Lyst is a talented Synthwave artist from Sweden. I was hooked the moment I heard his music. This is what he had to say.

https://lystmusic.bandcamp.com

1. How did Lyst come about?

I’ve always wanted to create, and this has taken various outlets through the years. I produced EDM and triphop 20 years ago, then put music on ice for a long time until I discovered synthwave and realised this is the sound for me. The real catalyst to start again was a friend of mine who wanted to learn how to make melodic techno and asked me to show him the basics of music production. I installed Ableton and we sat down for a few sessions. This got me super stoked to start producing again myself – I had forgotten how much fun it was. And now I had a friend with the same interest, so we inspired each other to improve and evolve.

2. Are you happy with the response to your music?

Yes and no. It’s amazing how much of an audience you can build from scratch nowadays, just using a publisher, socials and playlist promo. On the other hand there is so much indie music out there that it’s hard to make a dent and reach what I believe is the true “fan potential”. Also, the timeframes are so short for indie artists – you gotta keep releasing once a month at least to not see a decline, and it can be a bit exhausting.That’s when I have to remind myself this is just a hobby for me.

3. How does a song start for you?

Boringly enough it almost always with a bassline following a progression, then drums. There can still be a vision or an idea for a hook or something in my mind, but I can’t even begin getting those things down without a bassline and drums. Inspiration-wise it varies a lot. I run a small Discord producer community where we regularly have speed production challenges, and those are great to build up a roster of potential tracks. The rules are spend max 1 hour on a track, and make it at least 1 minute long. This really forces you to focus on the broad strokes and not get caught up in details, which is amazing for inspiration.

4. How important are sites like newretrowave to what you guys are doing?

The sites not as much lately, the playlist curator side of things have kinda taken over since people don’t seek out music the same way (in my experience). But bigger community groups like NRW or Nightride.fm always lead to a ton more listeners when you get featured on YouTube or in a podcast/show. But that is not really a reliable way to get reach since it’s at their discretion completely.

5. If you guys could play with anybody, who would it be?

I have a couple of dream collabs, the biggest right now is At1980. Collabs are so good for both inspiration, evolving your sound and for organic listener growth. 

6. Has your music evolved from earlier material ?

Apart from production quality improvements, I feel I can now decide and actually accomplish the idea in my head. In the past I just kinda let the song take me wherever, because I didn’t know what I wanted or how to get there. 

7. How important is social media to you guys?

Very important. For synthwave the community is really the best. Everyone supports each other instead of competing. I should probably engage the social algorithms more than I do, but I also have a family and full time job.

8. Do you write out of inspiration or when it comes to you?

I’m almost doing the Kraftwerk approach – forcing inspiration at fixed times. Since I have a family all I have is 1-2 hours at most every other night, and that’s when inspiration is required to show up. But as a parent this is the norm for any hobby or activity, so it doesn’t really bother me. I feel sad I can’t complete tracks as fast as I want to, but it’s not stopping inspiration.

9. What next for you guys?

Got lots of releases and collabs coming next year, many done already. I usually don’t plan this far ahead, but this year it seems I will need to schedule releases. There is also a charity album coming for Out Runner – a friend and also a pillar of synthwave community who’s recently had a gruesome accident not covered by his health insurance. The whole synthfam is coming together donating tracks for a Bandcamp only release, all proceeds directly to Out Runner. Coming January 10th.