VA - Rough Trade Shops - Synth Wave 10 (2010)

The third of rough trade shops' streamlined genre comps, synth wave 10 is a selection of 20 contemporary artists who are developing electronic and new wave pop. comprising 20 tracks with full sleevenotes on colour fold-out, and in exclusive ltd edition varnished sleeve available only from rough trade shops

crystal castles, fever ray and cold cave provide killer tracks and are familiar names already, having released records that have shaped this genre. here they are joined by selections from influential nyc-based labels captured tracks (blank dogs, cosmetics and soft metals), weird (led er est and xeno & oaklander) and minimal wave, whose label founder veronica vasicka is here as an artist, her wicked 2vm track echoing while evolving the pulsating modulations of suicide, as well as the more recent electro-tech of detroits adult.

look out for factory floor's industrial, epic and sparse 'lying', (on blastfirstpetite), s.c.u.m's post-punk, hypnotic gothic minimalism, void vision's 'in 20 years' (taking steve strange's template for visage and sending it out into the cosmos), terror bird's chilling 'shadows in the halls' (which should really have been the theme tune to heathers) and the d-i-y analogue aesthetic of ye olde maids (wesley-cold cave's solo project), grimes, led er est and le syndicat electronique.

tracks to fill the floor at the end of the night are provided by the dark nu-disco of sultry, black leather-bound cosmetics, the moroder-esque synthetic sugar of soft metals and the sparkling desire. aka johnny jewel, member of the infamous glass candy and founder of the influential italians do it better label.

a genre that has always deviated diversely, listen and feel the energy pulsing through the arrangents, melodies, grids and patterns of these songs as they inhabit the shadows on the dancefloor.