Nimmo And The Gaunttlets are now just Nimmo, although the gauntlets appear to still be around. Confusing, right? We thought Sarah Nimmo might have gone solo, but nope the gang’s all there, Reva Gauntlett is still around. This crew are one of the best live outfits in the UK right now. We’ve been lucky enough to catch them a few times and they have an odd introspection onstage that, rather than alienating a crowd, seems to draw the crowd in and their high energy, upbeat Indie-Electro anthems definitely keep an audience rocking.
Their intense, but fun, ElectroPop seems like a pretty good match for the reMixing talents of Maya Jane Coles, who we’ve made no secret of the fact that we think she is one of the best producers of the last decade. Coming from Bristol we do have a soft spot for our electronic music being bassy and mysterious and Maya superbly wraps that Sci-Fi Dubbyness into infectious House tunes in a way that is just intoxicating; and when she weaves vocals through her tracks the results are right up our street.
Nimmo’s infectious and edgy ElectroPop single Dilute This was released late last month and has been swiftly followed up with a small collection of reMixes featuring Maya’s track, a mix from David Mayer and an Extended version from Nimmo themselves, the Nimmo Night Edit.
MJC’s reMix keeps that enigmatic vibe while introducing the track to a nice peak-time House flavour. Maya’s undulating and shifting beats keep things steady without loosing it’s little Garage skipping. Cole’s premiére talent is her user of atmospheric sounds and pads to create unique grooves. Many people can utilise moody tones to create an ambience, but MJC builds those soundscape layers into something darkly funky. Here that deep and intoxicating pallet turns the sections of Nimmo’s vocals that Maya chose to use from energetic IndiePop hollers to smokey and haunting croons. The perfect lazy afternoon listening that would work equally as well rocking an enchanted dancefloor.
Remember Punks Jump Up’s Give It To Me from last year? The track was inspired by 80s Chicago House classic Donnie by The It, and featuring vocals from original Donnie vocalist Robert Owens, and was available on Exploited’s Secret Gold Volume 6 compilation. Well the jacking tribute to all things warehouse is getting a nice reMix package release on PJU’s own Musik Box label. The October release comes equipped with mixes from KiWi, Vanilla Ace & Berber, Musik Box (we guess PJU), Want More and Horse Meat Disco. The original is pretty amazing, we can’t wait to hear the reMixes.
It also comes with this particularly retro video which looks like any number of VHS tapes we have in the back of a wardrobe loaded with dance music videos taped off the telly. The perfect accompaniment to the track.
It’s with caution that we approached Glaswegian ElectroPoppers Chvrches sophomore album, Every Open Eye. It cannot be stated enough how much we love their début full length records, The Bones Of What You Believe; it was our album of the year in 2013 and for a long time a whole day didn’t go by without us listening to it at least once. We believe the words “fucking stunning!” were used.
Difficult second album syndrome may be a music industry cliché, but not without cause. A band’s first record is usually made up of tracks they have written along their entire career to date, usually honed my touring and rehearsing with the best of their best making up their premiere collection. The follow up, however, most likely has to be written from scratch. Touring the first album can give new songs some road-testing, but it really does put a band to the test, coming up with the same amount of material as they have in their entire career to date in just a year or so. Some rise to the challenge and prove their talent, some fail miserable.
Thankfully Chvrches fall into the former category.
That said, Every Open Eye is a widely different album to The Bones Of What You Believe. Sure, critics not so in deep with SynthPop are probably saying it’s more of the same, critics with narrow views of synthesizer music are probably saying Every Open Eye is straight-up ElectroPop; but they would both be wrong. It would be far too easy to say that this is Chvrches flexing their tried and tested formula, that it is a return of vintage electronic music (which was always an odd comment, there’s very little vintage in Chvrches crisp electronic sound. There has been SynthPop since the 80s y’know!) but all that would be to miss the real beauty of Every Open Eye, and album teaming with contemporary influences (it’s an incredibly Indie album, there are flairs of R&B too) to be spotted by the electronic music aficionado..
We’ve been living with Every Open Eye for a couple of weeks not, and one of the biggest things that struck us about it is the notion that this is an album written by a band that has been touring pretty heavily over the past couple of years. This is a album written by a band who plays live to play live. Loaded with bombast and big crowd pleasing moments, Every Open Eye revels in anthems and chants in a way the more introverted The Bones Of What You Believe didn’t. If the previous album was singer Lauren Mayberry’s exposed raw nerve, Every Open Eye is a defiant manifesto. Mayberry’s lament replaced with an invitation to join in the anger and euphoria of the eleven track contained within.
Every Open Eye really does hit the ground running. The opening salvo of Never Ending Circles and Leave A Trace is one of the best album launches in recent memory. Never Ending Circles is pure anthem material. A lurching bassline drives forward a symphony of all those elements that make Chvrches Chvrches. Sampled and chopped up backing vocals, thunderous drums, Lauren in optimism lined with bitterness mode, massive chords and sweeping choruses. Never Ending Circles, combining these elements, could have quite easily turned out to be Chvrches-by-numbers but the trio manage to avoid the formulaic trap with stellar songwriting. It’s a superbly spine-tingling opener who’s elevation is continued in the album’s lead single, Leave A Trace. A impassioned, and personal, song that combines Lauren’s proud opus with a soundtrack of emotive electronics that melds atmosphere with a rock solid groove.
Keep You On My Side is the first of many tracks on Every Open Eye that seems to be written with live performance in mind. It’s high BPM and frantic arpeggios complement the chant-a-long vocals will no doubt become a Chvrches live set highlight, but in a listening scenario gave us our first frown of the record. Highlighting a rawer production style that is present through the album. At times the sparse, upfront mixing style of Every Eye Open works well to convey this live energy contained within so many of the tracks, but at times we did miss the more cohesive, more comfortable, production style of The Bones Of What You Believe. This continues into Make Them Gold, and Indie anthem made synth that sees the first appearance of Iain’s chugging bass, here underpinning Every Eye Opens most euphoric and rousing refrain.
Which brings us to Clearest Blue, another of the album’s standout tracks. Revelling in the history of SynthPop (particularly early Depeche Mode), Clearest Blue serves up a high-energy and heartfelt track that seems to be one big build. Again, this is a song crafted for live enjoyment featuring a couple of moments that were surely written for their ‘crowd going mental’ appeal; when the drop comes, it comes hard.
No Chvrches album would be complete without Martin stepping up to the mic. This time High Enough To Carry You Over comes thick with a synth-Funk as Doherty croons, strangely like a Scottish Dave-1 from Chromeo. It seems more relatable, and to our minds slightly better, that his outing on The Bones Of What You Believe but after this quick aside where dropped straight back into the live focused monster tunes with Empty Threat. More of Ian’s powerhouse bass, more of Lauren and the kind of massive vocal performance that has no business coming out of such a small frame. Empty Threat is possibly the best of the crowd-pleasers, it’s resonant lyrics and crisp vocals being something to shout about.
Moody Future R&B infiltrates the record in one of Every Open Eye’s quieter moments, the smokey sweet Down Side Of Me (a personal highlight) as waves of Lauren’s (in this instance) gentle vocals intertwine with pinprick synths and warm keys to provide a little respite amid the juggernaut numbers. The following tune, Playing Dead is the most The Bones Of What You Believe track on Every Open Eye. It’s melancholy optimism, both vocally and musically, would have actually made an excellent album closer with it’s (again, live focused) but stuttered sample breakdown providing a stark contrast to (what we think is) Mayberry’s best performance on the record. Before the sweet and calming exit of Afterglow, Comes Bury It, perhaps the album’s lowest point, a barrage of synths and chants that is exciting in it’s own way but feels slightly like an afterthought.
Is Every Open Eye as good as The Bones Of What You Believe. Well…no. But just saying “no” without explanation seems unfair. Taken out of context Every Open Eye is a fucking amazing record that we could not recommend enough to everyone. We’ve been listening to it almost non-stop for the past two weeks and loving every second. The Bones Of What You Believe is such a legacy to live up to, I’m not sure anyone could have done it. Every Open Eye just isn’t quite as great as it’s predecessor, but don’t think for a minute that that doesn’t make it one of the best albums of the year. It really is. Top five. It beats the crap out of almost everything released in 2015…it’s just that in 2013 Chvrches released something a tiny bit better.
That’s not a dis though. You need this album in your life right now.
There are a few artists who have been with us since the beginning. Starting out not long after electronic rumours was born and we’ve follow their careers as they have progressed. Some flee by the wayside, never to be heard of again, and some went from strength to strength. Australia’s Jordan F is one of these artists we’ve been with since day one, and he’s definitely one of the strength to strength-ers. Starting out at the beginning of the second wave of Dreamwave artists (the scene have just come off MySpace) Jordan quickly rose through the ranks; showing himself as a producer enhanced musicality and a knack for retro flair without the constructions of genre.
He was quickly picked up by the elite best-of-the-best of the Dreamwave seen, Rosso Corsa Records (home to Mitch Murder and Miami Nights 1984) and, after flexing his musical muscles on numerous EPs, his début album Slipstream was finally released last year.
It’s a surprise, then, to learn that he’s following up with a sophomore long player so soon afterwards having recently announced that the sequel he’s coming soon. The announcement came with the Album’s premier single, Mesmerised.
Mesmerised comes equipped with vocal stylings of Canadian SynthWave scene hired gun Dana Jean Phoenix, a singer whose look and sound delivers an authentic 80s pop sheen to the tracks she collaborates on. Mesmerised might just be her finest appearance to date as she and Jordan tread the lilting, laid back, hazy nostalgia path laid by the likes of Electric Youth.
These two are a match made in vintage heaven as Jordan’s restrained and mature soundtrack of tight digital bass, understated drums and a sea of lush pads is prefect for Dana to weave a delicious and gentle 80s Pop ditty throughout. As with many of Jordan’s tunes his soaring solos steal the show infusing Mesmerised with the fluid excitement that plays with Donna’s vocals like a call-and-response. It looks like, with his new album, Jordan F be taking them to school once again.
Leeds based Scot Graeme Shepherd, better known as Grum, seems to have settled into his niche as one of the UK’s finest purveyors of uplifting progressive dance music. Having started his career with a bit of a Dreamwave slant to his is music; Grum has run the musical gauntlet of SynthWave, Euphoric Trance, Electro-House and finally ended up in a place where all those styles can merge together into one glorious big-room sound. As one of our favourite producers in the country we always rely on Grum to deliver those kind of big dance tunes they make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and have you reaching for the lasers.
Having released his début, Builder, the legendary Anjunabeats label back in May of this year, Grum is now following that up with his brand new double A-side release. The two tracks, Something About You and First Contact, were released last week and both are some of his most immediate work to date.
Something About You is an energetic flurry of razor sharp synths and arpeggios. With pitched down, and up, vocal snatches riding a wave of swirling leads and rapid-fire drum rolls powering the tracks energy, Grum delivers a perfectly timed like the breakdown that elevates of the track’s tension until it crashes back in with a cavalcade of mesmerizing melodies. Definitely one for the hands-in-the-air crowd.
A deeper side to Grum is displayed on the flip-side, First Contact. Utilising his Dreamwave roots, First Contact brings nostalgic hooks and shuffling beats, perfect for losing yourself on the dancefloor too. A crisp digital baseline gives the track a mechanized groove that nicely contrasts with the Balearic leads for some romantic sunrise funk. First Contact would probably be our favourite of the two tracks.
The awesome Continental Records (Jerry Bouthier’s baby) have just released their second single from French producers Romuald & Madji’k, a collection of reMixes following up their Stanza featuring Fastlane single. (check the MiGHty mOUse reMix for greatness). Alongside the release comes a brand new video for the track.
Directed by Romuald Lauverjon, the clip is a swirl of colourful retro imagery centred around a gorilla in a Porsche 911. Yup, a gorilla.
Romuald & Madji’k’s ‘Fastlane reMixes’ are out now.
Some days we feel like we might as well just stop trying to fight it and become a publication that solely focuses on Scandinavian music, seeing as we spend most of our time listening to, and writing about, it anyway. The Scandinavians really have nailed it where it counts. They arguable produce the finest electronic Pop music in the world, they pwn the world of Cosmic Disco, their experimental electronics have a tundra soul that raises it above the rest and they can take Teutonic EBM and somehow make it less embarrassing. Even more amazing is when they blur the lines between styles. DNKL do that. DNKL do that, like, all the time.
Swedish trio DNKL take a frigid, icy SynthPop sound and warm it up with some bass heavy dance music grooves. For the last few years this outfit have been releasing complex and beautiful dark ElectroPop tracks, heavy with atmosphere, but with foundations of tight and intricately crafted synthesizer Pop.
Their new tune, Otherside, comes following up on their début EP, Wolfhour, which received a fair amount of praise on it’s release last year. Since then the guys have been holed up working on new material (we hope for a forthcoming full length release) of which this is the first taste. It’s a departure from their previous offerings, but at the same time not; and not just because contradictory statements are fun. Listen up as DNKL weave a solid Techno groove through their haunting Pop Noir.
Otherside has a cheeky little early/mid-90s feel to it too, with snatched drum rolls and a spiky digital bassline giving the track an unusually (for DNKL) funky flavour. Woozy side-chained pads ensure that DNKL’s trademark haze is not missing while the synthesized sax-a-like lead flits between smokey & urbane and slightly otherworldly. Otherside’s mystery tour through moods lends itself to concrete jungle adventures as much as it does to arctic wasteland contemplation, and is perhaps the first original DNKL song that you can get up and dance to. The understated and heartfelt vocals serve as a guide through DNKL’s world, their ebb and flow rushing in and out of the track in ghostly swirls.
The more we think about it, the more we’re sure Otherside would have gone down a treat in the Indie clubs of our youth.
Back in June the Netherlands finest analog Disco merchant, Boogie DJ and all-round nice, smiley, fella; Auxiliary Tha Masterfader released the single Disco Machine. Disco Machine was his first release via Brixton dancefloor collective Nude Disco label arm. We said “Sounding authentically like an early 80s European dancefloor hit, Disco Machine sets up all the genre’s tropes for Aux to give them his own person spin. Synthesizer gold.” Did you hear that? Synthesizer GOLD!
Aux’s music is for people who love synthesizers, for people who love the history of European dance music; Italo, Boogie, Disco and beyond, and for people who from whom dance music is about more than the drop. It’s music for those souls who can be taken to other planets, losing themselves in the robotic ebb and flow and the dancefloor. Aux is a man with a passionate love of vintage dance music and a hardware studio to be envious of; a killer combination.
This month Nude Disco released a companion to Disco Machine. It’s titled Disco Machine: Italo Edition. That’s pretty straightforward in terms of titling. This new release, as you’d expect unless you were painfully inept, featured four of the modern synthetic Disco scene’s brightest rising stars whipping up some mechanized Italo magic all over (the already quite Italo itself) Disco Machine. The Sanfernando Sound, Italo Brutalo, A Copycat and Rimini Rimmers all deliver pulsating reMixes of the track. Here’s a couple of fresh examples.
Manchester’s dark electronic overlord, The Sanfernando Sound serves up one of his special blends of classic EBM, mid 80s Italo and early Futurist SynthPop. Like that jacket you’re wearing brings out the blur of your eyes, The Sanfernando Sound can bring out the ominous, aggressive side of a track; his reMix is a pounding Italo juggernaut. Built on rock solid beats and factory floor basslines, this reMix strikes a nice balance between industrial Funk and uplifting grace with an airy lead line, accompanying the original’s vocoding, that glides across the mechanized dancefloor backing.
Italo Brutalo’s reMix is, ironically, not as brutal as The San Fernando Sound’s. A shuffling and skippy affair, Brutalo plays with the original’s groove with a syncopated bassline and a bit of a Pet Shop Boys vibe. Intertwining springy and flanged synth bass and choppy arpeggios all come together in a complex mix that presents as a deceptively simple whole. Multiple layers of rippling electronics weave the tapestry of a mid-80s Mediterranean dancefloor smash. This tune almost makes you see in VHS video effects.
♫ Auxiliary Tha Masterfader – Disco Machine (The Sanfernando Sound reMix)
♫ Auxiliary Tha Masterfader – Disco Machine (Italo Brutalo reMix)
Auxiliary Tha Masterfader’s Disco Machine: Italo Edition is out now.
Is Get Your Love the most straight-up SynthPoppy think that Leo Kalyan has ever done? Very possibly. The Londoner has been slowly gaining traction with his R&B infused Pop track that have run the gauntlet of the slickest current styles from PopDeepHouse to FutureSoulDisco and every three word compound genre in-between. At it’s core, though, Leo’s tunes are smooth and soulful Pop songs that are as much for the heart as they are for the feet.
We were first introduced to Leo Kalyan way back in 2013 when our favourite ever PR person said “you have to hear my neighbour’s music” while drunk. Which is an odd bit of promotion, but it turns out we did have to hear their neighbours music, ‘cos it was very good and we’ve been following him ever since. It was actually a while, full of reMixes and mixtapes, before his first proper release; the Silver Linings EP in July this year, but now it seems tracks are coming thick and fast. Hot on the heels of said EP Leo is keeping the momentum going with Get Your Love.
The new single is out at the end of next month, which may be a little too close to to the tail end of the summer for a song who’s first line is “Summertime heaven…” but with it’s laid back sound and carefree vocals maybe, just maybe, it can keep the sunshine feeling going a little while longer.
So, yeah, Get Your Love is less R&B and more pure Pop than Leo’s previous offerings. Don’t get us wrong, the tune definitely has a soulful swing to it, but the toasty synths and solid 4/4 beat make it the most accessible track he’s released to date. The catchy and upbeat chorus doesn’t hurt either when it comes to a certain sing-a-long quality Get Your Love has. Leo lays out the tale of a youthful summer day and night with his love interest to a soundtrack of relaxed keys that are dragged along by shuffling hi-hats and a strong bassline. We could quite easily imagine Get Your Love getting a bit of radio play. And it it did happen to come on the radio, while the sun was shining; well that would be just fine with us.
Bringing some Mediterranean flavours to a springy House groove comes Turkish producer Pineapple Pop. First things first; we know, we know, Pineapple Pop is a strange old name; but thankfully that is saved by some seriously awesome music. The fruity chart-ster is actually Hemi Behmoaras,, one half of Paradisko (with Hakan Özkan A.K.A. Thousand Fingers) and, like Paradisko, the track is being released by the always amazing On The Fruit Music (actually, we guess name Pineapple Pop is a good fit for the label!).
Hemi’s début release is a single that goes by the vowel deprived moniker of RVLTN. We’re going to stick our neck out and presume that it is Revolution, or maybe Revoltin’, or even Rovolotono. You can just drop those vowels wherever and however you please, just as Pineapple Pop drops in some pretty eclectic influences into his classic House sound, serving up something to stand out from the pack in RVLTN.
A totally spot-on summertime jam, RVLTN warms up your ears and your feet with some relaxing summertime keys before flitting between lavish poolside sounds and deeper festival fodder. Maintaining a classic House sound at it’s core Pineapple Pop threads reverb washed vocal snatches and the kind of hook that makes you have to physically stop yourself putting your hands in the air (unless you are hands-in-the-air inclined, in which case go for it) through the track. The switching between head down full-on neo Deep House intensity and near Balearic sunrise greeting euphoria keeps the track energy levels high and varied until it’s Done.
Brooklyn based Nu-Disco producer (and electronic rumors Records go-to mastering engineer) Bit Funk turns in a whopping reMix. Riding a groove that harkens back to UK Garage and a buoyant bassline to pair with his luscious and nostalgic synth work. Gradually layering the track over it’s length, Bit Funk takes you on a dancefloor journey from skippy Chicago warehouse sounds to breezy LA Tropical vibes, all the time enriching the tune with an emotional connection and a rush of the good feels.
electronic rumors 