Here’s the video for London ethereal Industro-Pop trio Creatures Of Love’s new track, Vakkula.
It’s a suitably eerie and beautiful affair, directed by Beth Robinson & Creatures of Love themselves. As powerful as the music itself.
Vakkula is taken from Creatures Of Love’s début EP, Boy Crimes, released 24th September.
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If you’re not familiar with the reMix work of Virgin Magnetic Material, you should be. Usually we have a dim view of ‘artists’ who do nothing but reMixes, but Tel Aviv’s Shai Vardi just has a knack for picking the right tunes, and doing exactly the right thing with them. It doesn’t hurt that he refers to himself as a ‘reMix project’ rather than a producer or artist. Whatever he calls himself, almost all of his reMixes, and there are loads, hit just the right spot.
His latest work is a reMix of Echo & The Bunnymen’s 1984 Indie hit The Killing Moon, a track we may have mentioned before we have a soft spot for. VMM does exactly the right thing with the track, doesn’t try to turn it into a dance classic, or a floorfiller but works with the mood of the song, transforming it into a moody electronic masterpiece full of drama and tension. Slowly building on top of the deep rolling bass with layers upon layers of dark synths and plucked strings throughout the track until it reaches it’s climax, VMM crafts a powerful listening experience that actually does the original justice.
♫ Echo & The Bunnymen – The Killing Moon (Virgin Magnetic Material reMix)
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‘Night Heat’ is the new EP from London SynthWave producer Arc Neon. His second since moving on from Indie-Electro outfit Wolf And Yeti into the realms of ‘80’s soundtrack inspired electronics. Whereas his last EP, Wet Dreams, was very focused on samples from news reports etc… this new collection is much more a self contained imaginary soundtrack.
Kicking off with Prey For Your Life, the EP immediately sets itself up as an ominous musical narrative. This headmost track droops you right in the thick of it, with Italo basslines and stabbing lead synths conjuring feelings of oppressive city nights and the shady, desperate, lives of those within. Arguable the EP’s lead track, Night Heat Theme is a definite cop show classic, this is where Arc Neon shows if his musical chops. The track is five minutes of intertwining melodies, intricately crated, SynthWave, based on a vintage drum machine beat, that adds layers and layers of hooks lead lines until it reaches it’s emotional peak. At this point the the EP, you really start to feel how Arc Neon sets himself apart from a lot of the SynthWave pack. His retro influenced go beyond the standard soundtrack fare, with elements of Electronic Soul and B-Boy Electro permeating all of his track, not just in terms of arrangement, but production style too. It’s a refreshing take on the genre. Midnight Madman is a chaotic mid-point of the EP, juxtaposing hard Industrial beats with euphoric leads to produce a schizophrenic aural assault. This a nicely followed by the moody respite of Breaking In By Moonlight, loaded with lush atmospherics and an urban bassline and The Golden Rule, the EP’s most standard SynthWave track, rich in progressions that inspire. The EP ends on perhaps it’s strongest track, Femmé Fatalé (Ending Theme) (although, soundtracks ending themes being their highlight isn’t exactly unusual). Femmé Fatalé revolves around a haunting melody that will be stuck in your head all day, it’s a unique production in the world of SynthWave, placing raw Electro Funk alongside heartfelt synth soundtrack work to brilliant effect. The SynthWave scene feels like it’s due for a shake up soon, the danger is there of it becoming full of copycats, and growing stale, Arc Neon is amongst those who could do the shaking.
♫ Arc Neon – Femmé Fatalé (Ending Theme)
♫ Arc Neon – Night Heat Theme
♫ Arc Neon – Breaking In By Moonlight
Arc Neon’s Night Heat EP is out now.
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Right then, I had written quite a long post about The Presets’ new single, Ghosts, when it was released, but unfortunately, the record label or PR people or whoever deemed that providing a stream of the track somewhere in order to get, essentially, free advertising from music websites was just too easy and not allowing the song to be streamed was a much more challenging route. So despite having written the tracks praises, we could not feature it until now. Weeks after the single’s release there is a new video for the track (I don’t know who handling the release track for The Presets, but they need a better calendar, a video should be promotion for a single, not an afterthought) so we can finally feature it in some for. This is what we had wrote previously, but been unable to post:
It’s not just a crazy dream, they really are back! After the storming first single from their forthcoming album Pacifica, Australian ElectroPop/House gods The Presets are unveiling yet more teasers for their third proper album. Overnight, Ghosts has had exactly the reaction that a good The Presets song should have. Very divided opinion. Mostly negative comment have come from the kind of person who got ‘into’ The Presets quite late and only really knows the hits. The Presets were never about producing ‘bangers’ or whatever, regardless of how some people like to see them, their output has consistently, from the beginning, been about producing intelligent, left-field electronic Pop music that often contains surprises. And this they have done once more with Ghosts.
Hypnotic is the best way to describe Ghosts. Like an electronic Folk tale, the urban narrative found within Ghosts tells a tale, maybe a warning, for the 21st century and it is sung as such. The warm, heavy, bass and enveloping strings just invite the listener to stay and pay further attention. Ghosts is a gentle track, despite it’s dancehall groove, with The Presets showing us that the new album isn’t going to be all about the kind of musical assault that we’d heard with the previous single, Youth In Trouble, and this is excellent news. The Presets are always at their best when doing intimate, emotionally resonant songs.
Enjoy the clip.
The Presets’ Ghost is out now.
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Here’s a Friday treat from Cassette Club. Just ahead of the release of their Flash reMix package on Modal in the coming weeks, the duo of Ben Macklin and Tom Hammond have dropped this previously unreleased Cassette Club tune. Talk To Me (despite having exactly the same title as a certain forthcoming release, grrrrr) is an insanely good slice of Poppy Electro Boogie. The mind boggles as to why it wasn’t released, it’s out track for the weekend!
This is Cassette Club doing what Cassette Club do best, amazingly rich ElectroPop, although this time with an injection of Funk that’s slightly stronger than their other tracks. Talk To Me, I believe, dates from around late 2011 and is loaded with slick Disco licks, punchy retro synths and impassioned vocals and, quite frankly, could give Chrome a run for their money in the Funky ElectroPop stakes. It the weather hold out for the weekend, this tune should be your summery weapon of choice.
♫ Cassette Club – Talk To Me (Unreleased)
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Here’s the amazing new video for the amazing Karin Park’s amazing new single, Thousand Loaded Guns.
Eschewing frosty Scandi-clips in favour of a dose of Americana, crime drama, DIY gigs and a Neubauten T-shirt!
Thousand Loaded Guns is released 3rd September.
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Time for some full-on retro dancefloor action now in the form of Johan Agebjörn and Le Prix, who are once again release under the name Plexi Grace. For their forthcoming new single they have teamed up with German singer Sylwia Van Der Wonderland for some early ‘90’s awesomeness.
And Midnight Boy totally brides the gap between early ‘90’s dance and Disco. The bassline that is pure Bomb The Bass alongside some classic orchestral hits bring that ‘90’s excitement to the tune while the smooth grooves are covered by a slick Italo-Disco feel. While all this electronic greatness is going on Sylwia’s sultry croon fills out the track, sliding from husky to ethereal with relative ease. Stick around, the track descends into an Acid workout toward the end. this is the kind of shit that make you want to go out and party.
♫ Plexi Grace (Feat. Sylwia Van Der Wonderland) – Midnight Boy
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Retro ElectroPop artists Tyson’s epic Mr. Rain is getting a single release, and luckily, that also mans a video.
That’s some classic ‘80’s music video imagery right there! It’s a really cool track and the video totally does it justice.
Tyson’s Mr. Rain is out now.
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Coming up right behind Starcadian’s amazing reMix of NYC Indie-Electro duo Freedom Fry’s Summer In the City, comes this mix from one of our favourite German producers Kelek. Where as Staracadian took a lush, urban approach to the track, Kelek goes all out 80’s Italo. No lazy, smooth electric pain here, this is aimed squarely at the dancefloor.
Kelek really knows how to work a melody, his reMix of Summer In The City works layers of synthesizer hooks into one powerful whole. A killer Italo bassline underpins the track, immensely energetic, providing a rock solid core for rich chords, sparkling leads and just the right amount of vocal to make this track a proper retro smash. Whereas Starcadian’s reMix was a chilled out, introspective vibe, this version of the track is all about dancefloor euphoria. It’s uplifting as hell, and catchy enough to stick in your heal all day.
♫ Freedom Fry – Summer In The City (Kelek reMix)
Summer In The City is out now.
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Those two teenagers from Lancashire, Bondax, have dropped another surprisingly mature tune, Baby I Got That, that once again ignites our deep ‘90’s House fires.
The track is already getting support from the likes of Annie Mac, Nick Grimshaw and Pete Tong on the old radio. Check out the poolside vibes of the video.
Baby I Got That is released 16th September.
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electronic rumors 