German producer of 80’s inspired electronic music Alpha Boy is back with a brand new EP, his third. It’s free too!
The ‘Fresh’ EP is four tracks of his particular mix of melodic synthesizer dance, Nu-Disco and ChipTune. The EP kicks off with ‘Chip Child’ and almost oriental arpeggio workout that leads into ‘Falkor’, a sweeping 80’s theme tune of a song. This is RoboPop heaven, deep machine basses underpin soaring cosmic lead lines in a track that is uplifting electro gold. ‘The Fresh Tape’ is more of a slow jam that is followed with ‘Walking On Light’, the EPs finale. ‘Walking On Light’ sends you off on a high combining retro electronics, Disco strings and a baroque feel in a track both banging and emotional.
Following on from last weeks 80’s synth TV themes, here’s another irreverent Sunday post for you. Don’t get used to it though there isn’t that many electronic music/other stuff crossovers in the world.
Today we are looking at a niche that combines two of my three favourite things. Electronic music, and comedy. I’m going with ElectroCom. You can keep that!
The traditions of Comedy and Music have been intertwined for as long as they have existed, but it’s rare for someone to do something genuinely funny with synth music. And I don’t mean ‘just taking the piss out of the 80’s’, everyone featured here obviously has a great love for the music they are satirising.
So, lets kick things off with Flight Of The Conchords. You know who Flight Of The Conchords are, and if you don’t go and find out. They are very funny and very musically talented. This globe-trotting duo are from New Zealand, where they started their act, then moved to BBC Radio in the UK and ended up on HBO in the US. They pastiche a few styles of music, everything from Gangster Rap to Folk but have been quite spot-on with their ElectroPop tracks. ‘Inner City Pressure’ and ‘Fashion Is Danger’ are note perfect tributes to their subjects. I have also included ‘Robots’, ‘cos it’s funny and quite cute Indie-Electro and The Conchords getting funky with ‘Mutha’uckas’ and ‘Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor’.
Flight Of The Conchords – Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor
Flight Of The Conchords – Mutha’uckas
The Mighty Boosh. Very Surreal. Very British with a deep love of Electro. Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding are both accomplished comedians and comedy actors in their own right but together they are pretty unstoppable. You either ‘get’ The Boosh or you don’t. Clearly influenced by Monty Python and The Young Ones, The Mighty Boosh pepper their anarchic show with some of the catchiest songs in comedy. ‘Electro Boy’ (featuring Robots In Disguise as the band) and ‘Future Sailors’ are pure post-ElectroClash nonsense with ‘C Funk’ is, unsurprisingly, The Boosh’s take on P Funk (watch the whole episode if you’re confused).
The Mighty Boosh – Electro Boy
The Mighty Boosh – Future Sailors
The Mighty Boosh – C Funk
Now we come to Gary Le Strange. Gary Le Strange was a New Romantic face warrior created by comedian Waen Shepherd (who can name Cyderdelic, the surreal PlayStation 2 “Third Place” ads and The Inbetweeners amongst his credits) who I first saw live in 2003 when I was running an ElectroPop club and some comedy promoters came in and gave us free tickets in exchanger for being able to flyer our night. Gary Le Strange was a character out of time, his show was split between New Romantic manifesto, ridiculous tales of the 80’s and SynthPop songs. Really good songs too, Wean obviously had great love, and great knowledge for his target. The first two comedy tours and their albums ‘Face Academy’ and ‘Polaroid Suitcase’ were spot-on satires of both the 80’s and electronic music. By the time the third album ‘Beef Scarecrow’ came out both the music and the funny was waning a bit, but this was the time when Gary made the transition to TV. A transition I feel was too late, despite being directed by the awesome Stewart Lee, the video’s didn’t seem to capture the original shows laughs. The songs are still funny…and good, though!
All of SNL staples The Lonely Island’s video are well worth watching, featuring a host of celebrities, but their 80’s teen movie pastiche ‘Boombox’ is particularly apt.
The Lonely Island (Feat. Julian Casablancas Of The Strokes) – Boombox
The Lonely Island – Jizz In My Pants
Big Train was, after Asylum, the breeding ground for some of the UKs best comedy talent, most obviously in the form of Simon Pegg, Mark Heap and Kevin Eldon. This sketch about Keith Emerson’s synth collection always makes me chuckle.
Big Train – Keith Emerson
The Mary Whitehouse Experience was probably the coolest comedy show in the UK in the early 90’s and started the trend of the comedian as rock star. If you know Utah Saints and you know MTV Unplugged and you know the early 90’s this should make you chuckle.
The Mary Whitehouse Experience – Utah Saints Unplugged
OK, running out of idea now, the obvious SynthPop/comedy connection to go for is Pet Shop Boys’ involvement in Absolutely Fabulous. Here’s the video.
Pet Shop Boys – Absolutely Fabulous
Right, more Sunday post crowdsourcing action! I’d be interested to hear of any suggestions you might have for electronic music/comedy crossovers. particularly from Americans. Being English most of my Pop Cultural references are there, is there any classic US TV that mock the synth? Let me know!
Wherever you’re from, I want to know about electronic music comedy sketches worldwide!
Hit me up on Twitter, @electronicrumor, and if I include your suggestion you’ll get a shiny credit!
German producer OhYeah!’s new track, ‘Be Tough,’ is described by himself as “80s flavoured skateboard Italo disco”. Intrigued? I am.
‘Be Tough’ defiantly roughs up the Italo and sends it into overdrive. With a relentless bassline powering the song along, OhYeah! drops layer after layer of samples, vocoding, and thick, thick retro synth sounds. More in-your-face than the Disco track you’d expect from OhYeah! this is the kind of track to drop at peak time and watch the dancefloor explode.
DannielRadall has just released a new EP, comprised entirely of reMixes and rewords of Jef Barbara’ ‘Cocaine Love’
The ‘Cocaine Love’ EP is a journey through twisted ElectroPop, sleazy synth Funk and the dark side of the 80’s. That doesn’t mean that this EP doesn’t have a groove though, check out ‘On Mirror’ which takes the song to a slow jam Disco place where Moog leads and big 80’s chords form a path that leady you to the dark underbelly of DiscoPop. The original DanielRandall reMix of the track is a strange and enticing mixture of reverb soaked Chillwave and an Italo, almost EBM bassline, which seems to counterpoint and accentuate the slight sense of dread in the vocals.
Landscape released ‘Einstein A Go Go’ way back in 1981, back when synths were still seen as a geek thing and synth players were perceived as boffins in white coats. They cashed in and made it catchy!
Social Ambitions are a Swedish SynthPop duo signed to Electric Fantastic Sound.
Their new single, ‘Commandments’, is released at the beginning of August and is an infectious slice of Classic SynthPop with a contemporary twist. Just shy of falling into the Modern SynthPop trap, ‘Commandments’ boasts an off-beat bassline and those post-Depeche Mode vocals so often found in Modern SynthPop, but Social Ambitions distance themselves from the pack with the ability to write a good hook and a catchy chorus. Sliding chainsaw synths form quite a nice counterpoint the vocals, giving the track some balls. The breakdown is a little ‘90’s Trance’ for my liking but overall ‘Commandments’ is definitely worthy of your attention.
♫ Social Ambitions – Commandments
The track is B-sided with the Kraftwerk-esque ‘Paris’ and released 1st August.
The last few days have been Starsmithtastic! New single, new video and now the flip side to ‘Lesson One’, ‘Champion’.
I sat flip side ‘cos the release will be a double A-side. Alan Braxe, who’s Vulture Music will be putting out the single, recently dropped a teaser of this track at Social Club in Paris and the resultant YouTube video has us all in a frenzy. ‘Campion’ sees Starsmith layering up the smooth electronic Funk of ‘Lesson One’ with a more synthesized feel. The lead lines alone are worth buying this release for, behind a couple of tires of synths and a mixing desk Starsmith really is at the top of his game. Keeping the Hopefully Starsmith finding a home at Vulture will mean his album gets to see the light of day.
Fear Of Tigers – The Guestlist 14/07/2011 = It’s a Vulture Music special this week on The Guestlist as Fear Of Tigers is joined by seemingly the whole Vulture crew Alan Braxe himself is in the house along with the amazing Visitor, Kids At Midnight and Pacific!. Expect mixes and previews and some big tunes from FoT too.
Lifelike’s reMix of Chromeo’s ‘Needy Girl’ was one of the musical highlights of 2008, now the meeting of minds is happening once more with Lifelike’s new reMix of Chromeo’s forthcoming ‘when The Night Falls’ single.
Featuring Solange of the Knowles clan, ‘When The Night Falls’ will be the last single from Chromeo’s amazing ‘Business Casual’ album. Lifelike add a nice sheen of Frenchness to the track with his trademark digital bass and a solid understanding of the Disco dancefloor. It’s the little touches, stabs and sound effects that really make this reMix a bit rad, keeping things energetic and bombastic.
♫ Chromeo (Feat. Solange) – When The Night Falls (Lifelike reMix)
Chromeo’s ‘When The Night Falls’ single is due to drop 25th July.
Kimbra’s ‘Cameo Lover’ tend to burrow itself into your brain whenever you hear it. Unfortunately we have now found a reason to start listening to it all over again, but fortunately that reason is a brand new reMix from Shook.
Shook brings the Funk big time, with deep bass and flourishing Moog lines running throughout. Stripping it original of it’s 60’s leanings Shook takes that ‘Puppet On A String’-esque, infections, chorus and re-moulds it into a summertime Disco anthem. Shook has a new EP in the pipeline, keep an eye out for that one.
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