There is no better title for this story than the title of Heatwave’s album itself – Echoes of a New Dawn. An echo of a new dawn reads like the sound of something to come and evokes the feeling of the rippling wave of time sucking us into the future. But the true story behind the title is much more interesting. Read on.
Echoes of a New Dawn was released in February 2020, but we have to go back to 2018 to understand the meaning of the title. The album was written in Heatwave’s home studio in 2018-2019. Prior to mastering and cover design, the artist encountered the urgent need for a complicated surgery. Healing took months. The music waited. The artist told the electroscape returning to the album “…felt like a wake-up call from the long recovery phase on the one hand, and on the other hand it was a real urge to be able to do something for my project again after so many months.” Heatwave pushed the boundaries of the music, and friends and family noticed. The title of reflects a new day, a new opportunity, where the echoes of dawn reverberate.
The long-awaited vinyl was pressed. The sound is deep, smooth, and expands the space of the room in which it plays. Side A begins with “The Prophecy.” The song has a physical presence. It immediately drops you into a completely different space than you were moments ago. It opens with a catchy melody and tight beat and features atmospheric synth pieces that create an aura of halloween, creatures in the dark of the night, all laid underneath a melody that repeats, varying its pitch up and down, against the backdrop of a penetrating bass line.
“Secret Protector” follows which showcases the natural fashion in which Heatwave adds layers and layers of beats. I notice when a fresh sound comes in, yet I have the sensation when something comes, something goes, striking a remarkable balance. “Orbit” is a perfect title for the sound effects Heatwave opens the next track with, eliciting the feeling of walking down a long hallway with overhead lights for as far as the eye can see in both directions. “New Dawn” opens with a haunting synth line and a digital beat that sounds like smashing a sledgehammer into the mud. The melodies overlay each other, never crossing, allowing the mind to drift back and forth between each one.
Heatwave gives the listener just enough to hang onto. The segments that structure the songs feel as if each one comes on stage, does a dance, and steps down as the next one comes up to take its place, which I find strikingly noticeable on “Case Closed.” This structure might stem from Heatwave trying to use synthesizers and drumcomputers to highlight the hardware in an authentic fashion, while letting quintessential synthwave elements flow. The artist said the arrangement of songs are usually created mentally first, and then built with the drums, followed by the right bass, all in a very structured way.
Side B opens with “Not Now”, generating the eerie sensation something terrible has just happened. A pungent bass line and powerful beat enter and your journey begins, which is solemn at times. “Drifter” strikes with a funky bass line and digitally laced beats that elicit the feeling of walking down the street only to stop and look down every alley and around every corner. “No Surrender” brilliantly staggers melodies, one after the other. One moment, the melodies and beats feel like running in place while everything in the surround is in slow motion and, the next moment, the melodies and beats feel like wandering confusedly through a field. “Let Go” closes Echoes of a New Dawn in dramatic fashion, featuring Nia on vocals. The beat is slow, the bass line is deep, and the atmosphere is muggy. Nia’s vocals cut through like ice.
Echoes of a New Dawn was pressed in six color variations. As a child of the ‘80s, the artist is a avid vinyl collector. His first record was a second hand copy of Megadeth’s No More Mr. Nice Guy, which grew into a massive 7000 record collection of different genres, including and extensive collection of ‘80s music. The artist finds the sound deeper and more organic on vinyl, noticing more details of the sounds from which the music was constructed come through. When the artist first listened to Echoes of a New Dawn on vinyl, he said “It was a really emotional moment with hair raising on the back of my neck – it was simply electrifying!”
Heatwave is working on two albums and hopes to release them by end of year, both featuring some classic ‘80s elements. Keep track of Heatwave’s music on the fanlike page here. Heatwave told the electroscape he has long been interested in synthwave and was glad to see people were enthused about a “…modern version of the old familiar music…” which, I thought, was a perfect way to describe synthwave because, to me, synthwave is not a recreation of ‘80s music, it is an evolution of style. It maintains some elements of the past in the creation of something new. It is a bit of an echo in a new dawn.