Norwegian Disco-House genius Todd Terje’s reMix of Hot Chip’s new single How Do You Do is just stunning. Mr. Terje’s has released some of the best track of the last six months, but he’s really outdone himself here. It’s nine minutes long, and not a second of it is anything less than brilliant.
A reMix this length gives Terje room to breath and slowly whip any dancefloor up into a frenzy. Using the original subtly, this reMix eases you into the groove with some shuffling 909 drums and hypnotic and evolving Sci-Fi analog synths. Gently rising sparkles and synth stabs (which from not on I will be calling the stabs of anticipation) let you know something is coming, but Todd takes his time to get there, enforcing a deep electronic Funk before laying down a massive breakdown. When that kicks back in, there’s no going back, you are locked in.
The latest blistering release on Trashbag’s Tuff Em Up! label is this free single from Swiss duo Ugly Kids. Tony Tran & Zoel Aeschbacher have steadily been releasing class reMixes over the past year or so, but with this début single they are about to make some sever impact on the Nu-Disco world.
Mercury Road is a lush synthetic Disco track that layers on thick retro synth after thick retro synth. It’s a blissful, dreamy tune, loaded with French Touch, that combines a floaty euphoric feel with a seriously tough groove. Probably the best straight up French Touch/Nu-Disco tune we have heard in a long time. Ugly Kids are definitely a name to keep an eye on in the future. The single also features a reMix from Conny G, from Renegade, who add a little more robo Funk to the tune, taking the track in more of a dirty Disco direction. If you listen to one track this week, this should be it.
Awesome French SynthWaver Awkoder has dropped his latest reMix. A reworking of fellow Frenchman Tiam Wills’ new single Hardiscount and it’s a surprising massive Nu-Disco monster. Surprising because we’re more used to atmospheric synth epics from Awkoder, and this reMix is full of funk. Good surprising though.
Kicking of with a wicked Disco lick the track soon descends into a retro synth love-fest. Drawing in the particularly Disco end of the Italo spectrum, Awkoder whips up big slice of synth Funk a throws in a little French Touch filtering and some of those crisp SynthWave lead lines for good measure. Keeping the vocals to a hypnotic mantra, Awkoder lets them become the tracks underlay. A base on which his intertwining arpeggios and crystal clear chord stabs can play out with a nice late ‘80’s feel and a solid dancefloor leaning. This one’ll keep them moving at peak time.
Our favourite two Frenchmen lost in London The Penelopes recently reMixed fellow London denizens, Electro-Indie band Glitches forthcoming single, Dust & Shadow. This Bethnal Green/Whitechapel soundclash has resulted in one of the funkiest Indie tracks of the summer.
This reMixes plays to both Glitches and The Penelopes strengths. Glitches dual range vocals belt out in an epic style. Emotional and passionate, the vocal track sits perfectly on The Penelope’s bass led DiscoPop. Driven by a bassline you can help bobbing to, this track lays the shimmering synth lines on thick. Bright melodies play against otherworldly pads and energetic arpeggios to create an organic sounding synth symphony that seems to evolve naturally as it progresses. It’s got a groove that guaranteed to keep the dancefloor moving too.
In the past week the most underrated artist producing today, France’s Monsieur Adi let loose a couple of new (or old in some cases) demos on his SoundCloud account. Adi talent cannot be contained by genre, and it’s amazing to hear him branching out in terms of styles and sounds.
The first track, Paradis, is a brooding dark affair. The darkest we’ve ever had from Adi. Ominous droning synths and menacing whispered vocals lean the track an Industrial quality whist keeping an analog French Electro sound. This use of an Electro pallet with an experimental flavour makes for a track that’s as unsettling as it is fascinating. Of course, Adi’s emotional arrangements just ass to the songs involvement. Joyride was apparently written for Madonna, during Adi’s reMixing Madonna phase, but he presents it here as sung by Javi. It’s an excellent Pop track, and Madge is truly missing out with this one. You can kinda’ tell it was written with her range, and style, in mind and it would have been something new for her whilst obviously referencing classic Madonna. It’s about time the music industry at large paid attention to Adi, he could be knocking out hits for any number if stars right now if they’d let him. Joyride is a sweeping, rich Pop tune with added helpings of Adi’s musical majesty. The demo is from last year, but Adi plans on devolving the track further, we can’t wait.
The next single taken from ‘90’s leaning ElectroPop hero Bright Light Bright Light’s excellent album Make Me Believe In Hope will be the ‘90’s House tinged Feel It. Just so you know, it’s pretty hard to talk about a Bright Light Bright Light release without saying “90’s” a fair few times, so that’s happening.
Feel It is definitely a good choice for a single. It kinda’ encompasses everything Rod Thomas’ work stand for. One the one hand it’s classic ElectroPop, beautifully written (Rod’s major talent is pure songwriting), and on the other hand it’s luscious early ‘90’s House, complete with dropping breakbeats, infectious piano hook and gospel backing vocals. And as with the very best Pop that utilises Gospel vocals, Feel It is epic and uplifting and destined for the dancefloor.
♫ Bright Light Bright Light – Feel It (Single Edit)
Bright Light Bright Light’s Feel It single is released 29th October.
Boombar Music main man Jowie Schulner is celebrating the release of his new single, Two Hearts, with a bonus free track. This free gift to than fans for supporting the single is a classical powered progressive monster titled From Here To Eternity.
Not connected to the legendary Moroder song of the same name, this track is a Trance-like take on a classical piece, reminiscent of Ferry Corsten or William Orbits experimentations with bringing classical to the dancefloor. In fact, the tune is quite a unique mixture of Classical, Trance and SynthWave. It’s an uplifting, euphoric slice of vintage synth, peak time, dancefloor bliss. Enjoy, and check out Jowie’s new release.
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)
‘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.
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.
electronic rumors 