On An Arcade High In The Electric City

The newest sensation this week in the 80s synth scene is Arcade High. Out of nowhere this gentleman has unleashed a full new album of  solid gold 80s anthems. All the album's tracks are available for free download on soundcloud here and Bandcamp here, which I'd highly encourage to to enjoy as soon as possible.

Arcade High brings in a consistent new thematic to the 80s synth sound with the inclusion and superb use of the 80s arcade game soundscape. In tones and arrangements we experience this throughout the album, but it's incoporated in a way that stays true to the 80s synth aesthetic without becoming Chip Tune music.




This is very special to me as it's only reecently that I realised new generations have never had the pleasure and excitement of having a local video arcade. The arcades in my city and the town I grew up in were a big part of my fondest childhood memories. The atmosphere was unlike any other, the arcade experience just doesn't exist these days as it did in the 80s, which a shame. I often reminice with old games and it puts me instantly back in from of a lumbering, cathode ray tube based, coin muncher. The elation of getting a high score, the tantalising joy of playing a new game for the first time. The sharing of the future of entertainment, the feeling of being a part of new technology in a very social way.

The 80s was a golden age in every respect and the more I revive, re-experience and re-discover the elements that made up those magical times the more of them I find. Arcade High has combined the feel of the 80s arcade soundtrack with the more atmospherically driven synth elements of the time and come out with a winning formula. Throughout the album we are taken back to visceral moments of joyful joystick jockeying and fire button frenzies, all while the air of emotional synth soundtracks fill the senses and drive the intensity even further.

Arcade High has become a part of the Synthetix-backed Aphasia Records collective and I hope he finds a welcome home with genre peers and friends alike, the future holds a great deal of promise for this artist and I hope you give him lots of support via the links above and on his Facebook page here.