Here at Vanyaland we often highlight the glossier, more neon side of Swedish pop music. But for a few select nights in this hazy side of August, Retrograth has arrived to bring us into Stockholm’s more shadowy soundscapes. The somewhat mysterious analog wave project from Claes Nordling delivers three live performances of beats n’ treats this week, starting tonight (August 24) at a Dark Spring Boston show at Union Tavern in Somerville alongside Painters and Video Shoppe. Retrograth then plays Nokturnal at Dusk in Providence tomorrow night (August 25) and Darq at Koto in Salem on Friday (August 27).
The trio of shows are dubbed “New England Noir,” and that’s an apt description for Retrograth’s mode as one of the more prolific artists in the global dark-pop synth scene. His local run comes fresh off the release last week of Detonation, the project’s fifth EP and latest in a string of new releases for 2022. Detonation centers around themes of the atomic bomb, “from the Manhattan project to the political urge of a planned withdrawal with a revenge and a final detonation,” with its first single released August 6, on the same date as the bomb drop on Hiroshima. “Unfortunately we are still just seconds from midnight,” Nordling says.
For the uninitiated, Retrograth’s sound is described this way: “One leg is in the warm sound of classic analogue electronic circuits. The other leg has a focus on sound design, science and philosophy. All with a pop-noir touch, crooner voice, synthesized sounds and a dark atmosphere.”
He should fit right in. Welcome to New England.
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