NEW EP 'COLDWAVE MANIFESTO''
Coldwave Manifesto' is a short EP made up of three tracks. They were all recorded close together, and they share the same mood, cold, minimal, emotionally flatlined. That’s intentional. I didn’t try to make them catchy or upbeat or radio-friendly. I just wanted to capture that sense of emotional disconnection I associate with coldwave; the kind that sits with you quietly and doesn’t explain itself.
I’m not trying to recreate the 80s. I’ve just always liked what coldwave offers: space, restraint, and atmosphere without needing to fill every gap with sound. That’s where I’m most comfortable. Here’s a bit about each track.
01. Coldwave Forever
This was the first one I wrote for the EP. It’s probably the most obvious statement of intent, it’s bleak, it deliberately holds back. It may sound 'fat' but there's very little in it instrumentally. The lyrics are about being seen but unseen, alive but ignored; and if we're dead we're dead together. That’s how coldwave has always felt to me, emotionally, like trying to connect in a world that’s tuned you out. This track sets the tone for the rest of the EP. It’s not uplifting...that’s the point.
02. Necromancer
This one came together quickly. It’s built around repetition — both lyrically and musically. The vocal line is almost chant-like on purpose. The character in the song is drawn to someone ghostlike, a phantasm, maybe even dead — whether literally or emotionally is left open. That ambiguity matters less to me than the feeling: being caught in a loop with someone who isn’t really there. It’s minimal by design. There’s no climax, no obvious build. Just the trance-like drift from start to end driven by a dominant Minimoog bass line.
03. Kill Me Now Before I Die
Out of the three, this one is perhaps the most “accessible,” only because the chorus is more direct and the emotion is right up front. It’s fatalistic, yes, but that’s honest to how the song was written. It’s about seeing the end coming and asking for it to arrive before things get worse. There’s a bit more structure in this one — verse, chorus, verse — but it’s still grounded in the same stripped-back coldwave sound as the others. If I were to promote a single from the EP, it would probably be this one.
That’s the EP. I didn’t want to overthink it. Just three songs that came from the same emotional place and not a lot of polish, because that’s how it needed to sound.
If you’re into coldwave or minimal synth or anything on the bleak end of the spectrum, maybe these songs will speak to you. If not, that’s fine too.
Thanks for listening.
George
— Alien Skin