DEADLIFE

DEADLIFE is the darksynth project of Ed Hawx, a Manchester producer who started out as a drummer and taught himself the machines after falling for the soundtracks of Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Blade Runner. His 2017 debut, Bionic Chrysalis, was rough enough to sound like an experiment and distinctive enough to get him signed by NewRetroWave, and by 2023 the discography had reached eleven albums, with a detour to FiXT Neon for 2021's God in the Machine. The sound is synthwave pulled into the rain: gothic melodies, drums with industrial weight and arpeggios that suggest less a neon past than a future nobody bothered to fix. In 2019 Singularity entered Billboard's Dance/Electronic Album Sales chart at No. 12, while Rebel Nights landed just outside the top fifteen the same week.