Darkwave is an older genre: gloomy, synthesizer-led music that grew out of new wave and post-punk in Europe in the late 1970s and 1980s. Darksynth is much newer: synthwave from the 2010s that has taken on heavy bass, horror-film imagery and, sometimes, metal. They are different music that happens to share a word and a colour scheme. In the Frekvenci archive they also share almost all their releases: 1,597 releases carry the darkwave tag and 1,803 belong to the darksynth family, because our genre tree files darkwave inside it.
The short answer
- Era: darkwave starts in the late 1970s and 1980s; darksynth in the 2010s.
- Sound: darkwave tends toward minor-key songs, often with vocals and sometimes guitars. Darksynth tends toward instrumental, bass-heavy electronic music in the manner of horror and action film scores.
- Scene: darkwave has its own labels, clubs and culture. Darksynth grew inside the synthwave scene.
- Listen for a singer: if the dark record has a brooding vocalist and a post-punk rhythm, it is likely darkwave. If it is a horror-score drive with no singer, it is likely darksynth.
Darkwave: 1980s post-punk roots
Wikipedia describes dark wave as growing out of the new wave and post-punk movement of the late 1970s, with music in minor keys, introspective lyrics and a dark, romantic mood. It uses guitars, violin and piano as well as synthesizers, samplers and drum machines, and is an umbrella term covering styles such as cold wave and gothic rock.[1] European music media used "dark wave" in the 1980s for the gloomier side of new wave and post-punk. In the United States the word became tied to Projekt Records in the early 1990s.[1]
A second generation followed. After post-punk and new wave faded in the mid-1980s, German bands such as Deine Lakaien revived the sound as an underground movement in the 1990s, and a new set of bands, including The Soft Moon and Boy Harsher, revived early dark wave sounds in the 2000s.[1] The archive has Dark Star (2005) and Soft Metals (2011), both filed under darkwave. They are not 1980s records. The archive starts in 2000, which means the 1980s originals are outside it, and what you see is the genre's later life.
Darksynth: 2010s synthwave gone heavy
Darksynth is a branch of synthwave. Louder reported in 2021 that Perturbator, one of its best-known names, had moved from synthwave toward what he calls "electro-goth".[3] Bandcamp Daily's list of unsettling synth records connects the mood to the film scores of John Carpenter and Goblin.[2] Nightride FM lists its darksynth channel as "Darksynth / Cyberpunk / Synthmetal" and keeps horrorsynth on a separate one.[4] The full profile is in What is darksynth? The heavy, horror-lit side of synthwave.
The two tags in numbers
Here is the surprising part. Our tree files darkwave as a sub-tag of the darksynth family, so the two curves are almost identical:
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Year | Releases |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 4 |
| 2009 | 4 |
| 2010 | 3 |
| 2011 | 9 |
| 2012 | 14 |
| 2013 | 20 |
| 2014 | 37 |
| 2015 | 65 |
| 2016 | 147 |
| 2017 | 152 |
| 2018 | 208 |
| 2019 | 194 |
| 2020 | 218 |
| 2021 | 162 |
| 2022 | 93 |
| 2023 | 86 |
| 2024 | 82 |
| 2025 | 66 |
Both peak in 2020: the family at 243 releases and the darkwave tag at 218. Both rise from single digits before 2011 and fall after 2020. Darkwave in the archive is therefore not the 1980s genre's historic curve, which would be flat, but a modern one that follows the synthwave boom.
How can the older genre follow the newer one's curve? Because the tag is a community word, applied to what people are listening to now. On MusicBrainz and Discogs, the same releases often carry both "dark wave" (840 releases) and "darksynth" (762). Among the family's releases, "synthwave" appears on 861, "coldwave" on 193, "post-punk" on 169, "industrial" on 173 and "EBM" on 142. That mix of tags shows two traditions living together in one database.
A caution on the counts. Our tree resolves a release with several tags into one sub-tag. The plain darksynth tag therefore shows only 111 releases, against 1,597 for darkwave, even though the raw tags are nearly even. Read the sub-tag numbers as one view of an overlapping set, not as a verdict that darkwave is 14 times bigger.
Labels show the same overlap. Werkstatt Recordings, Cold Transmission Music, Oráculo Records, Electric Dream Records and Cobweb Recordings all have releases in both. Diskonekt has nearly all its catalogue in the family but leans darksynth.
Where the two curves part
The curves are almost, but not quite, the same. The darksynth family has 1,803 listed releases and the darkwave tag 1,597, so 206 family releases carry a different sub-tag. The gap opens after 2012: in 2014 the family has 44 releases to darkwave's 37, in 2018 it is 222 against 208, and in 2021 it is 198 against 162, a difference of 36, the widest in any year. By 2025 both lines are down, at 75 and 66.
The tags around them show where the difference sits. Across the family, "cyberpunk" appears on 212 releases and "horror synth" on 114, themes that belong to the newer tradition. "Coldwave" (193) and "post-punk" (169) are the older tradition's vocabulary. Inside the darkwave tag itself, coldwave and post-punk are on 193 and 169 releases too, while horror synth is on only 24. The older words follow darkwave, the film-score words follow darksynth. If you want the horror end specifically, the horrorsynth guide counts that sub-tag, and synthwave and 1980s film scores explains where the imagery comes from.
Which tag should you browse?
Start from the sound you want, not the word. For records with a singer and a post-punk pulse, filter the Darkwave list and look at labels such as Cold Transmission Music (29 of its 31 listed releases are in the family) or Cobweb Recordings (all 17). For instrumental, bass-heavy electronic music, begin with Darksynth and the labels in the darksynth guide. For the wider map, synthwave subgenres explained shows how both sit beside the brighter branches.
Artists who cross over
The most prolific artists in the family are the same under either tag: Beasuce (45 releases), Starfounder (36) and Xetrovoid (27) all sit mainly in the darkwave sub-tag. Country is known for about 60% of the releases, and the United States leads under both (241 darkwave), then France (106) and Russia (73).
The pattern matters beyond one artist: Perturbator's move toward "electro-goth" is the clearest public example of the two vocabularies sitting close enough to cross.[3]
Records to start with
Four records from the darkwave side, then four from the darksynth side, ordered by tradition rather than date.
- Die Form · 2009 · Out Of Line Music · LPA 2009 LP on Out of Line Music, filed under darkwave.
- Deine Lakaien · 2005 · Premium Records · LPA 2005 LP by the German act named in the 1990s revival.
- Night Ritualz · 2025 · Metropolis · LPA 2025 LP on Metropolis, from the tradition's current end.
- Dan Terminus · 2014 · Werkstatt Recordings · LPA 2014 darksynth LP on Werkstatt Recordings.
Listen
The radio keeps darkwave in two places: the Dark station (94.6 FM) for the heavy, cinematic end and the Romance station (97.2 FM) for the slower, sadder end. For the parent style, start at what synthwave is.
Sources
- Darkwave (used as a map to its references) · Wikipedia
- Scary synth records (Bandcamp Daily list) · Bandcamp Daily
- Synthwave is dead: how Perturbator embraced the dark side · Dannii Leivers, Louder / Metal Hammer, 17 Jun 2021
- Nightride FM · Nightride FM, station list read 20 Oct 2026