Absolute Valentine’s newest album offers a distinctly European look at traditional American stereotypes through the lens of horror fiction.
Since 2016 musician Absolute Valentine has help to shape the genre known as synthwave. Valentine, and his record label, Lazerdisc Records, have been at the vanguard of the musical movement by creating original music, building a scene and promoting growth within the genre. Largely an online, multi-continental, art form, synthwave has steadily gained an underground following in the last decade due work by Valentine and many others.
Synthwave features nearly all electronic and computer based instruments. There is the occasional splattering of electric guitar, vocals, or sampled soundbites. The soundbites are often taken from nostalgic 70’s and 80’s cult films, newscasts, or whatever may lend to the individual track’s particular story. Popular themes in synthwave include dystopian future societies, zombie apocalypse survival, or nods to the sexy, neon-drenched landscapes of the 1980’s Miami, FL cocaine narco wars.
Valentine’s newest album, American Nightmares, falls firmly into the genre which he been so intimately involved with for nearly a decade now.
Short of ever mentioning the word horror, the newest album by Absolute Valentine treads ever so carefully around its edges. There are comparisons to “creep shows,” “terror”, and “nightmares.”
Slickster: In your press release for your newest album you state, “more than ever, the American Dream has become an American Nightmare.” Please explain what you mean by that and site current relevant examples to support your explanation.
Absolute Valentine: Before I answer this question, I would like to mention that I am a European and my vision can be biased. It’s just an opinion and not the truth.
First, what’s the “American Dream?” How I define it, I suppose it means anyone who lives in the USA can thrive if they are determined and if they work hard. It’s super nice to live in a prosperous way: getting a new car, the latest laptop, the best clothes, etc… But does it make us happy and fair ? Is this Utopia perfect ? Is everybody able to become rich or live with abundance?
After the ’90s, it seems things have gone wrong and the utopia has become a kind of dystopia. Perhaps people have forgotten a detail. For sure, on the economic side, the USA has been Number One, but what about today? After having the best technology, it seems it can’t help poor people to feel better or to preserve nature. Worst when some resources are depleted, the only way is war. I always am reminded of the movie Back To The Future 2, Biff Tannen’s world is a horrible vision of 2015, it’s the closest example of a selfish world and American nightmares.
Fortunately, nowadays, people begin to understand it can be a nightmare and they try to find other strategies to consume in a better way.
Slickster: How do you define the word horror and what does that mean in specific terms of adding scary, dark or horrific elements into music? Does this mean you distort the bit crushed bass lines more, add dramatic voice over elements, or only compose in a minor key?
I can define horror as extreme fear, a feeling of unease, an unbearable sight. But on the movie side, there are more categories, if I’m not wrong we can find 6: living dead, occult, serial killers, metamorphic, scary dystopia, monster created by human, nature, and coming from space.
This can be translated in several ways on the music side. I have tended to use minor scales for sure but not only those. Chromatic scales can also be used. As you mentioned, distortion and dramatic vox can help.
But to me the most important thing to make a good horror-based album is to set up an ambiance and make it feel like a story or novel. As an example, “Chainsaw Revenge” is based on a zombie movie, “Sweet Sweet Death” is totally inspired by “IT.” The plot of “Flesh of Fallen Angels” is based on a new destructive drug that turns you into a werewolf.
Slickster: The album artwork cover features a young beautiful woman covered in a blood splattered overcoat, smoking a cigarette, and holding two fully automatic rifles. It paints a picture that in a very recent past she was engaged in some kind of battle or killing. Can you describe what is going in the illustration and how it relates to the themes interwoven on American Nightmare.
Absolute Valentine: This young girl is a former prisoner, locked up for trying to make the world more egalitarian. Her ideas go against this new corrupt and ultra-capitalist government, without faith or law. She was therefore selected or rather obliged to participate in a game called the “Terrordrome” in order to regain freedom. This labyrinth is infested with all kinds of creatures, werewolves, vampires, succubi, strange monsters, and one of the cruelest, called “human”. A single watchword is “SURVIVE.”
Slickster: Track 2 on the album, American Nightmares, opens with a low-fi voice over that says,” In the case of nuclear or radiological fall out, people living around potential targets, such as military bases and chemical plants, may be advised to evacuate.” Given that the title of the album and the track are the same (expect #2 is pluralized) it lends weight that this is one of the most important tracks on the album. Are you suggesting that mutually assured self destruction, aka nuclear war, is one of America’s most poignant fears?
Absolute Valentine: Already from the 50s to the 90s, nuclear war was anchored in the American Nightmare. After having used the nuclear weapon against Japan, the United States knew better than the others the destructive effects of this kind of weapon. The Cold War that followed World War II was extremely stressful for the world’s population. Lots of exercises were put in place. You could feel a palpable tension. In addition, we began to discover that nuclear power caused genetic mutations, which had the effect of creating creatures that seemed unknown or malformations.
Today most states are equipped with ultra-destructive weapons, is this the price of unlimited profit or growth? What we can imagine is that one day the world falls into ultra-violence because a man greedy for power and wealth will have the idea of purging the earth of people or governments that do not suit him.
Slickster: You founded Lazerdisc records. How has that journey been and what have you learned along the way?
Absolute Valentine: In 2016, I founded Lazerdiscs with the help of Darren Detoni and Niky Nine. In the beginning, we did this out of passion and to try to contribute to the scene. A few months later, a lot of people encouraged us, and other artists wanted to join the adventure. We have learned it’s essential to be open-minded, you always must question yourself, and you need to diversify. In addition, you must be at the forefront of technology. The world of musical habits has evolved a lot since 2016. Nowadays fans prefer streaming to downloading, so you need adapted tools. The most passionate people prefer merchandise like CDs, Cassettes, or Vinyl.
Slickster: As an artist, producer, label owner and live performer of Synthwave music for nearly seven years, can you give some insight into the current state of synthwave and where you believe it is heading in the next five years.
Absolute Valentine: Currently, I would say that the synthwave is stable. For example, it does not really suffer from the covid19 crisis because there were not that many concerts.. This part of the scene was emerging — some fantastic festivals sprang up. The synthwave scene is built on the web, unlike rock or metal, so it will be able to survive the next 5 years. But I imagine it will have to reinvent itself, for example, with cyberpunk or chill sounds. It will always remain underground, unlike Dubstep or Techno.