The sound oft he 80s have been ridiculed mostly in the following decade when even commercial artists abolished everything reminiscent of sounding upfront digital. From the 2000s onwards there still is an enduring retro-mania with synth-ladden music which reminds us of the age of neon and bewildering hairspray looks. BUT scarcely any want-to-be-cool artist harks back to the glassy synth-layers and fanfares, the big reverberated lynn drums, the chorus-drenched guitar sound-aesthetics of late 80s pop music tob e found in the Music of producers such as Jan Hammer, Trevor Horn and bands like Scritti Politti. It is exactly that period from which Tom Welsh culls his influences since he started to produce music in 2007. It is by no surprise a sound-patch from a glorious Roland Synth, the D50, which he chose as his alias: DigitalNativeDance. You can find that transparent, slightly ghost-l ike preset even in Miles Davis‘, so you can call it nothing but glorious.
Having delivered a remix for Hot Hot Hawk’s feat. Pasha’s „Space Traveller“ (EDR006), „Los Canarreos“ is a full-length 4-track originals-only E.P. on Emerald & Doreen spanning a theme „from dusk to dawn“ that could have easily been the soundtrack behind Miami Vice. The introduction-track „Sunrise“ starts with a jazzy feel – this doesn’t give any hint of what is to follow since the track rather bears the trademark of NuJazz from the mid-Nineties. The title-track „Los Canarreos“ gets you into the mood with a funky bass-motif and lush synthsweeps. The guitar is - as you can guess – a boisterous 80s party, riffing it’s way through the thick plot of machine drums and fat key-stabs. „Ocean Drive-Through“ has the Jazz-Pop flavor which you get when Sonny & Tubbs have a cruise on Miami Beach Blvd. in the setting sun. The guitar with its casual feel add perfectly up to the bells from a n FM-Synth collection. Consequently, „After Dark“ closes the circle as an action-packed dance tune which again sounds so authentic, that - as a kid who was born in the 70s - has a backflash to TV series keeping you awake at night.
