Smoker's Children by Synthetic Villains

Album #9 - File under: Radiophonic / Audio Cues / Library Music


Excellent review from Bob Fischer that includes beautiful nuggets such as: "peak melancholy", "endearingly eccentric", and "gurning plonks".
Electronic Sound Magazine
Issue 129, https://electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/p/issue-129

"It’s a great collection of electronica, creating a mood music soundtrack to drift away into the past with on a susurrus of sounds"
Mary Ray, Louder Than War
https://louderthanwar.com/synthetic-villains-smokers-children-album-review/


"Richard Turner’s Synthetic Villains returns with a second long-player of the year, his ninth in total, in the shape of ‘Smoker’s Children’ (Flood of Sound), which is a whole load of audio cues that could have arrived from a TV set near you in the 70s/80s. Richard says to think of it as “a Blue Peter version of Broadcast”. I mean, when the artist can pull lines like that I’ll happily take a back seat. Here he draws on the hazy TV memories and Radiophonic Workshop weirdness that were presented to our younger selves as theme tunes and incidental music like it was somehow a good idea. Electronic Sound describe his work as “dinky beats and vintage bleeps” which just about does it. ‘I’ve Her Cutlery’ is a ripe example, a super cute melodic shuffle with, you suspect, a cutlery drawer of a rhythm section, while ‘Twice Is One Too Many’ sounds like Captain Pugwash on the piss, ‘Make Your Own Fun’ like the Teletubbies meet Pierre Henry. Of course, Richard is Lancaster-based and we all know there’s some powerful musical leylines running through that place. This is full-tilt quirky work and quality stuff as a result."
Moonbuilding Weekly, Issue 78 / 5 September 2025
moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-78-5-september-2025



Most grateful for radio plays from these esteemed DJs:

Phantom Circuit
phantomcircuit.com/listen-now/452.html

Kate Bosworth's Dark Train
www.mixcloud.com/katebosworth/wcr-dark-train-figgy-hobbin-recipe-xxxv-kate-bosworth-29-sept-2025/

Gareth Jones on Dandelion Radio
www.mixcloud.com/DandelionRadio/gareth-jones-202510/

Radio Not Radio
www.mixcloud.com/callinamagician/9212025-radio-not-radio/

DJ Bleek/Urban Mutant
https://www.mixcloud.com/UrbanMutant/urban-mutant-say-yes-to-distress/
https://www.mixcloud.com/UrbanMutant/urban-mutant-i-saw-you-shine-tribute-to-bruce-loose/

Space is the Place
https://www.mixcloud.com/SpaceIsThePlaceRadioShow/space-is-the-place-04-09-25/

And multiple plays from Trevlad:
https://linktr.ee/trevlad



About this album

Key influences for this album in particular were the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (especially David Cain's 'The Seasons' and the pink album), the John Baker Tapes, FC Judd, Daphne Oram's 'Oramics' and early electronic music as featured in Ian Helliwell's Tone Generation radio series. Plus all the hand-made-sounding folky but synth-infused soundtracks to 80s kids TV programmes like Graeme Miller & Steve Shill's soundtrack to the Moomins.

With 30 short tracks, this is akin to Library music and about as Ghost Box as I'll get. Think Broadcast & the Focus Group but more irreverent and minus the occult. It's a soundtrack adjacent to the themes explored by Bob Fischer's the Haunted Generation, Scarred For Life and occasionally as unsettling as Scarfolk! The playful side of Folk-Horror. With homemade percussion, rubber bands, ruler twangs and various cutlery.

As for the title, I distinctly remember people in the late 70s/early 80s smoking a lot. On occasion, a picture frame was removed from a wall to reveal a very white-looking square on an otherwise nicotine yellow wall. More recently, a packet of tobacco had half of its health warning covered up showing just "Smoker's Children". And that was that.

The generation of kids that grew up in my time were shown TV and films from our parents and grandparents' times. Channels were few, and repeats were plentiful. Sights and sounds were recycled and reused years after their initial broadcast. Terrifying Public Information films were shown on TV, at the cinema, and at school. LPs were played in the school hall, and we were told to express ourselves, leaping about in vests and undies with wild abandon!

We were unwittingly being prepared for a future that was no longer there once we were adults. But we were expected to use our imagination and entertain ourselves. And that's essentially what this is, in sonic form.



For the gear geeks:

Various homemade coffee tin percussion, rubber bands, ruler twangs, bells, hooters, claves, octachime, various effects pedals, Stylophone Theremin, autoharp, glockenspiel, field recordings, jaws harp, chime bars, assorted knives, wooden and metal spoons, beer bottle, nutcracker.

Synths: Korg Minilogue XD, Korg Monologue, Yamaha PS2, Early Learning Centre keyboard, Casio VL-Tone, MT45 and MT100, Waddingtons Compute-a-Tune, Mattel Bee Gees Rhythm Machine, Bontempi Electronic Computer Organ.

Amps: Fender Twin, Fender Champion 600

Guitar: Fender Mustang via guitar synth pedal.

"dinky beats and vintage bleeps"
Electronic Sound Magazine

Instrumental, mostly electronic music.

From the "experimental, slightly off-kilter" (Bandcamp New & Notable) synth-pop of the debut album to the "pulsing Berlin School synths" (Electronic Sound Magazine) of the latest albums, SV albums explore drones, repetitions, textures and riffs.

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