I have been searching once again for new music to fill the Digitalism/Shinichi Osawa-shaped hole in my soul, and through last.fm hunting I stumbled upon Data’s Skywriter , which is a fascinating example of music that was influenced by Daft Punk, Justice, and Digitalism, but ends up sounding a little dated.
It wears its influences clearly, but for doing so it ends up sounding a little worse. It is nowhere near as tight in terms of composition as any of the artists listed above. It is definitely still good, just by position it ends up feeling strange. I think a good comparison is Fenech Soler’s 2010 album, which is much more poppy but still has the heavier synth leads you would expect from electro. What’s interesting to me is that the Glitch Mob had already released Drink the Sea at this point, so dubstep is already here at this point. I think this sort of nu-rave stuff (like New Young Pony Club, Late of the Pier, Klaxons) would eventually disappear into the miasma of synthwave-based stuff that appears in like 2013-2016, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, I like the album and it is an interesting historical artifact.