Hi! My name is Laura Dre, I’m an artist creating contemporary 80s-inspired synthpop. My influences lean heavily on 80s music, Japanese City Pop, and across the broader spectrum of electronic music. That said, I also enjoy other genres like 90s, techno, old-school house, jazz, etc. and thus I’m often genre-bending in multiple directions when it comes to music creation. I enjoy building worlds around my artistic work, and not just releasing an album.
In my early stages of music, I have toured with a lot of small indie, pop-rock and metal bands, but at some point in 2009 I decided to start my own band called Vinyl Black Stilettos. I was mainly writing songs back then, singing, playing guitar and I’ve worked with a couple of producers on my EPs, mainly Robert Harder (You Want Her, You Love Her EP) and Pete Gleadall (Electrical EP). “The Game” was featured in BBC’s tv series Lip Service (S2 E3), I performed at L-Beach festival alongside Kim Wilde, Go Go Festival and Lounge On The Farm alongside other credible artists.
In 2016 I decided to study the art and craft of music production and in 2019 graduated with a first class honours BA in Music Production. I’ve created music for most of my life, but my first album under “LAURA DRE” was Moving Spaces (2021), released via Outland Recordings. Vinyl records were pressed and sold out pretty quickly. I received press mentions from The Curve, Clash Magazine, Loud Women, Beyond Synth, The Electricity Club and others. In the same year I also released Kyoto Dreams, a narrative-driven adventure with Japanese voice acting and music that transports you back to the 80s when you were listening to an audiobook on cassette. Whilst the label was happy to fund CDs for Kyoto Dreams, there wasn’t any budget for pressing vinyl records but there was certainly demand for it. This was the starting point of me running my first Kickstarter. The double vinyl was successfully funded by 111 backers with €11,125, which I distributed myself.
To fulfil the record deal I offered my AKARI LD-01 album to Outland Recordings first, but it was declined, so we parted ways and I was released from the contract. In 2023 I ran another Kickstarter for AKARI LD-01, a cyberpunk project with artwork by Tida Kitsungden, which raised over €25,170 by 233 backers to bring the vinyl record to life. Later that year I released Moving Spaces II: Twilight via Indiegogo, which was also successfully funded with €19,657 by 121 backers. I chose the path of full independence, retaining 100% control of art, design and masters.
The typical label with artists focuses on generating streams on Spotify and Billboard charts, but my approach is different. My philosophy centres around world-building and story-telling, which naturally requires control over design choices, musical direction, vibe, and art formats outside of the standard ones. Not just dishing out music on the cheapest format for the sake of it. I consider my artistic direction to be special, thus I will only release my creative works on premium formats, as this aligns with what I represent as an artist. It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t come to an agreement with any label. I had already chosen the independent path, so I continued building everything myself. I do things my way now, which requires an entrepreneurial mindset.
Moving forward to 2025, my album Moving Spaces was featured in ARD’s “Schattenseite” (German TV series) and I was also featured in a book called “Making Synthwave: How an Online Music Community Invented a Genre” by Jess Blaise Ward. I have also decided to build a small eco-system that helps fund future creative work. I’ve built an educational course around music production, which is called “The Audio Arcade”. I teach how to use a DAW, create a song, mix it and how to distribute it – the full journey for beginners. It’s something I wish I had back then, so I thought why not create it right? I’m also a big fan of video games, hence wanted to create something game-inspired that makes learning a bit more fun. I’ve been told by my students that it removes roadblocks and many feel inspired to create something, as they share their new song in my community, which I’m very proud of.
Back at university, I did a lot of research… I explored a question that always interested me: is it even possible to recreate the sound of the 80s with modern plugins (such as Arturia’s Prophet V, Jup-8, Mini V) and ITB (In the Box) these days? I went into deep analysis of composition and arrangement, synthesisers, recording techniques for a live drum kit, working with vintage microphones and audio engineering.
I’ve learned a lot during my research and if you’re curious about what worked and what I struggled with, you’re more than welcome to read my 49 pages of research here.
It’s currently 2026 and I’m working on Moving Spaces III: Midnight. It’s the final album to close the trilogy and this time I want to make it special by entirely producing and mixing it myself. I’ll still outsource the vinyl mastering, because let’s be honest: this is a beast where mistakes can be costly. Anyway, once the demos for the album are done, I will announce it via Newsletter, on my Instagram and my discord community. Be sure to follow if you’d like to be kept in the loop! 🙂 I will likely create a Kickstarter with limited edition rewards again (no re-run / re-press).
Laura
