Coldwave
Also known as cold wave (music)
A lean, icy corner of post-punk that found its clearest shape in France and Belgium, coldwave trades warmth for distance and lets atmosphere do the heavy lifting.
Origins and context
The label is most strongly associated with French- and Belgian-language post-punk, new wave, and cassette/club scenes in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
History
Coldwave took shape in the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially in France and Belgium, where writers and listeners used the label for a stripped-down strand of post-punk and new wave that leaned hard into electronic textures and emotional distance. French-language usage has been especially strong, and the scene’s documentation often points to a shared underground around cassette culture, clubs, and small labels rather than a single tidy origin story. The genre’s early canon is usually built from artists such as KaS Product and Parade Ground, alongside related French and Belgian acts that blurred coldwave with synth-pop, industrial, and minimal electronics. KaS Product’s own Bandcamp bio calls the duo a reference point in the electro cold wave/post-punk era, while Parade Ground’s AllMusic profile places them squarely in Brussels’ cold wave lineage; later artists have kept the style alive in a looser, revival-minded way.
Notable artists
- KPKaS Product
- PGParade Ground
- T2Trisomie 21
Essential listening
- 1
- 2
- 3
Explore connected genres
Sources and further reading
- KaS Product bandcamp about page
- Parade Ground biography
- fr.wikipedia.org
Cold wave is described in French-language sources as a term used especially in France, Belgium, and French-speaking Switzerland.
- Cold wave (music)