Ethereal Wave Music Guide: 5 Noteworthy Ethereal Wave Artists

Ethereal wave is a subgenre of dark wave music that overlaps with dream pop, synth pop, and gothic rock. Its signature sound includes ambient keyboard and guitar soundscapes, soprano female vocals, and lyrics that combine both everyday and otherworldly topics. Classic ethereal wave bands include Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, This Mortal Coil, and early records by All About Eve and Siouxsie and the Banshees. More recent acts include Chelsea Wolfe, Autumn's Grey Solace, Lycia, Speaking Silence, and Faith and the Muse.

Ethereal wave and dark wave are part of the broader music genre known as new wave, which arose in the post-punk movement of the early 1980s. The dreamy, ethereal subgenres of new wave music take on many names including ethereal darkwave, ethereal goth, neoclassical dark wave, dream pop, and cold wave.

Ethereal wave music came to prominence in the early 1980s as part of the broader new wave and dark wave music genres.

• Enabled by technology: In the early 1980s, new models of keyboard synthesizers and guitar effects became available on the consumer market. This allowed post-punk bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Order, Soft Cell, and the Cure to experiment with ambient textures. In many cases, these sonic experiments featured the brooding dark themes of the nascent gothic rock movement.
• 4AD Records: London-based record label 4AD began signing a number of bands from the ethereal edge of new wave music, and these bands would form the core of the ethereal wave subgenre. Many of the 4AD acts were from the United Kingdom including Cocteau Twins (from Scotland) and All About Eve. Other prominent acts hailed from Australia (Dead Can Dance) and the United States (Black Tape for a Blue Girl). 4AD label founder Ivo Watts-Russell had his own ethereal wave group called This Mortal Coil. In addition to sharing dreamy, ambient sonic aesthetics, most 4AD bands became associated with the sepia album artwork of 23 Envelope, a partnership between photographer Nigel Grierson and graphic designer Vaughan Oliver.
• The movement spreads: Ethereal wave quickly gained a following among indie rock fans and on college radio. It spawned a new generation of bands including This Ascension and Trance to the Sun (both from California), Bel Canto (from Norway), Heavenly Bodies and the Sundays (both from the UK), and Mors Syphilitica (from New York).
• Projekt Records: By the early 1990s, the ethereal wave scene had shifted from Britain's 4AD Records to the American label Projekt Records. The Projekt label has harbored numerous ethereal wave bands including Love Spirals Downwards, Autumn's Grey Solace, This Ascension, Faith & Disease, Soul Whirling Somewhere, and Lycia.
• Downstream influence: The ethereal wave movement has inspired many other forms of atmospheric indie rock. The shoegazing movement—exemplified by groups like Slowdive, Ride, and My Bloody Valentine—borrows the cascading guitars and dreamlike vocals of ethereal wave. The dream pop movement—which is associated with groups ranging from Mazzy Star to Beach House—features similar ethereal soundscapes. Through these more contemporary music genres, ethereal wave lives on.

Five key artists notably define the ethereal wave sound.

1. 1. Cocteau Twins: No band better captures the sonic aesthetics of ethereal wave than Scotland's Cocteau Twins. The shimmering, cascading guitars of Robin Guthrie and the ethereal soprano vocals of Elizabeth Fraser have spawned decades of imitators.
2. 2. Dead Can Dance: Australian duo Dead Can Dance, composed of vocalist Lisa Gerrard and multi-instrumentalist Brendan Perry, has gone through many sonic iterations. Their first five releases for 4AD Records—which spanned from 1985 through 1990—fit squarely into the ethereal wave genre. On the 1993 album Into the Labyrinth, they turned their focus to world music and a more rhythm-focused sound, but their early contributions to the ethereal wave genre remain highly influential.
3. 3. This Mortal Coil: This Mortal Coil was founded by 4AD Records executive Ivo Watts-Russell, and it epitomizes the core sound of the label in the 1980s. Various performers appeared under the This Mortal Coil name, but the constant was Watts-Russell's leadership and an ambient, gothic aesthetic.
4. 4. Lycia: In the 1990s, the ethereal wave epicenter shifted from the UK's 4AD Records to America's Projekt Records. Lycia was among the acts that established Projekt's credibility. Formed in Arizona in 1988, they released some of the signature ethereal wave and dark wave records of the 1990s, including 1991's Ionia and 1995's The Burning Circle and Then Dust.
5. 5. Autumn's Grey Solace: Florida band Autumn's Grey Solace represents the current movement of ethereal wave music. Between 2002 and 2021, the group has released fourteen albums with Projekt Records, all of which expand on the traditions started by Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance.

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