Kalistan

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Afterglow Syndicate releases Debut Album
New Wave of RF and Alternative finally get married on Alterna-Dance LP
Kaliburg, Grand Duchy of Ananto
August 16, 5686


Afterglow Syndicate releases DMT drenched synth rock LP Ananto, uniting Electronic and Alternative Rock

The New Wave of RF may have crested more than a year ago as the charts became inundated with electronic music, but this doesn't mean Kalistan is done with largely electronic music. We seen brand new synergies such as the heavily Synth-tinted Art Rock sound of Luxon's independent Lights Over the Mountain and Kaliburg's new KMI musicians Afterglow Syndicate, who just released their debut LP titled Ananto, which sounds like music you might hear at an RF club... almost. If you squint your ears tight enough.

The new wave RF bands from Kalistan at least are returning heavy distortion to the electronic 4 on the Floor dance beats that New Wave of RF bands promoted during the 70s. The music all still has that sort of disco feel to it, but sounds far closer to what would be considered RF inspired Alternative than something like Addisjah. "The further we get away from Carly Kaye," said Rock Critic Brad Wilkinson, "the more we are returning to form in Kalistan, to show that Kaye and the New Wave of RF was a much needed infusion of new ideas, but Kalistani musicians, especially those that come up in the Kaliburg scene, are going to be attracted to less accessible, but certainly better quality music, and they will take from other styles, but will always add it into their own brand music, rather than ever fully adopting popular trends, even of other cities in the Empire, much less what the rest of the world considers to be popular."

Afterglow Syndicate currently personifies this sort of music purism typical of Kaliburg artists. "Of course even our pop music is better than most of the best quality music being produced in other nations," said Marilyn Holmes, one of the two lead singers and primary keyboardists of the bands. "Look, it's just a fact that Kalistan has been doing this a LOT longer than most nations in the world. It is a sort of elitism, for sure, but it is one that is well deserved."

Of her own music, Holmes was not shy. "You gotta sort of have an attitude about it. We make music that we like, that we would want to hear at a club. Yes, you can dance to it, but its not what you would think of as dancey dance music. It was made with some actual thought. It's not about hedonism necessarily. We want to talk about emotions and on the single [Ananto's "Best Friend's House"] we were talking about a house party and the excitement of meeting someone you find hot there and you know, all the exciting feelings about that sort of new love. It's definitely far more accessible than some of the other stuff you'll find on the record, but we wanted to make it loud and raucous too, something the kids in the clubs could dance too, AND something the kids in the pits could mosh to."

Holmes' fraternal twin brother Albert Holmes, who records under the stage name of Duchess Bruce, said of the record "We took a lot of inspiration from Bootsy's (5682) debut album The Weirdo, or even older bands like the Hutoian band Clash, which is kind of one of the founders of the Synth-Alt sound and were way ahead of their time, and wanted to make sure that rock element was still there. Yeah, there's synths on the tracks, but a lot of it is not just analog but acoustic. We put a lot into production to make sure it sounds, you know, au current but also, we just wanted to rock out, and at some point you have to say, to hell with the club... Even if a lot of it isn't what the masses are looking for, we wanted to remind them of what Kalistani music sounds like. And it ain't pop, let me just say that. Especially the kind of stuff that wins FOMATS."

Afterglow Syndicate has firmly planted their feet in the Alternative side of the divide, and a tour for this fall has been scheduled with art Rock Goddess Anne Jean, in support of her, insanely inaccessible synth-art rock return Absentee, also released this month on KMI, which almost explicitly mocks the New Wave of RF in places like the Single "Shame", but also contains some very serious and strange tunes that are weirdly pretty and psycho-glamfunk leaning, on tracks such as "Watch it Burn", and Lights Over the Mountain, which offers a synthesized take on Art Rock and Sophistopop in places. "Yeah, I think we're all kind of hung over from the cocaine orgy we had from about 5676 til last year," said Duchess Bruce. "You can tell that people are switching drugs to something more chill. There's kind of a national depression in the country, and the people need something different from what we've been doing in music and culture. I think there is a desire to go back to the comfortable."

"Yeah, this mood is both very progressive in the form of the Art Pop part of it and also pretty regressive," said Holmes. "It goes forward and also pulls along the past, because that's just what good music sounds like. It's our sound. Others will never get close to it. But that's fine. New Wave is changing anyway, and pretty soon, a new form of pop or RF will come along, we'll get flooded and then the wave will recede again. Meanwhile, Kalistanis will continue to make good quality, interesting music, and let the rest of the world have the cookie cutter stuff."

You can check out the new single "Best Friend's House" from Afterglow Syndicate, from their debut LP release Ananto on KMI, right here, and also check out the independently released "Ghost" from their self released EP of the same name.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x1wjGKHjBI]
"Best Friend's House" by Afterglow Syndicate, on their KMI debut Ananto

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYPoMjR6-Ao]
Lights Over the Mountain's arty-synth-alt "Ghost" from their first self-released EP also entitled Ghost

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