own are employing the same elements and sounds of the inescapable cyberization and detached, floating melancholy of the modern world to create something deeply affecting and disquietingly catchy.
So if the summer has so far been a little too bright for your tastes, here are a few local drops to cast an appropriate shadow over the times.
Laine Bergeron – ‘Playin’ to Lose’
Cross-genre songwriter, co-op co-conductor, and irrepressible radicalist Laine Bergeron surprise-dropped a new full-length album this month, infusing dark, retro-futuristic electro with an air of desert-swept western guitars and unexpected country swagger.
But true to Bergeron’s own preoccupations of intersectional politics and media manipulation, the themes throughout “Playin’ to Lose” focus heavily on the underground experiences and barely contained anxieties of the current world.
Throughout the record, songs openly employ country clichés and cowboy tropes to declare that those traditions are tired and ineffective now, and tracks regularly pop with samples and sources pulled from the “Metal Gear Solid” video game franchise, itself a dissection of nuclear proliferation and social engineering.
Bergeron’s lyrics and deep country croon invoke the language and sound of sultry romance to discuss geopolitics and revolution, blurring the lines between sexuality and radicalization just as effectively as modern American discourse.
But it’s all offered with a remarkably dense and often even emotional handling of chopped, affected vocals, retro synths, breakbeat backings, and techno textures that could just as easily fill a dancefloor in some desolate, post-nuclear, post-gender future where all the walls between art and politik have finally come down.
“Playin’ to Lose” by Laine Bergeron is currently available exclusively at laterlaine.bandcamp.com.
settling… – ‘JOY IN FUTILITY’
Setting aside the general despondency of the album’s title, there’s actually something vaguely hopeful in “JOY IN FUTILITY,” the newest EP release from OKC-based darkwaver settling…
The synths are more trance-y here, more lifting and ethereal, and the backbeats and drops feel more hesitantly or sadly triumphant, like the feeling of forcing yourself out of bed in the middle of a serious depression.
Though there’s still a heaping dose of his usual goth-styled, Depeche Mode-ian drum machines and synth progressions, there are also some transcendental moments of hyper-modernism with sparkling techno arpeggiators and rave-ready beat drops built in.
Throughout, the element that ties everything together is Brandon Ross’s unmistakably human voice, often drenched in reverb textures and floating out of the ether.
The release’s art continues Ross’s long-running aesthetic of human hands, this time with sand running out between the fingers, an apt image for songs about the never-ending work of getting better and of Camus’ old adage of imagining Sisyphus happy.
“JOY IN FUTILITY” by settling… is available on streaming services now from Hardly Awake Records.
powdr – ‘Settle Pain’
The most band-oriented and arguably organic (whatever that means anymore) of the bunch here, dark indie-rockers powdr are just exploding onto the city’s scene with all the sharp-edged guitar melodies and driving, glistening basslines that any classic goth fan could want.
Pulling more from the Joy Division or early Cure side of the spectrum rather than the synth-washed slickness of Depeche Mode or Pet Shop Boys, powdr’s sound comes deeply rooted in post-punk and goth, but doesn’t feel quite so detached or catatonic.
There’s a touch more chaos and interplay throughout the tracks on “Settle Pain,” and more than a few ear-perking moments of shifting rhythm, with real drums morphing the beat beneath the songs’ saturated guitar-and-driving-bass foundations.
But the darkness persists.
Even on “Apricot,” maybe the most catchy and single-ready track in the collection, the climax is less a moment of catharsis than it is a single, swelling dissonance that grows to engulf the track before releasing the tension altogether.
There’s a refreshing depth in powdr’s songwriting, and a more willing and emotional confrontation of the darkness that I’d love to see more of from Oklahoma’s gaze-y, texture-heavy, and often blissfully detached indie-rock scene of late.
This is definitely a band to watch.
“Settle Pain” by powdr is available on streaming services now from Mystery Class Records.
You can find out about local music and performance happenings in the OKC metro weekly in this music column by Brett Fieldcamp. | Brought to you by True Sky Credit Union.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
