Departure by Parker

Post Synthwave...

It's a term I've heard recently through comments, other artists, and there's even a section dedicated to it on bandcamp. Im always excited when things naturally progress and new styles appear. Its one of my favourite things about being both an artist and a fan. So, I searched it on bandcamp and sure enough there I was on the front page sharing the title among many other brilliant artists. My album 'E-MACHINES' being the album that appeared there. While I have always identified as a post rock artist, my love of Synthesizers and electronics has always pushed me to add more to that genre and combine several elements in order to produce my own unique sound that I would listen too as a fan.

Over the last couple years, ever since 'Patchworks 2.0', I have been trying to move away from retrowave. Not because of any dislike for it, but because I do consider myself to be an experimental musician, and I have branched into more ambient/experimental territories in order to play with the many musical genres that I love, and learn more about the instrument I play. One of those, arguably the most toyed with by me, is Berlin School. One of the earliest forms of electronic music.

My life has been strange over this time period too. I have suffered through many personal problems and, as we are all aware, money isn't exactly easy across the world at the moment so things have been more than a little bleak in my life as im sure it is for many of you. So, I have felt of late that I needed to just give my brain a break. Musically that means for me that I stopped trying to pick and choose genres and styles and just... played.

Whether it be on my guitar or analogue synthesizer, I just... played. Had fun. And expressed my negative emotions in a positive and creative way. The end result is this album. Titled 'Departure' as it was a complete departure away from my usual way of thinking and creating, and a yearning to just leave all of our problems behind and start a new in someplace far from everything. A far more natural energy and expressive process than what I'm used to. The end result, I feel, is probably my most honest album to date. This 'Departure' is 100 percent my style with no compromises. Whether it be post rock, atmospheric, synthwave, Berlin School, or any of the many genres I love to play with. Whatever elements and styles that have been used here came to me completely naturally, and for the first time I understood my own process of composition and improvisation.

One day I'll probably move away from synthwave completely and start combining Post Rock with other things that take my interest. But for now...

This is me.

I hope you can connect with the tracks to the same deep emotional level that I do.

This is my take on Post Synthwave...

Enjoy

x

Tracklist

1.	Running by Starlight	5:01

2.	We Don't Need a Story	5:00

3.	The Catalyst I	6:06

4.	The Catalyst II	6:42

5.	In My Own Company	4:48

6.	In all Chaos	3:12

7.	Autumn	9:29

8.	A Link Between Us	5:57

9.	It's OK...	5:35

Credits

released October 15, 2023

Instrumentation
Korg Minilogue XD, Electric Guitars.
U-he Tyrell, Minimoog (VK 1).
LFO Audio sample based VST's: ARP Odyssey, Moog Sub 37, Moog Grandmother, Korg Monopoly, Roland Jupiter 4, OB-6, Polymoog, Prophet 5, Prophet 12,
Drums, DR-84, 808 sounds...

All tracks Composed and produced by James Parker

Cover art by James Parker and KiBelle produced from a composite image by Fabrice Villard used under licence from unslash.com...

License