electronic rumors

Hercules And Love Affair’s ‘Release Me’

Following Digalism’s stunning entry into the series, the next gang up for the honour of compiling a DJ-KICKS album is Hercules And Love Affair. Despite a relatively mediocre second album, the members of H&LA have been producing, collaborating and featuring on some of this years most amazing releases. As is the way DJ-KICKS things work, Hercules And Love Affair have a new original track in the mix, and Release Me give us the impression that the guys have taken a lot from their various works this year and brought it back to H&LA.

Butler and Pistel really bring an early ‘90’s Pop vibe to Release Me, alongside some ecclectic synth work and retro House Piano. It’s the logical progression from both their past work and the collaboration with Moonlight Matters earlier in the year. Bringing a B-Boy beat and a hint of Electro Boogie to work with the gentle vocals creates a nice contrast, but what elevates this track to greatness is the liberal use of those all-important orchestral stabs.

♫ Hercules And Love Affair – Release Me (DJ-KICKS)

Hercules And Love Affair’s DJ-KICKS is released 29th October on Studio !K7

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Shiny Toy Guns’ Fading Listening video

Here’s the new video for Shiny Toy Guns’ Dreamwave epic Fading Listening. The track is taken from the LA Indie-Electro outfit’s excellent third album, III.

Luke Eberl and Edgar Morais direct this clip which kinda; continues a current trend for videos with mini-me’s in/

Shiny Toy Gun’s III is out now.

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Goin’ Old School: Just Depeche Mode

Goin’ Old School isn’t a trip down music memory lane, it’s a mugging in the dark alleyway of nostalgia:

In light of Depeche Mode announcing their 2013 tour, to support a brand new album, yesterday, lets have a Depeche Mode Goin’ Old School’. Starting with People Are People from 1984.

My second favourite Depeche Mode track (the first being Strangelove, which we’ve already used on Goin’ Old School), 1985’s Shake the Disease.

And finally, because we’ve never featured it and it had to be done. 1989’s Enjoy the Silence. Easily one of the best songs ever written.

You can buy most of this music from:

Picture Book’s new EP

At the start of this year London based duo Picture Book released their début single, Sunshine, which we grew quite fond of, especially the storming Justin Faust reMix. It’s a track that could have been a lot bigger than it was. Well, now it;s time for round two as Picture book have just released their second offering. A four track EP titled Songs About Aimee.

In My Head is the EPs standout track. Of the four originals present it;s the one that sticks with you the most. Skilfully mixing fluffy commercial dance music with shiny Pop, Picture Book deliver a clean, sharp track that is as dancey as it is catchy. With am impassioned chorus and a Balearic building backing In My Head is slick Dance Pop done right. Being In Love (For The First Time) is the EP’s opener, and sets up the proceedings quite well with it’s piercing lead line set against bassy post-Euphoric Trance Ibiza electronics and a soulful vocal. Elsewhere in the EP you’ll find the deeper Why Are We Wasting Our Time and the chilled sunrise tune of Nothing Wrong With Goodbye. After grabbing out attention with Sunshine, Picture Book have proved it wasn’t a fluke.

♫ Picture Book – In My Head

♫ Picture Book – Being In Love (For The First Time)

Picture Book’s Songs About Aimee EP is out now.

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New tunes from Monsieur Adi

We’re loving the new stuff from French prodigy Monsieur Adi. He seems to have got making storming dancefloor tracks out of his system, for a while at least, to concentrate on some really beautiful pieces. Not that there was anything wrong with Adi making banging tunes, he’s was the best at it, but there are other areas his considerable musicality can shine.

So here’s three new tracks from Adi. The first, Alabastre, is a sweeping orchestral electronic piece where washes of stings ebb and flow over a sparse electronic beat while synthetic pluses and Sci-Fi tones. Mysterious and otherworldly, the futuristic opus of Alabastre truly captures the imagination as Adi;’s sting arrangements once again lift us up. Manual is an altogether different best. At once jaunty and reflective, with Aid adding horns to his orchestration before slowly bring in broken beats while Blueprints/Utopia (a sequel to his track Dystopia?) sees Adi return to the dancefloor. Melding driving electronic beats and synth growls with his cinematic strings with a rousing, and slightly Italo, result. We hope Monsieur Adi has an album in the works, we could listen to his works all day.

♫ Monsieur Adi – Alabastre

♫ Monsieur Adi – Manual

♫ Monsieur Adi – Blueprints/Utopia

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Patrick Baker gets Spooky

Just in time for Halloween American retro SynthPop superstar Patrick Baker has dropped a new slice of sinister Pop. Appropriately titled Spooky the track, in the vein of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, channels the best 80s Halloween Pop.

Spooky hit all the right notes for a fun, funky, seasonal hit. It’s got the nice FM minor chords, funky plucked guitar, and a big horn section. Patrick really shows of hit vocal range as he belts out the kind of fun horror narrative so common in the charts around the end of October in the 80s. Spooky is catchy as hell to and is so pitch perfect that if you play it at your Halloween bash your friends will swear it;s a track the recognise from the 80s.. We could have waited until next week to feature this tune, maybe we should have, but you can sit of awesomeness like this! Just wait until the organ breakdown and build, pure class.

♫ Patrick Baker – Spooky

Check out more from Patrick Baker on SoundCloud.

♫ Emeron & Fox – Nightmares (Monitor 66 ‘Goes Techno’ reMix)

Emeron & Fox reMixed by Monitor 66

Here’s a reMix of Brooklyn SynthWavers Emeron & Fox’s latest single, the pretty awesome Nightmares, with those haunting vocals from Bit, that didn’t quite make the reMix package. Swedish Nu-Disco trio Monitor 66 already had one reMix included in the release, but in addition to that they cooked up this moody Techno version of the tune.

Monitor 66 choose a good medium to convey the mysterious feeling of the tune, in fact this version of the song is even more enigmatic than those found of the single. The deep, hypnotic bass and shuffling Techno beat intertwine with Bit’s ethereal vocal to creature something truly dreamlike. A Swirling synthetic Nightmare with an infectious groove.

Emeron & Fox’s Nightmares is out now.

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♫ Tempogeist (Feat. Lisa Dank) – Romeo (Monitor 66 reMix)

Tempogeist’s ‘Transatlantic’ EP

Transatlantic is the new EP from Belgian Disco duo Tempogeist. Out now on Shiny Disco Club the EP contains three original tracks and a host of reMixes by some of the best talent around. It’s a release chock full of big synth Boogie and smooth Disco sounds.

We Need Lovers is a slick late-night jam. With an effortless cool Tempogeist lay down right vintage synth sounds and a laid back Disco vibe. The track is complimented with a velvet male vocal and some gentle female MCing with an early Bronx feel. That feel is carried over into Romeo, which is the EPs highlight for us. A solid Boogie track with a sing-song old school rap that just flows with the track so well. a laid back party starter. Hold On picks up the pack a little and moves proceedings into a more DiscoPop territory, layering Tempogeist’s wickedly silky vintage Disco sounds with a catchy upbeat vocal. this track gets the bulk of the remix treatment, with work from Prometones, Rogue Vogue and this track from Germany’s Satin Jackets, who deliver a squelchy bassed slab of electronic funk. Also available, but not on the EP, is this version of Romeo from Swedish SynthWavers Monitor 66. their take on the tune adds severe amounts of piano and space, but interesting use of the vocals to create a spacey and melodic House track.

♫ Tempogeist (Feat. Nidia) – We Need Lovers

♫ Tempogeist (Feat. Lisa Dank) – Romeo

♫ Tempogeist (Feat. Samuel) – Hold On

♫ Tempogeist (Feat. Samuel) – Hold On (Satin Jackets reMix)

Tempogeist’s Transatlantic is out now.

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