Retrowave is mostly another name for synthwave: electronic music that revives the sound of 1980s film scores, pop and games. Wikipedia gives retrowave and futuresynth as alternative names for the genre, and a large online radio groups "Synthwave / Retrowave / Outrun" on one channel.[1][3] In the Frekvenci archive the retrowave tag is a smaller, more specific thing than the word suggests: 429 listed releases from 93 artists, on 69 labels.
This page is about what carries the tag. For the question of how it differs from its neighbours, read Outrun vs retrowave vs synthwave: are they the same? first, then come back here for the detail.
Retrowave, briefly
The name decodes easily: "retro" plus "wave", in the same family as chillwave and dreamwave. We know of no reliable source that says who first used it, so we do not guess. What we can see is that it is also a brand. NewRetroWave describes its site as covering "Synthwave / Retrowave" and runs a record label under the same name.[2] A word that appears in a company name will spread further than one that does not, which may be part of why the tag is easy to find on releases.
In daily use you can treat it as a synonym. In the tag data it behaves like a particular habit, and the sections below describe that habit.
Who carries the tag
A small circle of artists. The 429 releases come from 93 artists, about four and a half each. The busiest are Fury Weekend (29 releases, Belarus), Donbor (28, Argentina), Emil Rottmayer (21, United Kingdom) and Volkor X (20, France). Those four account for 98 releases, nearly a quarter of the tag, and the ten busiest artists for 175.
Their careers have different shapes. Fury Weekend's first listed release in the tag is from 2016 and the output stays level after that, three or so a year, with a high of six in 2019. Donbor is front-loaded: about five a year from 2016 to 2018. Volkor X peaks late, with six in 2020. Vincenzo Salvia is the early voice, with four releases in 2012 and three in 2013, before most of the tag existed. Who is active in which years explains the shape of the curve below.
More singles than albums. Of the tag's releases, 174 are singles, 144 are LPs and 98 are EPs. Singles lead, unlike the synthwave family as a whole, where LPs are the largest group.
A label family. The top label is FiXT Neon with 27 retrowave releases, and two other FiXT imprints, FiXT and FiXT Music, add 13 more. Wikipedia describes FiXT as a Los Angeles company founded in 2006 by Klayton, the artist behind Celldweller, and FiXT Neon as its sub-label for synthwave, indie pop and chillwave.[4] After it comes Future City Records with 11, then Horsie in the Hedge LLP with 9 of its 12 listed releases in the tag, which put out GUNSHIP's 2015 album. Blood Music has 8, which issued Perturbator's I Am the Night.
| Label | Retrowave releases | Listed releases in total |
|---|---|---|
| FiXT Neon | 27 | 113 |
| Future City Records | 11 | 70 |
| Horsie in the Hedge LLP | 9 | 12 |
| Blood Music | 8 | 25 |
| Aztec Records | 7 | 108 |
The right-hand column is the useful one. Horsie in the Hedge is almost all retrowave, while Aztec Records files only a small slice of a large catalogue under the tag, so the tag is a label's habit and not a measure of size.
Many self-releases. 134 of the tag's releases are self-released, which is about one in three. Emil Rottmayer is the clearest case: 15 of that artist's 21 releases here have no label.
What else the releases are tagged
Of the 429 releases, 421 also carry the community tag "synthwave", 105 carry "synth-pop" and 80 carry "darksynth". Only 60 carry the literal word "retrowave". That last number needs a caution: our classification also draws on Discogs style data, where every row we collected was found by searching for synthwave, so the synthwave overlap is exaggerated. The shape is still telling. Retrowave records are rarely only retrowave; they are synthwave records that someone also called retrowave, and the pop-leaning tags show up more than the dark ones.
That is why our radio maps the tag to two stations. The Night Drive station (92.0 FM) covers the driving side, and the Pop station (90.7 FM) covers the song-led side, next to synthpop, nu-disco and italo disco. If the song side interests you, Synthpop and synthwave: where the 1980s sound meets the revival and What is nu-disco? Where synthwave meets the dance floor are the neighbours.
Retrowave in the archive
The tag's first listed record is from 2010: Redline on Rosso Corsa Records. Then there is a gap, and the tag starts growing in 2012 with 12 releases. It reaches a high of 56 in 2018 and falls to 21 in 2024.
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Year | Releases |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 1 |
| 2011 | 0 |
| 2012 | 12 |
| 2013 | 16 |
| 2014 | 23 |
| 2015 | 29 |
| 2016 | 28 |
| 2017 | 36 |
| 2018 | 56 |
| 2019 | 56 |
| 2020 | 48 |
| 2021 | 43 |
| 2022 | 22 |
| 2023 | 21 |
| 2024 | 21 |
| 2025 | 8 |
The curve reflects two waves of artists. Around 2012 to 2015 the tag is carried by early names such as Vincenzo Salvia, Robert Parker and Opus Science Collective. From 2018 to 2021 it is Fury Weekend, Donbor and Volkor X, with FiXT Neon as the main label. The decline after 2021 is partly real and partly the lag with which databases catch up on recent years, so do not read 2025's 8 as final.
Country is known for 95% of the tag's releases, a high share because so few artists carry it. The United States leads with 103, then the United Kingdom (60) and France (59); Sweden has 35, and Belarus and Argentina, each home to one of the busiest artists, have 29 and 28. A few prolific people in small countries weigh heavily.
Not every famous name uses the tag. GUNSHIP has 12 retrowave releases and Robert Parker has 13; Lazerhawk has the tag's first record. For one route through that early period, If you like Lazerhawk: artists to try next and If you like GUNSHIP: artists to try next list neighbours.
Records to start with
Picked as two routes through the tag: the early years first (Lazerhawk to Mega Drive and GUNSHIP), then the later FiXT Neon years.
- Lazerhawk · 2010 · Rosso Corsa Records · LPThe earliest retrowave-tagged record in the archive, from 2010.
- Perturbator · 2012 · Blood Music · LPA 2012 Perturbator LP on Blood Music, from before the dark turn.
- Vincenzo Salvia · 2012 · Future City Records · EPA 2012 EP on Future City Records from the tag's early voice.
- GosT · 2013 · Werkstatt Recordings · EPA 2013 EP on Werkstatt Recordings, a label better known for darksynth.
- GUNSHIP · 2015 · Horsie in the Hedge LLP · LPThe 2015 GUNSHIP album on Horsie in the Hedge, filed under retrowave.
- GUNSHIP · 2018 · Horsie in the Hedge LLP · LPA 2018 GUNSHIP LP in the tag, from its busiest year.
Listen
The Night Drive station (92.0 FM) plays the driving side, and the Pop station (90.7 FM) plays the song-led one. If you like an even smaller tag, Outrun music: the racing-game sound of synthwave is the next page to read.
Sources
- Synthwave (used as a map to its references) · Wikipedia
- NewRetroWave · NewRetroWave, site read 20 Oct 2026
- Nightride FM · Nightride FM, station list read 20 Oct 2026
- FiXT · Wikipedia