I don’t think there is any comeback in 2012 we are more excited for that that of Stuart Price/Les Rythmes Digitales/Thin White Duke/Jacques Lu Cont’s return to music making.

In ‘Church’, the second new track he has dropped, without fuss or ceremony’, Jacques Lu Cont shows the everyone why he is one of the top electronic music producers in the world today. It’s a track that puts everyone making bally Electro to shame. With an FM bassline (with a hint of Lisa Lougheed’s ‘Run With Us’ about it!) that has such impact and drops and build in just the right places, this tune is a dancefloor juggernaut. Probably the best flat-out dance tune we’ve heard in a while. Simply stunning. This is one church I could get behind.

♫ Jacques Lu Cont – Church

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Kuala Lumpur based retro synth duo Dizkopolis are back with a new version of ‘Class Of ‘91’, a tack we first featured in October last year.

This ‘Part 2’ version relies less on the ChipTune elements of the original and leans more toward a smooth, more French, Disco sound with elements of Dreamwave. The track sees the guy’s skills improving and they become more confident and their sound matures. There’s some seriously slick keys playing going on in this track mixed up with wicked Disco licks. This is a track that’s so densely layered it’s a wonder that nothing gets lost in the mix, but the end result is clean sounding and guaranteed to rock and dancefloor, this tune’ll take people into orbit.

♫ Dizkopolis – Class Of ’91 (Part 2) (Video Rework)

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Some people just don’t know their own talent.

Here’s what SynthWave producer Lost Years wrote about this track on SoundCloud: “I’m not really sure about this track… I’ve been working with it for a week and that’s not my usual ‘style’. Most of the time I do a track in 3 hours. I think I tried too hard with this one and It did not came out as good as it should. Trash bin or not… you decide?”. I’ve no idea how he can remain so humble about such an awesome tune. ‘Digital V1’ is retro synth heaven. A mid-paced, brooding peice of post-Italo electronic scoring that conjures the calm before the storm. Running digital basses and delay heavy percussion are lifted into the stratosphere by some epic leads in a track that feels all about anticipation.  When shit’s about to go down, this is the soundtrack.

♫ Lost Years – Digital V1

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Singer/songwriter Louisa Rose Allen’s recently had a second wind, as Foxes, when Neon Gold, always with the finger on the pulse of eclectic Pop, snapped her up for the release of her new single ‘Youth’. released earlier this  month.

Appropriately for Neon Gold, the single exists in the nexus between Ellie and Marina. Take Marina’s quirkiness and Ellie’s percussion led bombast and wrap them up with impassioned vocals and a sense of accessibility and it should see Foxes make quite a mark in 2012. You know Neon Gold has an eye for these things. The internet has been graced with some wonderful reMixes of the tune too. Pyramid, who début is still regularly playlisted round these parts, delivers an seriously impressive, driving, SynthWave mix. With a real analog rawness to it, yet still with a Pop sheen. Some majestic organs elevate a track which is probably my favourite version of the song, which is saying a lot when you hear the other reMix. Monsieur Adi, who since his début has done no wrong in our eyes, turns in an awesome, rhythmically exciting, slice of soaring Nu-DiscoPop. Frantic drumming and dagger sharp synth leads and a hint of Samba all fall into Adi’s melting pot and the result is a seven minute aural party.

♫ Foxes – Youth (Pyramid reMix)

♫ Foxes – Youth (Monsieur Adi reMix)

♫ Foxes – Youth

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Released yesterday was the new single from French electronic act Edgework. the reMix package contains this gem from the awesome SynthWaver Awkoder.

So light and fluffy is Awkoder’s reMix, that’s it’s practically ElectroPop. There’s actually quite a strong strain of New Order DNA running through this track. The bassline, the bright shiny synths, the arrangement, all capture something of  New Order in the early ‘80’s, bits of ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Shellshock’ spring to mind. This, of course, is all injected with Awkoder’s Nu-Italo synthesizer skills and results in a nice slice of retro synth nostalgia.

♫ Edgework – Night Mechanics (Awkoder reMix)

‘Night Mechanics’ is out now on Plastic Toy Records.

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This week Brighton SynthPop outfit Mirrors released a brand new EP on their Bandcamp page.

The ‘This Year, Next Year, Sometime . . . ?’ EP contains two new tracks, ‘Dust’ and ‘Shooting Stars’, and five new demos. it was put together by the band to help fund their return to the studio for a new full length album and it’s well worth the price. ‘Dust’ is classic SynthPop, powerful and brooding and capturing that ‘just right’ SynthPop atmosphere of melancholy shot through with hit of hope. Along with ‘Dust’, if ‘Shooting Stars’ is anything to go by, we Mirrors get back in the studio soon. It’s a gorgeous peice of synthesizer based Indie-Electro with all the darkness and majesty you’d expect from these guys. Buying the EP seems like a worthy cause, and seven awesome tracks to boot.

♫ Mirrors – Dust

♫ Mirrors – Shooting Stars

The ‘This Year, Next Year, Sometime . . . ?’ EP is available now.

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‘E=mc²’ is my favourite Giorgio Moroder track, so it was with great interest that I approached Sweedish Disco label MB Disco’s new collection of reMixes of the track. They released a ton of reMixes in the package and invited some legendary figures in Italo and Cosmic Disco to take part.

To run down some of the stand out versions let’s start with L.I.S., who turn in a deep analog Disco track, all rounded bouncy bass and sparse arpeggios. using similar instrumentation to Moroder let’s L.I.S capture a similar mood but with a much updated sound. Gomma’s Rodion drops a RoboDisco version of the track next which is almost exactly what I had in my head that this release would contain before I listened to it. Frantic, slightly retro, synthetic Disco that layers upon the original, making it more complex and full with an Italo twang.  Speaking of Italo, legends of the genre Klein & MBO deliver an unsurprisingly ‘80’s mix, raw 909 beats and Italo basslines are in order here that stays true enough to the original but adds an eighties euro dancefloor feel that could have easily seen it as a 12” release from the early ‘80’s. The release is also graced by Electro pioneer Alexander Robotnick who’s dark vocoding and Kraftwerk-on-steroids electronics create a completely different track, more of a homage to Moroder. Alongside theses tracks, you’ll find on the record work from Dionigi, I-Robots and Daniele Baldelli.

♫ Giorgio Moroder – E=mc² (L.I.S. Rework)

♫ Giorgio Moroder – E=mc² (Rodion Gran Manigheo reMix)

♫ Giorgio Moroder – E=mc² (No More Klein & MBO reMix)

♫ Giorgio Moroder – E=mc² (Alexander Robotnick reMix)

‘E=mc² – The Italian Connection’ reMix collection is out now.

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The double team of Miss Billie Ray Martin and Robert Solheim, The Opiates’ ‘Hollywood Under The Knife’ album was a pretty regular fixture on electronic rumors last year. Well, that momentum doesn’t need to stop. Next month The Opiates release ‘Hollywood Cuts (The reMixes)’, an album chock full of some big names reMixing some big tracks from ‘Hollywood Under The Knife’.

the list of reMixers is pretty impressive, Kim Ann Foxman, Doorly, Chris & Cosey, Drop Out Orchestra, Dan Beaumont and this track from Dalston’s Disco Bloodbath. Taking the lead track from the album, ‘Candy Coated Crime’, Disco Bloodbath lay down some deep electronic sounds. Their pulsating synthesizer Disco conjures a mood of late nights on dingy dancefloors, dark clubs and strange places. A perfect match for Billie’s sultry vocal. With a slight dark Italo feel this reMix is one for a dark future.

♫ The Opiates – Candy Coated Crime (Disco Bloodbath reMix)

The Opiates’ ‘Hollywood Cuts (The reMixes)’ is released 26th February on Disco Activisto.

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Directed by Alberto Rossini in Miami in October during a hurricane watch, the wind and the vintage footage somehow seem to work themselves in to the track amazingly.

‘II’ is out now on Italians Do It Better.

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Nine years ago Parisian outfit ComboStar released ‘In My Soul’ a big, filtered French House track that made some waves. Now in 2012 they are back with a new EP on La Valigetta.

The ‘Combostella’ EP is a bit hit an miss, a couple of the tracks on there are a bit Nu-Disco by numbers, a bit uninspired. But these two tracks ‘Straight In The Eye’ and, especially, ‘Discoball Room’ make the EP worth it. ‘Straight In The Eye’ makes great use of some pretty original samples to create a peak time Disco tune that is novelty enough to chart. ‘Discoball Room’, though, is the track that makes the EP. Layers of synthesizer Funk and squelchy little melodies play all over a Disco-House beat. A whole EP of this kind of stuff would have been killer, rather than the commercial, compilation focused Disco, maybe next time.

♫ ComboStar – Discoball Room

♫ ComboStar – Straight In The Eye

ComboStar’s ‘Combostella’ EP is out 6th February.

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