Apr 13 2009

80’s Synth T.V. themes

StreetHawk

Something a bit different for this holiday Monday. The 80’s was a time of looking to the future (‘cos everything was a bit shit then) and this was reflected in glossy, futuristic T.V.. Of course, futuristic T.V. shows had to have futuristic theme songs, and that meant Synthesizers!

So here’s a small collection of some of the best to fuel your nostalgia.

Beginning with possibly my favourite TV theme of the 80’s, Tangerine Dream’s theme from ‘Streethawk’ (also on their own ‘Le Parc‘ album), taking in the classic theme’s from ‘Airwolf’ and ‘Knight Rider’ and ending up with the proto-Daft Punk-esq theme from the cartoon ‘Ulysses 31’.

Most of these are really crappy quality, as if some kid in the 80’s held a Tandy tape recorder to the T.V. speaker to tape the music….just like I used to do!

Enjoy!

♫ Tangerine Dream – Le Parc (L.A. – Streethawk) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Midge Ure – Max Headroom T.V. Theme (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Jan Hammer – Airwolf Theme (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Glen A. Larson & J.A.C. Redford – Theme From Automan (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Dennis McCarthy – ‘V’ The Final Battle: Main Title (Version 1) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Barry De Vorzon – ‘V’ The Final Battle: Main Title (Version 2) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Glen A. Larson & Stu Phillips – Knight Rider Theme (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Jan Hammer – Crocket’s Theme (Miami Vice Theme) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Lionel – Ulysses 31 (zShare) (MediaFire)

I would have included ‘Doctor Who’ themes, but I may save them for another post…

Also, If I got any of the artists wrong, I apologize, whatever…

Apr 13 2009

Detronik

Well, after a couple of name changes (they had to stop using the last name for legal reasons) this Leeds based ElectroPop act have settled on their moniker; Detronik, and in doing so added impetus to their production schedule.

The trio, consisting of John Steed, Richy Spence and Liana Stokes, are currently working on their début album which they promise will be out October/November but we can give you a taster of what to expect in the form of a demo version of ‘My Girlfriend Likes Girls’, which is a brilliant slice of upbeat ElectroPop and shows off Detronik’s dry sense of humour, ‘My Girlfriend Likes Girls’ is genuinely funny.

♫ Detronik – My Girlfriend Likes Girls (Demo.) (zShare) (MediaFire)

Detronik don’t seem to conform to either Clubby ElectroPop or Indie-Electro, rather they seem to walk a line between the two.

Show them some MySpace love as you wait for the album release!

Detronik @ MySpace

Apr 12 2009

The Vault: Cybotron

The Vault: The classics of Electronic Music. The influential and the groundbreaking. The pioneering and the music we grew up on…

Cybotron

It’s 1986, this blogger is 11 years old. Up until this point my musical world has consisted of chart music and SynthPop (also chart music) inherited from my older brother. Then me and my mates discovered Graffiti, Breakdancing and Electro.

At the weekend we’d go down the underpass with a Hitachi boom box, a piece of old lino and a couple of spraycans for some poppin’, lockin’ and tagging. We’d clumsily practice our windmills and caterpillars to a soundtrack of mixtapes that came from who knows where; traded amongst older kids and eventually passed down to us.

One of these tapes changed my life.

It was a cassette of a pirate radio show, I didn’t know (and never found out) any more about it but amongst the likes of The Kartoon Krew and Mantronix was a track that blew my young mind.

That song, although I wouldn’t find out what it was called or who it was by until years later, was ‘R-9’ by Cybotron.

Everything I has ever heard up until that moment was, for want of a better word, poppy. Even the Electro Hip-Hop we were listening to was upbeat, party music and the darkest of SynthPop was still a verse-chorus-verse-chorus pop tune. ‘R-9’ was strange and dark with washes of eerie synthetic tones and an infectious Electro Funk bassline.

I Loved it!

Here was something that I hadn’t heard on the radio, hadn’t been played to me by someone else. I had discovered a band, and song, no one else around me knew about (admittedly, neither did I really!) and I enthused about it to anyone who would listen. And, so, my mind was opened up to the world of music out there that exists out there beyond the Top 40 and peer’s tastes.

I never stopped seeking out new music.

Cybotron was an early project from Detroit Techno pioneer Juan Atkins, with Richard “3070” Davis. Formed in 1980, taking influences from American Funk, European synthesizer music and English SynthPop, Cybotron became incredibly influential themselves. Juan Arkins, along with Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, is generally credited with originating Techno.

Cybotron were an experimental inspiration to many electronic musicians that you could break boundaries, yet keep it on the dancefloor.

Hear for yourself why:

♫ Cybotron – R-9 (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Cybotron – Cosmic Cars (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Cybotron – Techno City (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Cybotron – Alleys Of Your Mind (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Cybotron – Clear (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Cybotron – Enter (zShare) (MediaFire)

Cybotron didn’t really release that much, re-releases can still be picked up, as can a couple of Greatest Hits albums,

Apr 12 2009

The week in Bangers: 12:04:09

The week in Bangers: While electronic rumors isn’t strictly an Electro-House blog, we do cover a lot of Electro-House that crosses over in to our realm. So many good club tunes and reMixes surface each week we can’t (and wouldn’t) cover them all, so this is a round up of some of the best from the week that we didn’t have time to dedicate individual posts to…

Graffiti3

What’s in the bag this week? Well, we start off with Empire Of The Sun’s almighty ‘Walking On A Dream’ as reMixed by The Bloody Sisters and Database & Bonde Do Role’s ‘Miami’, the MMMathias version. The much hyped Polly Scattergood gets a working over by New York Disco heroes The Golden Filter and the clash of Tiga and Mr. Oizo is exactly as you’d expect!. Noisy SynthPopster Avian X is morphed into an Electro Banger by Kolt 13 and we have the dream pairing of FischerSpooner and D.I.M.. New Canadian retro synth act FM Attack build things up for us to be left with the almighty ‘We Are You Friends’ by Justice Vs. Simian as reMixed by The Disco Villains.

♫ Empire Of The Sun – Walking On A Dream (TBS reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Database (Feat. Bonde Do Role) – Miami (MMMatthias 1981 reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Polly Scattergood – Please Don’t Touch (The Golden Filter reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Tiga – Shoes (Mr. Oizo reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Avian X – Dark Circles (Kolt 13 reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ FischerSpooner – Supply & Demand (D.I.M. Dub reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ FM Attack – Disco Attack (zSahre) (MediaFire)

♫ Justice Vs. Simian – We Are Your Friends (Disco Villains reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

Most of these artists can be picked up here:

Beatport

Juno

Photo credit: Seetwist

Apr 11 2009

New IAMX album!

IAMX

IAMX, the solo project of one-time Sneaker Pimp Chris Corner, is set to drop his third album early next month. ‘Kingdom of Welcome Addiction’ is incredibly eagerly awaited and promises to be on par with the previous two avant-garde Indie-SynthPop masterpieces.

Expect an album full of boundary-pushing, genre-blurring, journey-taking epic songs as Corner deconstructs everything around him and recreates it in his own image.

Check these tow low-quality samples to wet your appetite, the album’s opener, ‘Nature Of Inviting’, and last year’s single, ‘Think Of England’.

I can’t wait!

♫ IAMX – Nature Of Inviting (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ IAMX – Think Of England (zShare) (MediaFire)

‘Kingdom of Welcome Addiction’ is released on May 19th.

Apr 9 2009

Cagedbaby: Forced

Cagedbaby

Cagedbaby will be dropping his new single at the end of this month and its a rockin’ ElectroPop anthem full of screaming synths and impassioned stadium vocals.

Check out these two reMixes by Don Diablo and Foamo. Everything Don Diablo touches these days seems to turn to retro Electro-House gold and, as expected, here he delivers a smooth Electro-House jam with an 80’s flavour. In contrast, Foamo turns the track into a giant warp bass banger.

♫ Cagedbaby – Forced (Don Diablo’s Forced In 1986 reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ Cagedbaby – Forced (Foamo reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

Head on over to Cagedbaby’s MySpace to hear the original.

‘Forced’ is released April 26th on Southern Fried Records.

Apr 7 2009

4TrakZ

We’ve got some fresh, fresh, French Electro for you today in the form of 4TrakZ.

Hailing from Lyon, 4TrakZ mixes up the French Electro-House sound with a whole heap if digital slap bass. Like Justice with an injection of 80’s funk, this guy sidechains, but with soul.

We’ve got two tracks for you here, ‘Celebrated’ is a slap bass monster, it carries the track underneath an Ed Banger-esq Electro stop-starter, whilst ‘Love Zone’ is a straight up Nu-Disco floorfiller. Give them a listen and head on over to 4TrakZ’s Myspace for more.

Man, that bass is addictive!

♫ 4TrakZ – Celebrated (Radio Edit) (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ 4TrakZ – Love Zone (zShare) (MediaFire)

And you gotta’ check out this dirty Electro-House reMix of Hall & Oats’ ‘She’s A Maniac’! It’s pure genius!

♫ Hall & Oates – She’s A Maniac (4trakZ reMix) (zShare) (MediaFire)

4TrakZ is gearing up for his début EP, ‘Le Frère Lumière (Episode 1)’, which will be released mid-May on Electrolarge.

Until then, show him some MySpace love here:

4TrakZ @ MySpace

Apr 6 2009

The Vanish

If summer 2009 is going to be the summer of ElectroPop, what will the cool kids, for whom the likes of Little Boots and La Roux are “just to poppy”, be listening to?

I’ll tell you what…The Vanish, that’s what!

Effortlessly hip, these two Australian New York residents carry on in the tradition of Midnight Juggernauts and Cut Copy but infuse it with more of a post-punk energy and wrap it up with a bow made from the French, 80’s retro Electro-House, sound.

Actually, it’s interesting that they’re Australians living in New York as they seem to have taken the best bits of Australia’s Modular Recordings’ Indie/ElectroPop scene and New York’s post-punk/Disco sound, à la DFA Records, to produce something truly exiting.

I’ll be expecting at least two pages in the NME soon!

Enough waffle, listen for yourself:

♫ The Vanish – Heartbeat (zShare) (MediaFire)

♫ The Vanish – Hold On (zShare) (MediaFire)

Sure to be a riotous affair when the guys hit the road later this year across Australia and the US (and hopefully the UK!), pick up more from The Vanish below:

The Vanish @ 7Digital

Apr 5 2009

New video from Miss Kittin & The Hacker

Ok, so I was always a little jaded about Miss Kittin & The Hacker, I defiantly though they were overrated…I may have been wrong.

This is the video for ‘1000 Dreams’ from their forthcoming album, ‘Two’ and it’s such a good track, easily the best thing they’ve ever done.

I cannot get that riff out of my head!

I really like they way the video, directed by Régis Brochier, is shot too.

‘Two’ is released April 20th.

Miss Kittin & The Hacker @ Beatport

Miss Kittin & The Hacker @ Juno

Miss Kittin & The Hacker @ 7Digital

Miss Kittin & The Hacker @ Amazon

Apr 5 2009

The week in Bangers: 05:04:09

Banksy2

Some great tunes for you this week, opening with the fittingly titled ‘BanGer’, AC Slater’s new one. Trash Yourself return for more Disco noise, reMixed by Kids At The Bar and collaborating with the one and only The Toxic Avenger! Death Metal Disco Scene get to work on new Bat For Lashes and Valerie dudes Minitel Rose and Russ Chimes deliver more of the good stuff. Tiga gets worked over by the amazing Proxy and MSTRKRFT take on the heavily reMixed ‘Zero’ by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We leave you with another storming new track from Danger, his new EP can’t come soon enough!