CREDIT: QUINN READ-BAXTER
Bandcamp user Quinn Read-Baxter's EP Q.R.B. is a short electronic EP that's a nice change from this reviewer's usual metal and hardcore repertoire.

I admit that I don’t know a whole lot about this artist right now. Most artists I have covered in previous issues are people I have long been associated with and have had the pleasure to get to know personally.

Sometimes you don’t get that though, and you have to read an artist through his/her music.

Through searching Bandcamp, I came across Quinn Read-Baxter’s work. What I found was a threesong release called Q.R.B that is completely throwing back to the 1980’s when synth pop, frizzy hair, neon clothes, reverb on everything and campy low-budget films were dominant in pop culture.

I have these short bursts of interest in both synth pop and low-budget films – sorry, you won’t catch me with frizzy hair or neon clothes – where I like to just browse the tubes of the Internet and find people who are doing these things today.

It’s a nice break every once in awhile from the pounding metal and hardcore I listen to every day.

On this EP, Q.R.B is a fun little electronic release that sets aside modern EDM and presents a really dreamy analog soundscape in place of it. This is something you could dance to but also something you could fall asleep to and that’s a good thing because falling asleep to music is my favourite pastime.

There are some amazing sounds being produced here, and I particularly enjoy the vocals in all of the tracks. This voice along with the cold synth pads and industrial drum machine create the atmosphere that this music sounds best in and each element thus blends well together.

It is often difficult to harken back to the days of yore when these things weren’t considered cheesy and archaic. Often I find this difficult because it’s easy to get wrapped up in the endearing aspects of throwback culture.

Artists of this time took themselves pretty seriously and new technology that allowed for electronic music to take its place in pop culture was exciting. The ‘80s in general were a good time for lots of music genres to become concrete in application. Metal, hardcore, punk, alt. rock, hip-hop, electronic, and so on, – all of them had their golden ages in the ‘80s and early ‘90s.

It seems that since then we’ve kind of lost that momentum to experiment and really try to form new things. Out of pure boredom, I once mapped out the creation of genres by their relative date and my ensuing data ended up showing a huge burst of new styles in the ‘80s only to drop significantly by the late ‘90s. I wish I still had it so I could update it and see if we’re making any progress.

Until some sort of new technology falls onto the consumer’s lap to create completely new musical styles, we can learn from the past and enjoy the artwork that was created then. Listen to Quinn Read-Baxter curate the sounds of bedroom pop on her Bandcamp page, quinnread-baxter.bandcamp.com.