Split Vision release new album ‘BetaCity’
Split Vision release the album ‘BetaCity’ on November 6 via Town And Towers Records, drawing on the early synthpop sound of Alphaville.
Swedish synthpop duo Split Vision release their new album “BetaCity” on November 6, 2026, on Town And Towers Records. The ten-track album is available on CD, vinyl and digital, and draws on the sound of Alphaville’s 1984 album “Forever Young”.
Following “Echoes of a New Spell”, which explored the early electronic sound of Depeche Mode, “BetaCity” turns to Alphaville’s catalogue as its reference point. Dan Hansson and Henric Palmqvist built the album around a Roland Jupiter-8 for lead and pad sounds, a PPG Wave 2.3 for wavetable bass, and a Linn LM-1 and LinnDrum rhythm section, with a string orchestra playing arpeggios across several tracks.
The album opens with “Shadows on the Wall”, set around divided cities and fading memories, with Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm named as recurring landmarks. “Cold War” follows, built on lyrics the band’s label manager, Stig Wintendorff, wrote in the 1980s about iron curtains and political tension. “Hall of Fame” and “Higher Love” move into more personal territory of ambition and regret, while “Out of Nowhere”, the album’s first single, takes a more uptempo, melodic turn. The album closes with “Drums of Freedom”, addressing war and the hope for peace.
‘BetaCity’ tracklist
- Shadows on the Wall
- Cold War
- Hall of Fame
- Higher Love
- Out of Nowhere
- Wheel of Fortune
- Black Crown
- A Split Vision
- Laufen durch die Straßen
- Drums of Freedom
“BetaCity” is available as a digital album on Bandcamp, with CD and vinyl editions available through the band’s webshop.
“Cold War”, the album’s second single, followed “Out of Nowhere” in October. Both singles carry over into the final tracklist alongside eight additional songs, including “Laufen durch die Straßen”, a track set in Hamburg in the 1980s, and “A Split Vision”, which explores a relationship breakdown.
About Split Vision
Split Vision was formed in 1985 in Kristianstad, Sweden, by school friends Dan Hansson and Henric Palmqvist, originally as a four-member high-school lineup influenced by Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure and the Pet Shop Boys. The band played discotheques across northeastern Skåne in the late 1980s and appeared on regional radio programs and talent competitions. In 1988, the single “How Will I Ever” was released on Platinum Records, followed by the minor Swedish hit “So Many Times”. The group split up shortly after.
Hansson and Palmqvist revived Split Vision in 2019. Their comeback album, “Among the Stars”, released October 1, 2020, built its lyrics and soundscapes around a cosmos theme. Describing that period, the band stated: “We wanted to take the audience on a journey back to carefully carved arpeggios, that smell of Moog and Yamaha DX-7. We try to create music with an atmosphere consisting of strong melodies performed by a distinct lead and backed by a contemporary vocoder. The goal was, as far as possible, to recreate the sound we loved at the beginning of our electronic music career – and we believe, we succeeded.”
Split Vision signed to Town And Towers Records in 2022 and released an EP in January 2025, followed by the covers EP “A Trip Down Memory Lane” in May 2025. Their album “Echoes of a New Spell” followed on February 5, 2026, and the band discussed their approach to influence in a Side-Line interview published that March.
In August 2024, Norwegian filmmaker Øystein Thorsen directed the music video for Split Vision’s single “Lust”, which went on to screen at the New York Tri-State International Film Festival, the LIFF Luleå International Film Festival in Sweden, the Tokyo Short Film Festival, the KHIFF Krimson Horyzon International Film Festival in India and the Greece International Film Festival. “BetaCity” is Split Vision’s first album to be released on streaming, CD and vinyl simultaneously, following the singles “Out of Nowhere” and “Cold War” earlier in 2026.
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