Sad Girl Summer: A Beach Goth Megamix by Dark Entries Records
Check out the full mixtape feature in the pages of WUSSY vol.13 — available now to order.
Sad Girl Summer: A Beach Goth Megamix by Dark Entries Records (@darkentriesrecords)
There’s blood (and eyeliner) in the water, and erotic despair in the black lagoon. Dark Entries Records brings you 13 sweat-inducing tracks full of transcontinental midsummer melancholy, perfect for swimming in shark-infested seas, engaging in cursed orgies on abandoned islands, and drifting towards sultry sirens singing you to shipwreck…
1. Nico - All Tomorrow's Parties (1982)
Starting off with the saddest piece of music Martin Hannett (Joy Division) ever produced and played bass and guitar on. Nico was thick in the throes of despair (basically creating the Goth movement) when she relocated to Manchester in the early eighties.
2. Russya - Білий сніг (1989)
Ukrainian pop goddess with winter tale of sadness "White Snow" about waiting for a lost love to return in the spring. The opening lines translate to, "Between us the wall of separation has grown again, the heart is sad."
3. Loveshadow - Another Dream (2023)
San Francisco DIY pop duo smear the lines between past and present, pop and avant, immanent and transcendent on their their sophomore album 'II'
"closer – not within reach, touching, never feeling, walking all alone again"
4. Corinne Tell - Histoire de Coeur (1987)
French chanteuse sings "Story of the heart" in her darkest Birkin delivery. You want to dance but end up crying. "The thirst to love you is fatal to me, my blood freezes"
5. Valerie Dore - Get Closer (1984)
If there is one song that captures the melancholic mood of the mid-80s this is it!
I picture Valerie sitting on her balcony in Milan singing to the sky, "When the world is running down, get closer."
6. Chris & Cosey - Silent Cry (1987)
"Is it true what they've said about love?" Chris & Cosey's 1987 Animal Liberation Anthem for PETA could also be a funerary love song.
7. Martin L. Gore - In A Manner Of Speaking (1989)
This song has been with me since my teenage years in New Jersey. One of the best covers ever done. Written by Winston Tong of Tuxedomoon, simply the best love song ever.
8. Brazil - Tvoj Svijet (1990)
Croatian synthpop cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World”. Originally self-released on cassette in 1990. The eerily faithful production belies Brazil’s re-working of the song’s lyrics about getting lost in an imaginary dream world.
9. The Cure - A Strange Day (1982)
According to Robert Smith this song is about, “how I would feel if it would only be the end of the world.” Easily one of my favorite Cure songs, the drama after the waves crash in and a sudden hush across the water…
10. Pink Industry - Don't Let Go (1987)
Goosebumps from the first drum kick. Downtempo shoegaze from Liverpool 1983 re-recorded in 1987. Pleading never sounded so dreamy.
11. Escape From New York - Save Our Love (1983)
Mournful melodic synthpop/Italo from London, sign me up! If you were to distill the 1980s emotions into one song, this would be it.
12. Anything Box - Do You Hear Me Anymore? (1989)
New Jersey's finest output this song was a b-side from 1989 and captures yearning at its finest. How it just tears at my heartstrings all these years later.
"Every part of me is losing ground."
13. Xymox - Imagination (1989)
Clan of Xymox is arguably the best Darkwave band of all time, and this song has followed me since I was 16 and bought Twist Of Shadows on St Marks Place.
"Every day I've been without you, every shadow follows me."
Josh Cheon grew up in New Jersey, just outside New York City where he spent his weekends dancing at goth clubs and digging for records. He moved to San Francisco in 2006 and joined gay DJ collective Honey Soundsystem. His love of underground ‘80s music pushed him to start Dark Entries in 2009, a record label specializing in reissuing lost music from that era as well as contemporary bands referencing those analog sounds.
