NewRetroWave is a synthwave website that grew into a label, and in the Frekvenci archive it ranks third among all labels by listed releases: 203 releases from 68 artists. Its catalogue leans as much toward synth-pop as toward classic instrumental synthwave, which makes it the first stop for listeners who want vocals.
How did a website become a label?
Bandcamp Daily's 2017 profile says the site was started in November 2011 by a New Yorker who goes by Ten, to write about synthwave. The French Valerie Collective was his inspiration. Before there was a label, he put out free compilations; the label followed as a way to back artists he liked.[1] The profile does not date the label's start. A Vehlinggo interview from July 2015 helps: it calls the imprint new and says Timecop1983's album Reflections would be his first release on it.[3] The site today describes itself as a synthwave and retrowave home with a record label, a radio and a store.[2]
Ten told Bandcamp Daily that the compilation Magnatron, with a loose cyberpunk storyline, set the pace for the label; its sequel later reached Billboard's Dance/Electronic chart.[1] That chart claim is as of the 2017 profile.
The catalogue in numbers
The archive's first NewRetroWave listing is a 2012 compilation, The 80’s Dream Compilation Tape, which fits the profile's picture of free compilations before the label. The real catalogue starts in 2015, with Invisible Creatures and Nights Change Days.
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Year | Releases |
|---|---|
| 2012 | 1 |
| 2013 | 1 |
| 2014 | 0 |
| 2015 | 5 |
| 2016 | 11 |
| 2017 | 14 |
| 2018 | 19 |
| 2019 | 25 |
| 2020 | 33 |
| 2021 | 30 |
| 2022 | 20 |
| 2023 | 19 |
| 2024 | 12 |
| 2025 | 13 |
The curve climbs quickly: single digits in 2015, then a steady rise to a peak of 33 releases in 2020. It stays at 19 or more a year through 2023, and drops to 12 and 13 in 2024 and 2025. Catalogue lag may account for some of that, since databases fill in recent years slowly, and 2026 is a part year that we leave out.
Read in three phases, the numbers are tidy. From 2015 to 2017 the label added 5, 11 and 14 releases a year while it found its roster. From 2018 to 2022 it ran at 19, 25, 33, 30 and 20, the years in which its catalogue became what most listeners know. From 2023 to 2025 the counts are 19, 12 and 13: a smaller, steadier label, not a closed one. Those are counts of listed releases in our data, not everything the label ever shipped.
The split between styles is the unusual part. Of the 203 listed releases, 115 sit in the synthwave family and 56 in what the archive calls popwave (synth-pop, nu-disco and neighbours), with 22 in darksynth and 9 in dreamwave. By tag, 103 are synthwave, 46 synth-pop, 21 darkwave and 10 nu-disco. Most are albums: 111 LPs against 57 singles. Nothing is self-released, which is expected for a label.
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Family | Releases |
|---|---|
| Vaporwave | 10,473 |
| Synthwave | 8,105 |
| Popwave | 2,678 |
| Darksynth | 1,803 |
| Dreamwave | 833 |
| Cyberpunk | 6 |
Where do the artists come from? Country is known for 88% of the label's releases. Of those, the United Kingdom leads with 72 releases, then the United States with 32, France with 16 and Sweden with 12. For a label based in New York, that British lead stands out.
The sound
Bandcamp Daily describes the roster as leaning toward high-energy, 1980s-inspired dance and electro rather than the metal-influenced end of the genre, with a few darker acts such as Tonebox and ALEX.[1] Our tags agree: besides synthwave and electronic, the most common co-tags are synth-pop (128 releases), dream pop (40), darksynth (29) and dark wave (24). In plain terms, NewRetroWave is where vocals live. If The Midnight, FM-84 or Gunship brought you to the genre, the vocal side of this catalogue is a natural place to wander; our If you like The Midnight: 10 artists to try next, If you like FM-84: artists to try next and If you like GUNSHIP: artists to try next pages list the artists to try, and Synthpop and synthwave: where the 1980s sound meets the revival explains why so many of these records sit between two genres.
Key artists
The label's biggest names by listed releases are W O L F C L U B (19 on the label), DEADLIFE (14), ALEX (10), Yota (9) and Futurecop! (8). Another way to read the roster is by origin: all five are from the United Kingdom or France. Also on the list are Michael Oakley, Orax, At 1980, Tonebox and LukHash.
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Artist | Releases |
|---|---|
| W O L F C L U B | 19 |
| DEADLIFE | 14 |
| ALEX | 10 |
| Yota | 9 |
| Futurecop! | 8 |
| Michael Oakley | 7 |
| Orax | 6 |
| At 1980 | 6 |
| Tonebox | 5 |
| LukHash | 5 |
Records to start with
- Dead Astronauts · 2015 · NewRetroWave · SINGLEA 2015 synth-pop single from one of the first artists on the label.
- Tonebox · 2016 · NewRetroWave · LPA 2016 album that Bandcamp Daily's profile quotes the label's founder describing as retro electro.
- ALEX · 2018 · NewRetroWave · LPSynth-pop from the British artist with the third-largest NewRetroWave catalogue.
- STRNGR · 2020 · NewRetroWave · LPA 2020 synthwave album with a horror-film title.
- Futurecop! · 2025 · NewRetroWave · LPA 2025 synth-pop album from a long-running UK artist.
Is NewRetroWave still releasing?
Yes, on both measures we can check. The archive lists a NewRetroWave release inside its latest twelve months, and the last full-year count is 13 releases in 2025. The site was also posting when we visited on 20 October 2026, including a piece on the death of Kavinsky in July 2026, reported by France 24.[2][4] We cannot see the label's plans, so treat that as a snapshot.
For listening, the Pop station (90.7 FM) is the nearest Frekvenci station to the label's vocal bias, and the Night Drive station (92.0 FM) covers its instrumental side. A much smaller label with a similar leaning is Aztec Records, and the field overall is in Synthwave labels worth knowing, and which are still active. The full catalogue is on the NewRetroWave label page.
Sources
- Label profile: NewRetroWave · Bandcamp Daily, Jeff Treppel, 6 Sep 2017
- NewRetroWave (site) · NewRetroWave, accessed 20 Oct 2026
- What Does the Future Hold for Timecop1983? · Vehlinggo, 1 Jul 2015
- French DJ Kavinsky found dead in Paris home · France 24, 29 Jul 2026