Andrew Hetherington – “Crystal Nights”

Australian electronic music producer, Andrew Hetherington, who creates 80s retro-wave and pop songs with various flavor stylings, has written and produced over 30 original tracks. His original songs ‘Spirits Fly’, ‘Life Is Strange’ and ‘The Greatest Joy’ have been commended and awarded placements in the Song of the Year and UK Songwriting Contests. Currently working on original songs for an upcoming album of down-tempo music to be independently released in early 2020, Andrew has dropped his latest single and supporting video entitled “Crystal Nights”. Moving through the track, you get a feeling you’re on a journey through an early age 3D video game–low bass steps with a robotic style tempo. The nostalgia is rich when you feel the low pass pop in-and-out through the hazy wave of synth delivery.

“Crystal Nights” is an obsessively detailed marshalling of woozily tuned synths, effected 80’s drum-machine fills, evolving arpeggios and otherworldly atmospherics. It’s a layered soundscape with depth and plenty of contrast, invoking a specific type of nostalgia for a pretty specific audience.

Its ultimate appeal is the unique feeling it leaves you with – akin to a theme from a long-abandoned console game, or an 80’s film soundtrack. Andrew Hetherington is out on his own, in a genre of one – taking the possibilities of 80’s synthscapes into unchartered territory.

The song signals continued progress while also maintaining the signature sounds and style that he’s been fine-tuning for the last two years. Andrew’s obsession with retrowave yields perfectly to his musical exports, recalling a bygone era – robust, pounding electronica with a vintage tinge, like the soundtrack to a tense action scene in an eighties crime thriller.

What “Crystal Nights” does, it does really well. The shimmering sounds and blasting beat is the kind of sound necessary to help us battle through the last days of 2019. It seems like Andrew has set himself the personal challenge of seeing how much emotion he can possibly convey through electronic music.

He displays a complete mastery of his craft on “Crystal Nights”, building up electronic sounds in an alternate retro language ample enough to express shifting moods. The music bangs and the vocals soar, as this track pulsates through dimensions of a hi-definition world.

In line with the synthesizer-meddling of the 80’s, the song showcases the artist’s vivid musical palette, cranking up his immersive glossy glitchery. “Crystal Nights” is all about the aesthetic and theme, and he lets it do the talking. The sound of synths bounces around the room, and if you turn up the volume, you can feel the vibrations of the subwoofer in your chest.

This newest single from Andrew Hetherington is a beautiful mix of simplicity and complexity – a sustained up-tempo beat and tons of melody. Every element added is mesmerizing, particularly the quick, punchy lead synth that runs just under the melody line throughout the piece.

While at the surface level, this song might seem quite simple, there’s actually a myriad of little things going on throughout, and if you listen to it with a keen ear, you will get exponentially more out of the experience. Keep an eye out for Andrew Hetherington as he continues to churn out retrowave for the future!