So, by now you know that the awesome Fenech-Soler are re-releasing ‘Lies’, their single of last year, the reMix package will include this little Balearic rave jam from Hervé.
Hervé brings the deep basslines and sunrise synths to his version. His hypnotic percussion and buzzsaw lead lines seem at odds with the rock swagger of the vocals but somehow Hervé makes it all gel together.
♫ Fenech-Soler – Lies (Hervé’s Solar Flare reMix)
‘Lies’ will be out 20th September on Moda
SONOIO is Alessandro Cortini, Italian analog synth guru who has played live for, and worked with, the likes of Ladytron, HEALTH, Modwheelmood and Nine Inch Nails.
In a novel, but pretty interesting, move his latest album, released this month, is available in a variety of packages. The most basic being a digital album and exclusive EP bundle, the high end offer being a digital album, exclusive EP and a hand build SuONOIO portable synthesizer! The SuONOIO is a ‘postcard’ synth in the vein of the Bugbrand, but if you’re handy you could always build an enclosure for it. The package including the synth will set you back $160.
The music itself is pretty rad. Deep analog vocoded ElectroPop. Check out this track, ‘Just Me’ and download another three tracks from the album for free here.
SONOIO’s eponymous LP is out now.
Check this track out, it’s Australian producer Muffin’s reMix of London based newcomers Them:Youth new single ‘Forever Rising’.
It’s a perfect slice of modern ElectroPop, the bassline and melodies harkens back to the 80’s but the production is bang up to date, that’s how ElectroPop should be done these days! It’s not the first time Muffin has graced these pages, and I doubt it’ll be the last.
♫ Them:Youth – Fever Rising (Muffin reMix)
‘Fever Rising’ was released this week on Big Hand Recordings.
Friends Electric’s awesome, and brave, reMix of Ellie Goulding’s ‘The Writer’ has only gone and got itself it’s very own official video! Nice one lads!
OK, on to Alan Braxe’s gobsmackingly rad reMix, it’s got this fluttering little melody that you listen to and never want to end. It’s pure summery chilled goodness, like an ace dream, or the end credits tune in a move where it turned out everything was alright in the end and everyone fucked off into the sunset.
Not even the rain we’re having in the UK at the moment can kill the mood this reMix induces!
♫ Ellie Goulding – The Writer (Alan Braxe reMix)
‘The Writer’ single is out now.
The mid-90’s were dark, dark, times for SynthPop fans. All that existed was this thing (amusingly) called ‘Modern SynthPop’, a stale, stagnant regurgitation machine that sounded like vocal trance by people who with little clue about vocals or trance. General MIDI 4/4 beats and badly produced, unimaginative (read: four layered arpeggios) music met Dave Gahan karaoke vocals. It was all so contrived, so formulaic, so boring and so not relevant. For these reasons it remained the smallest of music scenes, but for a time, it was all we had.
There was, however, one beacon in the darkness. A record label that, whilst still really being a Modern SynthPop label, tended to actually respect the history of SynthPop as well as looking beyond the dross to the future. With a roster of artists that seemed a little more exclusive, a little more hand picked than certain other labels, Ninthwave Records kept us in interesting, well crafted, releases. Picking up European bands (rather than just licensing existing releases) including Heaven 17 and (as they were then) The Modern and cherry picking the ‘good stuff’ in the Modern SynthPop scene they were always a mark of quality over quantity.
Ninthwave stopped us all going mad.
So, with that in mind, I’m pretty chuffed to see they are still going. This year is their 10th anniversary and in celebration of this they are releasing the second volume in their ‘Synthetic Dance Music’ series. The 25 track album reads like a who’s who of Ninthwave. The line up, that includes Heaven 17, Katsen and The Garland Cult, is too long to go through here so get your ears round four choice cuts.
Matinee Club (they of the being ex-The Modern) are probably known to most New Wave fans here in the UK as one of the best live acts around, check ‘Fool In The Name Of Love’, there one of the best on record too. Scotland’s Electroluvs push things into a more ElectroPunky arena with the Hyperbubble reMix they have featured while Filterhouse Boys’ reMix of SynthPop jokers Spray is pure dancefloor material. Empire State Human (the first band we interviewed here at electronic rumors!) also appear with Digitize deep Electro reMix of their ‘Melancholic Afro’.
♫ Matinee Club – Fool In The Name Of Love
♫ Electroluvs – Teenage Timebomb (Hyperbubble reMix)
♫ Spray – Love’s Been Particularly Cruel To Me (Filterhouse Boys reMix)
♫ Empire State Human – Melancholic Afro (Digitize reMix)
That’s just a taster of what the album offers.
Alright…I’ll admit it…there is still room for improvement in the Modern SynthPop scene, frankly there is some awesome talent there that needs grabbing by the scruff of the neck and dragging into the 21st century but if anyone’s going to do it’s gonna’ be Ninthwave.
Happy Birthday!
‘Synthetic Dance Music Volume Two’ is out right now, and at the crazy low price some of these retailers are selling it you’d be crazy not to check it out!
Synthetic Dance Music Volume Two @ Juno
Synthetic Dance Music Volume Two @ 7Digital
Synthetic Dance Music Volume Two @ Amazon
The end of August sees Kitsuné Music latest release, Logo’s latest single, the double A-side ‘La Vie Moderne’/’Juniocide’.
‘Junocide’ is a mindblowingly awesome inner-city soundtrack. If rain fizzing off of flickering neon lights made music, it would sound like this. Sophisticated percussion programming and relentless arpeggios drive the track but the song is surprisingly melancholic. This is music to get lost to.
Kitsuné drop Logo’s ‘La Vie Moderne’/’Juniocide’ 30th August with a reMix package that includes work from French Fries, DyE and Tony Senghore.
This track is pure awesome!
It’s by Mammoth Logic, and ElectroPop creating duo from Adelaide who mix up SynthPop, French Electro and Post-Punk to form their analog retro sound. Multi instrumentalists Dave Crowe and Reid Jones make something that could be described as Garage Disco-Pop, the music has a distinctly live feel to it, like it’s being played rather than programmed, and the combination of analog synths, impressive vocals, a touch of vocoding and some infectious 80’s sounding chords is hard to beat.
The band are working on their début album, keep an eye on them on their MySpace and check out some more music on their Unearthed page
Nikita is Pati Yang. Hailing from Poland, this 18 year old has already, under a different moniker, released a critically acclaimed album and supported the likes of Depeche Mode live.
As her new project Nikita, Pati is gearing up to release her début single. ‘Tonite’ is the first track release off of her forthcoming album that she is currently working on with Performance/Kiss In Cities electronic production genius Joe Cross (who has also produced The Sound Of Arrows and HURTS).
Take a listen to the single as reMixed by Cheap Thrills’ latest signing Franzy Scanner, a wobbly bass, 8-bit, juggernaut that heads straight for the dancefloor.
♫ Nikita – Tonite (Franzy Scanner reMix)
Nikita’s single, ‘Tonight’, is out 30th August.
Clubfeet, they of the monster ‘Teenage Suicide (Don’t do It)’, have just dropped their new album ‘Gold On Gold’.
The Melbourne trio have a sweet 80’s pop sound, as displayed on their lead single from the album, ‘Count Your Lovers’, a laidback, piano driven, almost ballad. This is the kind of tune that you can chuck on the headphones, close your eyes, and forget about your troubles. ‘Edge Of Extremes’ has more of a Disco feel and a certain edge of Hot Chip about it. The album will defiantly be worth checking out.
♫ Clubfeet – Count Your Lovers
The band are giving away another three free tracks from the album in exchange for your email adders here, seems like a good deal to me.
The Album ‘Gold On Gold’ and the single, ‘Count Your Lovers’ are out now on Plant Music, the single featuring reMixes from Eli Escobar and Boltan.
The reMix competition has finished, the winners announced. I, personally, must have listened to about 130 of the hundreds of entries. Some of them were amazing. Some of them were whack. Did I ever want to hear Kavinsky’s ‘Nightcall’ again in my life? Not right now…
But if there’s one guy who can twist my arm it’s Beaumont, had he submitted his reMix to the contest it would have surely been a contender. Probably one of the best (if not the best) ElectroPop/Nu-Disco version of the song that uses both Kavinsky’s and Lovefoxxx of CSS’s vocals to sweet effect over a mixture of retro synths and 8-bit melodies.
♫ Kavinsky (Feat. Lovefoxxx Of CSS) – Nightcall (Beaumont reMix)
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