electronic rumors

Rusty Egan’s Exclusive Mix For electronic rumors

Rusty Egan

Rusty Egan – Exclusive Mix For electronic rumors = We are so honoured to present to you this exclusive mixtape for electronic rumors by none other than the legend Rusty Egan. Rusty was, of course, the DJ for the notorious Blitz Club where he essentially introduced electronic music to the UK music scene. Playing the likes of Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra and the emerging British Futurist, pre-SynthPop, music amongst artists like Bowie, he helped create the New Romantic movement and subsequently SynthPop and ElectroPop in the UK and Europe. Which basically led to every single thing we write about on this site. Oh, and he was a founder member of Visage. Influential enough for you? Right here he’s put together a storming collection of tracks for us proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that three decades later he still has his finger on the pulse of electronic music.

♫ Rusty Egan – Exclusive Mix For electronic rumors

The tracklist:

01. College (Feat. Electric Youth) – A Real Hero (Bear reMix)
02. Social Ambitions – Paris
03. Ultravox – Visions In Blue (Paul Boddy reMix)
04. Rusty Egan Presents Shock – R.E.R.B. (2010 Rusty Egan reMix)
05. Kraftwerk – The Robots (2009 Remaster)
06. Rusty Egan, Bottin & Justus Köhncke – Atzaro (Bounce Boosted)
07. VCMG – Single Blip
08. Spandau Ballet – Gold (Oak reMix)
09. Dr Kucho! – Chase (Original Mix)
10. Filthy Dukes – Messages (Rust Egan Mix)
11. Moby – Mistake (Unmastered)
12. Tenek – What Do You Want?
13. Villa Nah – Envelope
14. Unclubbed (Feat. Kim Wayman) – We Are The People
15. Ultravox – The Change

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Bright Light Bright Light’s début album (& competition results)

bright light x2

So, we here at electronic rumors have been on-board with Welsh ElectroPop maestro Rod Thomas, A.K.A. Bright Light Bright Light, for a few years now. I think we first wrote about him back in early 2012 and have consistently followed his career ever since, so we are so happy for him that his début album his the stores (as we used to say) next month. ‘Make Me Believe In Hope’ work on two levels, both as a fresh new album and as a collection of Rod’s hits for long term fans.

About half of the records is the best of the past two years of Bright Light X2’s output, and it;s really nice to have them all collected together here. ‘A New Word To Say’ & ‘Cry At Films’, the tracks that introduced us to Rod’s works are present, the immense (and still our favourite) single ‘Love Part II’ is here alongside newer releases such as ‘Disco Moment’ and ‘Waiting For The Feeling’, and bundled together like this these tracks really show Rod’s decent into all things ‘90’s. Unashamedly a ‘90’s lover, Bright Light X2 has been slowly working a big ‘90’s dance sound into in songs and the progression from the almost Indie-Electro ‘New Word’ to pure 1996 DancePop of ‘Waiting’ is a an enjoyable ride. Whit a body of work together like this, it really is evident just how good a songwriter Rod is, I honestly think there are few people working as independent artists that can match his ability to pen a clean, catchy and emotionally resonant Pop song, and with his crisp SynthPop production, ‘Make Me Believe In Hope’ is a masterclass in how to make an electronic Pop album. So, how is the other half of the album, the new tracks? Well, the more than live up to the expectations raised by the singles. Rod revels in his love of the ‘90’s and you can just tell he’s having fun with the music, a rarity these days. The album’s opener ‘Immature’ is upbeat, infectious and epic, and sucks you straight into the record while the likes of ‘Feel It’ and ‘Moves’ are classic ElectroPop. There are even moments where Rod breaks the mould, like the ballad ‘Debris’, or ‘Grace’ with it’s shuffling industrial rhythms. ‘Make Me Believe In Hope’ is the kind of début album that people will take note of. SynthPop tends to be a genre outside of time anyway, but I can definitely see this being an album that will be listened to , and enjoyed, in 10 years time, or 20.

♫ Bright Light Bright Light – A New Word To Say

♫ Bright Light Bright Light – Love Part II

♫ Bright Light Bright Light – Disco Moment

♫ Bright Light Bright Light – Waiting For The Feeling

While we’re here, lets announce the lucky winners of our Bright Light Bright Light competition. These lucky folks have won guest list spaces for them and a +1 to the Bright Light X” album launch party in London.

Twitterers @benfromparis and @TheAndyEff take the prize.

Unlucky, don’t worry, you can go anyway, here are all the details.

Bright Light Bright Light’s début album, ‘Make Me Believe In Hope’ is released 4th June via The Blue Team.

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♫ St. Lucia – Closer Than This (Lightwaves reMix)

Lightwaves reMixes St. Lucia

St. Lucia

With the recent flood of reMixes of New York Indie-ElectroPopper St. Lucia is a welcome light in the dark that comes from ex-Yes Giantess man Jan in his Lightwaves guise. Jan has been quietly pushing out some of the most stunning reMixes in the last year or and his work always makes up sit up and take notice. we’re always glad we do.

Lightwave’s take on St. Lucia’s ‘Closer Than This’ works the epic catchy chorus to it’s fullest and uses it to soar over the now familiar Lightwaves Big Room sound. It’s a party sound with a hint of the Balearic for pure summery vibe. Jan’s thick stabs and sparkling keys just make this such an uplifting tune. Like proper warm weather DancePop with a big club groove. Do you know what hot girls dance to? Well, I do…it’s this!

St. Lucia’s self-titled EP is out now.

Buy St. Lucia’s music from:

Follow Me’s ‘Aaliyah’

Follow Me

Follow Me is back with another slice of his smooth SynthWave sounds, this time he’s grabbed a handful of vocals samples and written a track for sunsets.

Grabbing bits of the top-line from Aaliyah’s ‘If Your Girl Only knew’, Follow Me craft a smooth, laid back track that builds up a chilled atmosphere with rounded synths and hollow percussion. This is being-on-a-rooftop-looking-over-the-city-at-night kinda’ track, if that makes sense, which it probably doesn’t. Suffice to say it conjures up an relaxed, night time, urban feel. Follow Me’s cinematic SynthWave works surprisingly well with in an R&B context, or at least takes the R&B context far enough out into it’s own retro synth arena that it seems to fit.

♫ Follow Me – Aaliyah

You can download the track from Follow Me’s Facebook page.

Check out more from Follow Me on SoundCloud.

Jupiter’s début album

Jupiter

OK, so we’ve had French ElectroPop duo Jupiter’s début album in our possession for a few weeks now, but have been held back from reviewing it due to, obviously, them wanting the ‘One O Six’ single pushed first. It’s been an agonising few weeks, as we’ve been dying to tell people how good the album really is. But hey, we’ve been waiting for it for three years, so what’s another couple of weeks.

And was the wait worth it? Hell yeah it was. Jupiter have been a staple on the lips of ElectroPop fans for a few years now, right from the early Anoraak reMix and their standout reMix of CHEW LiPS’ ‘Salt Air’, alongside their début ‘Starlighter’ single, they crashed onto the Electro scene and left us all eagerly awaiting a full length record. Last years ‘Saké’ teased us that things were starting to move faster toward the goal and now here we are, ‘Juicy Lucy’, Jupiter’s début album will be released next month, and it’s going to be the soundtrack to your summer.

The LP kicks off with the current single ‘One O Six’, Jupiter’s tribute the their favourite synth, which sets up the album perfectly with it’s jumping Funk bass, big retro synth stabs and quirky vocals, it’s a great choice for a single and a great primer to Jupiter’s sound. Amélie De Bosredon and Quarles Baseden are the only double act I know that can so seamlessly merge traditional SynthPop, Indie-Electro and ‘’70’s Funk and Disco. Sure, lots of artists draw from this pool of influenced but who other than Jupiter can have and Indie guitar lick, shiny Disco synths from space and a SynthPop lead line all working in harmony to this extent. The album flip from track to track, highlighting a different side to Jupiter’s sound with each new tune. From the Indie stylings of ‘Set The Course Of The Nile’ and ‘La Dynamo’ to the pure Disco sounds of ‘Elliot Uppercut’ and the title track ‘Juicy Lucy (Needs A Boogieman)’ and the deep Electro-House of ‘St. Petersborg’, Jupiter’s summer, good times, vibe is layered thickly over everything., and it’s that Jupirterness that makes the album so great. Amongst the retro Funk, the sweet synth riffs and the Vocoders is this energy, this life best exemplified by Amélie’s magical-pixie-dream-girl vocals and the album’s overarching bouncyness that is so unique to these two. ‘Juicy Lucy’ is a masterpiece of DiscoPop, complexly layered, intricate, electronic music that end up being simplistically catchy, and easily a contender for the album of the year. Buy this record and your summer will belong to Jupiter.

♫ Jupiter – One O Six

♫ Jupiter – Saké

♫ Jupiter – Starlighter

Jupiter’s début album ‘Juicy Lucy’ is released 5th June.

Buy Jupiter’s music from:

Queen Of Hearts’s ‘Neon’ video

after a string of classy videos, Queen Of Hearts has seriously outdone herself with her new one.

The clip for ‘Neon’, directed by Between Man and Beast, is pretty a stunning journey though light and shade. it;s moody and beautiful and awesome stuff.

Queen Of Heart’s ‘Neon’/’Tears In The Rain’ single is out 14th May. Out now is ‘electronic rumors Volume 1’ on which Queen Of Hearts features.

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The return of Saar & Sky

Saar & Sky

A few years ago Saar & Sky were, briefly, one of the best Electro acts in London. A melting pot of Italo, SynthPop and the emerging Dreamwave and SynthWave styles with an energetic live show and some seriously catchy songs. Then distance divided this duo and Saar & Sky were no more. We all mourned. It was dark times.

So it was a pleasant surprise to find a new Saar & Sky EP incoming. Born of late night phonecalls this isn’t really a return for these guys, more of a decision that they had too many good songs on ice not to release them in some form or other. The result is the ‘Maria’ EP, a collection of five of their best unreleased tracks. Much of this you might already know, either from live or from their MySpace page (yes, it was that long ago), which make it doubly nice to now have the good quality studio recordings of these songs available. The great, and unique, thing about Saar & Sky was always their combination of styles. On the one had you have Logan Sky’s very Italo influenced Electro sounds, robotic grooves and big power stabs, and on the other there’s Saar soulful, almost R&B vocals. That combination of machine beats and smooth songs was way ahead of it’s time in terms of the surge of vocal Nu-Disco. The tracks on the EP, surprisingly, haven’t really dated much. ‘Maria’, the lead track is a rich, haunting slice of retro Pop, all dreamlike riffs and electro tom rolls alongside Saar’s impassioned vocals and sets the tone for the EP. Saar & Sky slide from the harder dance tracks like the insanely catchy ‘Confessions’ to to the more eclectic end of Italo found on tracks like ‘Falshback’ throughout the EP, never afraid to try something new within their vocal SynthWave framework. If this is the epilogue to Saar & Sky it’s a fitting tribute, kinda’ hoping it’s not though.

♫ Saar & Sky – Maria

Saar & Sky’s ‘Maria’ EP is released 15th May.

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