You may not quite get it at first but after the third listen
you should be humming and noticing smaller parts
The meta-story of The Runner is of those who find themselves always on the outside of society. We frame our protagonist as the object of a prowler call over the police radio. Our prowler runs, hides, and keeps running. Once a runner, always a runner. On the other side, we have our chasers, the police in this case, who commit their lives to bringing these runners back.
Of course, the problem is that those branded runners aren’t re-integrated but held out of society, forever marked. This means that once branded, people are more likely to keep running as there is no “getting back in”.
Making The Runner
think+sync is a project we have been working on for several years now with myself & Travis Tanner. We have three EPs, this is our first full-length album. We kept the Synthwave vibe of earlier releases but worked to deliver a deeper & broader vibe.
Travis Tanner
With The Runner, I really enjoyed getting in the heads of the characters, their mental space as they react to the story unfolding. It gave me a lot of room to put ideas down and expand on them.
In the last EP, “City Nights“, the emotions were very bright and I wanted to venture away from that this time. Getting this darker energy mixed with an accessible positive emotion comes across very well, as do the different emotions of the characters.
The story is conveyed and after some back and forth Benedict expands on it and brings it home. An exciting synergy. I am so proud of what we achieved together.
Benedict Roff-Marsh
For my part, I received Travis’s ideas, developed his sounds, parts, etc, and arranged them into where I felt they wanted to go as a story. Once we agreed that the piece felt finished I mixed it for a result I felt fit the project.
Everything had to be done through the lens of who I am as an artist. Travis has his preferences and I need to reflect them. But I am not Travis and my values are different in some ways. Travis thinks EDM and subgenres like Retrowave. My roots are in (classic) Rock and New Wave with my own composition style very Space Music. Thankfully with Synthwave we have a common thread in that I grew up in the period of interest so have a view of the period from having lived it.
Travis always has a darker undercurrent in his music. There is a paranoid fear under everything. This tension can be problematic but also provides an opportunity for my more atmospheric side. Of course, my more atmospheric side can be at odds with Traivis’s desire for all-blammin’ all-the-time. We have to balance those. I think we have managed thnat better this time.
For my part, when using a benchmark I was looking back at mostly one record, the wonderful second Visage album “The Anvil” which has a lot of the same tension and paranoia around what otherwise would seem to want to be a dance record.
For the initiated, it is likely that they will hear nods to artists like Gary Numan, Ultravox/Visage, and the dance music of the time Hi-NRG.
Ultimately I want this to be an album with mystery that unfolds over repeated listening. You may not quite get it at first but after the third listen, you should be humming and noticing smaller parts.
It took a few pieces for the focus of the album to come together but once we hit the track with the working title “Described As Wearing Denim” it came together. We both knew we had a single and I set about making a more condensed Radio Edit for that. Later, I decided to also make another version which was even longer. I took all my love of Hi-NRG Disco and stretched, and stretched, the piece to the point of absurdity – as happened in the ’80s 12″ disco remix culture.
Benedict Roff-Marsh 