I ran a fairly popular electronic music blog [1] in France between 2009 and 2014 and met him multiple times. I’m really sad he’s no longer with us. He was an icon of this bloghouse era with the Ed Banger crew. Rest in peace Vinco, you’ll be missed.
I can’t say I’m surprised though as most DJs during that era were known to abuse all kinds of substances and had to manage a non existent sleep schedule, long flights all around the world, and jet lag. It takes a toll on your body.
Thank you! Small world indeed! I’m glad the blog resonated with people as much as it did. I shared mp3 with friends back then and firmly believed that more people in France and around the world would love the same music as much as we did. Kudos for still posting on yours after all the years. That’s an insane feat! I really wished I kept going but starting my career in Paris in 2014 killed the momentum. I worked on the blog from 6pm to midnight pretty much every day after school and couldn’t do the same once I started working. I’ll bring it back one day! In the meantime, I’ll definitely check ilictronix. Thanks for sharing with the world. Love the MySpace like personal website with flat Eric!
Yes! I don’t know how many mp3s I shared on it but definitely a lot! It was wild to be able to do this with the support of the artists and the labels. I’m glad you still have them (I do too). The blog is still online if you want a trip down memory lane but sadly the download links are not. Thanks for being part of the adventure and sorry for messing up the ID3 tags of each mp3.
Haha le crossover HN improbable ! C’était une fin sans vraiment l’être. Je n’ai jamais vraiment fermé le chapitre. L’intention a toujours été la, plein de fois pour être franc. Encore plus récemment. J’ai envie de faire ça bien donc ça prendra un peu de temps mais l’envie est clairement là :)
Also rcrdlbl.com! It didn't have as much, but a higher density of good stuff IME.
That said, finding good stuff on Hype Machine is not that difficult: 1. Find a track that you like (this may take a while), 2. Browse collections of people who liked that track.
Oh I loved Hypem! I actually visited the website again yesterday and found a cool track within 10s. It’s still alive and kicking. For some reasons, they never accepted my submission to have STN on it. Thanks for being a part of the adventure and I hope you still have those mp3s.
The videogame is from the '80s; it became iconic partially because it allowed players to choose the music to listen to "in the car", all of them synths (obviously), and one of the songs you could choose was called "Splash Wave".
Folks like Kavinsky later (re)popularized synths and made explicit throwbacks to the game, like the album name. I don't know where the term "Synthwave" came from, but it does look like one of those throwbacks.
I'm only just now realizing that Beach House [1] might also have picked up on that synth aesthetic because the lead singer's father is French and she was in Paris for school in the early 2000s before coming back to the states to go to Vassar (she went to school with some of my friends). It probably was percolating around Paris at that time.
But also 80s synths were just really cheap around then. I picked up a Juno 60 with a flight case for around $400, including shipping, in about 2002.
Interesting theory, but fwiw synths were quite popular among the Baltimore music scene throughout the 00s. Besides Beach House, there was Dan Deacon, Future Islands, Celebration, among others. Lake Trout was another example, although a few years earlier / different scene. Ditto with Cex.
Oh yeah, absolutely. There were tons here in Brooklyn as well, probably because you could pick up a DX7 or a Juno for a few hundred dollars. No one wanted them. I remember one guy gave me a Wurlitzer 200 for free when I went to pickup a Rhodes from him because he just didn't want it.
But yeah, I still wonder if she was aware of that scene when she was in Paris or not.
Yes, especially his work own the movie 'Drive' was hugely influential on the popularisation of this genre. I think he was featured in the documentary "The Rise of the Synths" also (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Synths)
Nothing more to add here but lovely to see yours and the commentor above you's tastes. I got well into a few of these artists after playing Hotline Miami for far too many hours (followed by HM2, platinum on both).
Newer is not specifically it since I'm getting a bit too "old / nostalgia" now, but here is a small list (songs chosen are not specifically their biggest but ones I like to come back to)
Also worth mentioning the game Haven that Danger did the soundtrack for, one of the few game soundtracks that are great independent of the game as well:
Floating around listening to music is nice once you get the hang of it (took me a while). With a bigger budget could have been one of the best games ever; as it is there are some significant limitations but I recommend it:
Between letting Kavinsky play at the closing ceremony [0] and Gojira play at the opening ceremony [1], I really can't applaud and thank Thomas Jolly enough for directing the 2024 Olympic ceremonies.
That Gojira opening has been the most EPIC ceremony I've seen anywhere.
I remember I got so excited that I started jumping on my couch and accidentally knocked over a stand with my collectibles and food. Five-second rule, so I still ate my nuggets afterward, hehe. My partner complained a lot, but... some of these things... only a few of us get. Gojira is definitely not for everybody. It's an acquired taste that only a select few of us get to enjoy.
"The Paris prosecutor's office said that "an investigation to establish the causes of death" had been opened, noting that no suspect was found at the scene on Tuesday evening."
It's a mistranslation, the original quote is "Une enquête en recherche des causes de la mort est ouverte afin de déterminer l’origine du décès, aucun élément suspect n’ayant été découvert sur place par les services primo-intervenants. Les investigations sont en cours", which translates to "no suspicious element was found", not "no suspect was found"
I can’t say I’m surprised though as most DJs during that era were known to abuse all kinds of substances and had to manage a non existent sleep schedule, long flights all around the world, and jet lag. It takes a toll on your body.
The entire industry is sharing stories about him today and The Toxic Avenger (Simon) shared a funny one about a set in Zurich https://x.com/toxavanger/status/2082434657300177372
[1] https://www.stopthenoise.fr/
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