Global Collab Series 002 - After School Special w/ Slicarus

Today's post spans an entire globe, a music movement and an entire generation

Slicarus was another one of the early users of EDMP Discord, before we achieved Partner status and were sub-1000 members. He stood out to me as a quiet, introverted 16-year-old from Australia with an absolute passion for the synthwave genre - a style of music based around the adolescence of the generation that babysat me, and I'm almost literally twice his age. His uncanny ability to capture this retro mood and wistful, soaring energy captivated me, and I was fascinated by his production.

I'll admit that my previous interest in synthwave was much more focused on the analog synths themselves, as I'm a gearhead; my own personal taste tends to the most cutting-edge and new technology, rather than synthwave's throwback to the past. But the brilliance and nostalgia of the Stranger Things soundtrack alongside Slic's epic arpeggios jump-started that interest, and when he suggested doing a collab, I was immediately inspired.

To write the lyrics, I went back in time to my own middle-school years - the epic angst, the intense two-week romances, the insane amount of drama that could happen on lunch break. After doing lyrics, I also wrote some synth-guitar lines for the breakdown, and worked with him on the mix until it was just right. I was so pleased that this track was selected by the amazing NewRetroWave channel and so far have gotten some really cool comments from across the world from people about how this song resonates with them!!

So there you have it. A distance of...
8,760 miles.
15 years.
30 years of musical preference.
Coming together in one track.

Lyrics

As we catch our breath in this blinding light
and it feels right
I can't bear for us to end the night
Will you stay the night?

Must we break this spell
back into our shells
Can we wait until it's light?
I break all the rules
act the perfect fool
because I wanna make you mine