F or whatever reason, there is a huge appetite right now for music that embraces a moody, minimalist, synth-heavy, often lo-fi sound that feels redolent of an amphetamine-charged squat party in 1980s West Berlin. Take I Like the Way You Kiss Me, by British-Cypriot musician Artemas Diamandis, who performs as Artemas. The two-minute burst of pulsating, icy synth-pop – depicting an objectified and emotionally disengaged love affair – has been sticking out a mile in the charts next to Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar and the ranks of earnestly strummed acoustic guitars.
“We made the song in about three hours, I posted it the next day, then things went crazy,” he says. On release in March it leaped to No 1 in numerous countries and on Spotify alone it has had over half a billion streams – and is just one of many mega-streamed songs in a similar ilk. An official Spotify playlist of artists featuring the likes of Artemas, Mareux, Boy Harsher, Ekkstacy, ThxSoMch, Twin Tribes, the KVB, Molchat Doma and Pastel Ghost – along with older groups like the Cure and Depeche Mode – have been bundled together under the label of darkwave.
But while it’s unquestionably one of the most popular genres in the world at the moment, nobody can agree on what exactly it is or whether they fit into it. “It’s hard to say what darkwave is,” says Carter De Filippis, AKA ThxSoMch, whose 2022 track Spit In My Face! also broke the half-billion streaming mark. “Artists, especially nowada.