Pertubator’s 2017 album New Model is a fascinating evolution of the synthwave genre, incorporating elements from industrial and heavy metal to create a unique mix of bleak atmosphere, nostalgia, and hard-hitting riffs.
Synthwave, with roots in France as a retro-styled love letter to 80’s film soundtracks, has spawned hundreds of remarkably similar acts. Kavinsky’s 2006 Teddy Bear-Ep serves as a sort of template for the genre; every single synthwave album builds upon or copies the tropes established here. The focus is generally on using the musical tropes rather than subverting or playing with them, so artists in the genre tend to have a fairly similar sound, and because of this, synthwave can get rather monotonous. This is where New Model stands out as a breath of fresh air for the genre.
Throughout the album, Pertubator uses synthwave as a sort of sonic palate and as inspiration, not as a set of guidelines to follow. Synthesizers and programmed drums make up the entirety of the album’s sound (besides Vantablack, which features the French musician OddZero on vocals), and each one is impeccably designed to fit a specific role. The album features aggressive, buzzy basses, ethereal pads, and glitchy, hard hitting drums, each and every one of which is expertly programmed and utilized in its role. In comparison to most other synthwave, these sounds are darker, more distorted, and much more dissonant, but are all clearly based off the same tropes. Because of this, the album undeniably sounds more like synthwave than industrial or anything else, just with an edge to it. The real difference is in the way Pertubator constructs his tracks.
In the first track, Birth of the New Model, Pertubator builds up an atmospheric opening by layering synths over each other. He transitions from this opening to a slow grove, featuring a heavy baseline and drums, but with the same ambient sound from the opening. This sort of transition is the fundamental musical idea used throughout the album; the songs flow and pulse, flowing back and forth from heavy fast beats and riffs to slow ambient passages. Pertubator ignores the standard sort of song structure commonly used in synthwave, giving the album a very unique feeling; each song follows its own structure and develops its own themes at its own pace, while common sonic design and compositional techniques still keep the album cohesive. This serves as both the albums most interesting quality, and its greatest weakness.
The way tracks ebb and flow gives them the builds and drops that electronic music thrives on, but, combined with the similar sounds between tracks, means that the album can become rather monotonous, especially if you aren’t paying a lot of attention or listening in high quality. As an example, take my absolute favorite song on the album, Tactical Precision Disarray. The track establishes a simple motif right off the bat and plays with it for the first minute, takes an ambient break, plays with another motif, then slowly builds until, at the 2:30 minute mark, Pertubator creates what might be my favorite drop of all time. He brings in a huge, filthy bassline, with fast hi hits and ambient background creating an intense, furious, and dissonant explosion of sound that blows me away every time I hear it. Then, he brings in some more ambient pads and sits in a calm, serene soundscape before closing out the track with a few dark tones, transitioning to the next piece. When paying attention, there’s so much here to take in. However, if the listener isn’t fully immersed in the song, these details are really easy to miss. The drop in Tactical Precision Disarray gives it a flashy and attention-grabbing section that a lot of other songs on this album lack, and it shines because of it. As a whole, the album is an incredibly unique experience. Though the tracks can feel underwhelming and uniform at times, they all feature a mixture of interesting groves, heavy bass, and dark ambience that is a pleasure to get lost in. This is my absolute favorite album from Pertubator, and I will be ecstatic if he ever releases another that focuses and builds on the ideas and techniques he utilizes here.