Chris Stewart continues his decade-long quest to rewrite ’80s synth-pop on his latest record, an enjoyable homage that struggles to reach the heights of its influences.
For Chris Stewart, the synthesizer wizard behind Black Marble, influence is more than a guidepost, it’s his whole act. On his latest record, Fast Idol, he continues his decade-long project of essentially rewriting ’80s synthwave classics. It’s a pastiche that sounds more New Order than New Order, so close to OMD that it makes you wonder if you were perhaps living inside of Pretty in Pink. It’s an enjoyable, sexy record that is little more than a composite of its influences.
Fast Idol is a record of makeout jams; the kind of druggy, pupil expanding synth-pop that you leave on so you can tune out. There’s nothing wrong with making mood music, but these songs often feel indistinguishable from each other; it’s a flat record without highs or lows, lacking momentum or lift. “Royal Walls” gives off the vibe of walking out of a club and into rainy city streets. It melts seamlessly into the grayscale “Try,” which is made up of the same slouchy drum machines and aqueous synths. Both songs feature crisp production, and Stewart plays his synthesizers with the dedication of a professor reading late into the night. They just don’t go anywhere.
Stewart is not one to change his sound though, and throughout his career he’s released record after record of extremely competent synth music; this one is no different. It sounds exactly like something that would be played in a club or on the radio in 1980s London, and the results are often really lovely, if not slightly repetitive. Opener “Somewhere” is the record’s longest and best track. It feels almost euphoric, with synths that reverberate like whispers in a cave. It’s six minutes long, but it’s so breezy that it’s over before you know it. Though the song could’ve been on any of Stewart’s records, it is nonetheless undeniably pretty. If there’s anything new about what Stewart’s doing here, it’s that he’s playing with slightly different textures from the past. There’s little flickers of dub here and there on songs like “The Garden” and “Streetlight,” breaking up the record like a short walk in the middle of a run.
At his best, Stewart is an archivist of past sounds. And for the most part, that’s what Fast Idol is: a collage of old synth tones that are cool to the touch. It can feel like discovering an old roll of film in a vintage camera, or like going to a dive bar and messing around with the jukebox. While it aspires to be the heart on your sleeve synth pop of the past, it’s most successful as mood music to soundtrack the present.
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