Plaza Mayor Company Ltd releases Maximilien Mathevon's latest original album. Old Futures is a loving homage to the electronic music of the '80s...

For those of us who grew up on a healthy diet of '80s movies and electronic music, Old Futures feels like a familiar, retro sounding collection of themes. And while you won't know any of them... you sort of feel like you do, as they encapsulate everything that was engaging about the fresh, modern "futuristic sounds" that the '80s produced.

Talking about the project, composer Maximilien Mathevon says: "Electronic music of the '80s is dear to me. Music that could be profoundly optimistic in its evocation of the future, but sometimes also unsettling in its vision of tomorrow. These are the two aspects that I wanted to evoke in this album: the sometimes naive and voluntary optimism ('New Tech', 'Old Futures', 'Retrofuturistic', 'Bright Electronic Tomorrows', 'Centuries of 80's'), but also darker visions inspired by the fantastic film scores of this era ('Mirage 200' composed for the 200th anniversary of the Mirage radio show, the 3 'Scary Suites' and the credits of the short film Ô). What all these songs have in common are the synthwave sounds and style."

The album contains 10 tracks (52 min, 23 sec) and whilst I found much to appreciate in all of the tracks, I have to confess I was most struck by the wonderfully engaging opener 'New Tech'. This, more than any of the other pieces, has a hypnotic main theme which is hard not to instantly warm to.

'Bright Electronic Tomorrows' brought to mind Klaus Doldinger and Giorgio Moroder's score for The NeverEnding Story.

I really enjoyed Mathevon's work here. If you're a lover of '80s synth music then you'll get a huge kick out of this album.

8

Darren Rea