Brooklyn, NY · synth-pop

Nation Of Language

1 upcoming festival

Brooklyn's OMD-hearted synth-pop romantics — motorik melancholy that soars live, analog synths and total sincerity, romance for drum machines and the people who love them.

Nation of Language formed in Brooklyn in 2016 around singer and songwriter Ian Devaney and synth player Aidan Noell. The band works in a synth-pop idiom that draws openly on early-1980s British and European electronic music — OMD, New Order and the more melodic end of post-punk — with sequenced basslines, analog keyboard textures and Devaney's plainspoken baritone carrying the melodies.

Their songs tend toward long, steady builds and unguarded lyrics about longing and uncertainty, delivered without irony. Since their debut album Introduction, Presence, they have built a following largely through touring, where the material's repetition and momentum come through more forcefully than on record.

synth-pop