Research Information | Blaiserunner

Research Information - 'Making Synthwave' (2025)
I completed my PhD in June 2023, which is titled 'An ethnographic study of the online synthwave community, a community of practice – by a composer and performer'. I am currently transforming my PhD into a book with Routledge, which is expected for a mid/late 2025 release. It is titled: 'Making Synthwave: How an online music community invented a genre'.

Audio Materials from 'Making Synthwave'

Composition Works

Style Parameter Audio Experiments

1b Drone Bass
2a Plucked Arp
2b Brass Arp
3a Detuned Saw Lead
4b Brass Pad
[from Chapter 1 Part 1] JBW A Real Hero – Bass and Pad
[from Chapter 1 Part 1] JBW Nightcall – Arp, Verse Drone Bass, Chorus Drone Bass, Chorus Chords, Piano
SP1a Ostinati Bass SERUM
SP1a Ostinati Bass
SP1b Drone Synth SERUM
SP2a Plucked Arp SERUM
SP2b Brass Arp SERUM
SP3b Bell Lead
SP4a Lush Pad SERUM
SP4a Lush Pad Strings
SP4c Brass Stabs
SP5 Gated Snare Drums

Remix

‘The Drone Racing League’ (2019) Gunship Remix by Jessica Blaise Ward and Jan Hajsen

Collaborative Works

Some songs are released and are clickable (see above). Style Parameter Audio Experiments are available to view from this Google Drive.

Conferences

SMPR - Leeds Beckett - September 2024.
SEM 69th Annual Meeting Society of Ethnomusicology - October 2024.
National Conference of the Musicological Society of Australia - November 2024
BFE/RMA Research Student’s Conference, hosted by Cardiff University January 2024. Synthwave Identities: Tensions of gender and subgenre in the online synthwave community. https://bitly.ws/39KZS
Internet Musicking: Popular Music and Online Cultures - Hosted by the University College Cork, Ireland. 'Metalheads in the online synthwave community' . <https://www.internetmusicking.com>
Artistic Research: Various Fields, Approaches, Experiences - International Conference hosted by Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music, Riga, Latvia. 'A Hybrid Approach: Virtual Fieldwork and Composition as a Methodological Tool'. <https://www.lma.lv/en/actual-3/international-conference-on-artistic-research-various-fields-approaches-experiences>
Gender and Age/Aging in Popular Culture - Interdisciplinary Online Symposium hosted by University of Graz, Austria - June 2021 <https://gendersymposium2021.wordpress.com/> ‘Millennial Generational Alienation and Synthwave Identities’.
Leeds Beckett Virtual Postgraduate Research Conference – June 2021 <https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/the-graduate-school/community/postgraduate-research-society/> ‘Female Topliners: Popwave and Gendered Practices of Synthwave’.
BFE/RMA Student Conference, hosted by Milton Keynes University <https://fass.open.ac.uk/music/events/bfe-rma-research-students-conference-2020> <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I6t6J0j2tHx6OyjlDGvYrKu9iSwj4NsY/view> ‘Style and digital music genres: Combining music style parameters with the ‘paramusical’
Punk/Noise: The 6th Punk Scholars Network Conference hosted by Newcastle University <https://www.punkscholarsnetwork.com/newcastle-conference-2019> <https://www.dropbox.com/s/1qam5n97fsvsqnb/PSN2019%20Newcastle%20Conference%20Programme.pdf?dl=0> ‘Who remembers post-punk women?’
BFE/RMA Student Conference, hosted by Sheffield Hallam <https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/music/research/conferences/bfe_2019> <https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.824453!/file/BFE_2019_Programme.pdf> ‘Synthwave Music and Catalysts in the Creative Process’

Publications

Who remembers post-punk women? (2019) Intellect Journal of Punk and Post-Punk
An ethnographic study of the online synthwave community, a community of practice – by a composer and performer (2023). PhD. Leeds Beckett University. Access by clicking here.
[Pending] Making Synthwave: How an online music community invented a genre (2025)

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