Outsider is Maxx Parker's debut album released on Aztec Records and features artists LAU, Thought Beings, GeoVoc, Natalie Gray, Young Empress and Syst3m Glitch. The collaboration between such diverse acts delivers songs that are ignited with melodic and atmospheric arrangement and production coupled with emotional, powerful, heartfelt vocals and lyrics.

The album draws on themes of love, heartbreak, nostalgia and self-reflection. The opening track 'Shimmer ft. GeoVoc' starts off the album with a reflective, delicately crafted introduction that eases the listener in. The album cuts between upbeat, 80's pop tracks like 'Wait For Me ft. Natalie Gray' and 'Hot Summer Nights' that will get you moving and tracks like 'Forbidden Treasures ft. Thought Beings', 'Ain't Enough ft. Syst3m' and 'Drown Your Sorrow ft. LAU' guide us through stories of love and heartbreak that anchors the emotional side of Outsider.

The album also produces tracks like 'Neo-Noir' with driving bass lines and catchy synths that are directly for the fans of traditional synthwave whilst songs like 'Last Dance ft. Young Empress' and 'Cloudscape ft. GeoVoc' stride into a more experimental direction showcasing untraditional instrumentation and bold vocals.

Outsider is a smooth blend of contemporary synthwave that draws on elements of traditional 80's pop music whilst incorporating atmospheric, experimental sounds achieving a release that will serve as a fresh paragon in the synthwave/retrowave genre.

Control is a Synthwave/Synthpop track that features sweet but haunting vocals from American singer Iyes Keen. It is the first collaboration between Uncover and Iyes Keen, but surely it will not be the last. A small taste of things to come. Out on Aztec Records now.

Tectonic Plates by Dubstar is out now! 

The song was initially conceived as an expression of suppressed feelings, illustrated with occasionally geomorphological lyrics, to convey the childlike anticipation of a promised love which has yet to surface. 

As recording progressed, the sessions became an unwitting exercise in regression therapy, with the band gravitating irresistibly to sound-sources from their respective early childhoods in order to access forgotten feelings. As a consequence, Tectonic Plates presents like a stylistic retrospective at times, with audible references to Tubeway Army, XTC and Bowie’s Lodger. There are even whimsical suggestions of Nile Rogers’ work with Sister Sledge, but among the musical snapshots of 1979, Dubstar seek to position the now-infantilised listener in a volatile landscape.

Deceptively cute, the result is a single which sounds like a vision of the future, but as it was perceived in the past.

Recorded with producer Stephen Hague (who knows a thing or two about vintage equipment) the arrival of Tectonic Plates serves notice that Dubstar are about to yield their most seismic payload to date. 

Pleasant surprises will often fall from a clear blue sky, but serious developments are stirring underfoot.

Listen to Tectonic Plates now: