We featured London ElectroPopper frYars’ Cool Like Me earlier this month and it’s been getting some heavy play around here ever since with it’s Tropical Disco inspired Indie-Electro-Funk.
This is the new video for the track, directed by Ian & Cooper and sees Ben Garrett take to the streets of Watts to spread the good word.
frYars’ Cool Like Me is out now.
Buy frYars’ music from:
Well, it really has been quite a while since we heard an original tune from Nu-Disco producer Bxentric. Apart from the wonderful Foolishness, which featured on Aeroplane’s In-Flight Entertainment compilation last year, you have to go way back to 2010 and tunes like Complete and Vice (awesome tracks) to grab a bit of Bxentic goodness. Keeping busy he seems to have dropped the ‘-‘ and the ‘!’, grabbed Bristolian songstress Emily Breez from Vents, and lines up a storming release for the always top Glasgow Underground.
Surrender is an atmospheric and evocative slice of huge sounding Italo Pop. Actually, surprisingly so. It’s a far more straight-up ElectroPop track than we would have expected, but we like being surprised, and we were certainly pleasantly surprised by the classic 80s sound of Surrender. Breez’s borderline Goth croon curls it’s way around the track like smoke, whist Bxentric delivers pulsating basslines, ghostly arpeggios and razor sharp retro leads, but despite all these robotic elements, Bxentric injects the track with a nostalgic warmth too. reMixes on the single come from Cosmic Kids, Kevin McKay and a couple of versions from Kevin McKay & Phil Kelsey, including their Club Mix, which serves up the track with a side order of burbling Deep House groove.
♫ Bxentric (Feat. Emily Breez) – Surrender (Original Mix)
♫ Bxentric (Feat. Emily Breez) – Surrender (Kevin McKay & Phil Kelsey Club Mix)
Bxentric’s Surrender is out now on Beatport, everywhere else follows 12th August.
Buy Bxentric’s music from:
It’s Basti from Germany’s finest Synth lovers Final DJs’ birthday! To celebrate this auspicious occasion the duo have whipped up this luscious reMix of Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks’ Stand Back. It’s an epic vocal that fits in nicely with Final DJs epic synth ethos. Expect hazy electronic vibes.
Loaded with dreamy synths, as thick as you like, this reMix is a multi layers wave of electronic goodness. Waves of rich tones and nostalgic hooks crash over Stevie Nicks husky vocal. With just a hint of Cosmic Disco and Italo amongst the slick SynthWave styled ElectroPop, Final Djs make the track both hazily nostalgia and futuristic at the same time. Retro future beauty from Germany with a soulful American vocal, what more could you want?
♫ Stevie Nicks – Stand Back (Final DJs reMix)
Buy Stevie Nicks’ music from:
Swedish ElectroPop duo Icona Pop have, in a very shot time, gone from being relegated to smaller blogs dealing with ElectroPop to being massive superstars. I Love It and Girlfriend blew up big time, and deservedly so, the girls deliver big room commercial House sounds mixed with rowdy, shouty, EelctroPop that makes for an explosive and infectious combination.
Their new tune, All Night doesn’t stray to far from the formula, competing big beats, chainsaw synths and hollered, anthemic vocals that are easy to catch. Icona Pop are something truly different in the world of Pop, and maybe the kick in the ass it needs. I can’t think of anyone around at the moment who can balance this kind of in-you-face Pop with Indie cool, but these girls do so effortlessly.
♫ Icona Pop – All Night
This week the duo confirmed that their début album, to be titled This Is… with drop in September.
Buy Icona Pop’s music from:
It feels like everyone’s coming of age this week. Two producers we’ve been championing for years are set to explode, first Mitch Murder is gearing up to drop his Mad Decent début, and now our good friend Monsieur Adi, who’s been poised for a mainstream embrace for a while now, is about to release his début single via Relentless/Sony. Not only that, but the track features the UK’s current House vocalist darling A*M*E. After a run of major projects, producing Seal, reMixing Beyoncé, Adi’s time is now.
Long time Adi fans will instantly recognise What’s Going On?. It’s a track that’s been brewing for a while, since 2010 in fact when we first heard the Frenchman’s reMix of Soul II Soul’s Back To Like (However Do You Want Me?). In the in-between years the track has been given an extreme makeover, they synths are fatter, the beats harder, the orchestration more epic and the Caron Wheeler vocal line has been replaced by A*M*E who is sounding, frankly, better than I’ve ever heard her as she makes the track her own and delivers a truly stratospheric performance. This is the best of Adi, rousing stings, thick synth hooks, a Dreamwavey Disco style wrapped up with hard Electro production and Pop sensibilities. It’s gonna’ be huge.
♫ Monsieur Adi (Feat. A*M*E) – What’s Going On?
Monsieur Adi’ What’s Going On? is released soon.
Buy Monsieur Adi’s music from:
It’s another new track from Annie and Richard X’s forthcoming A&R EP. Following Back Together and Hold On this right here is the third taste of what to expect we’ve had so far. It;s also the hardest, and darkest entry in the EP so far, and the most in-your-face early 90s too. The track’s called Invisible, but it’s aggressive dancefloor stylings are anything but.
Right from the offset, Invisible is full-on Acid Rave. Breakbeat style TR-909 drum patterns, twisted TB-303 riffs, distorted Rave organs, this is pure white glove warehouse material. Add to this Annie offering a husky, deadpan vocal delivery, at times pitched down to gender bending extremes, and you have a track that captures the excitement of the early Rave culture whist still serving up something that Annie makes her own. So looking forward to this EP.
♫ Annie – Invisible
Annie’s The A&R EP is out soon.
Buy Annie’s music from:
Here’s the video for New York Indie-DiscoPop duo Holy Ghost!’s Teenagers In Heat, a track we featured last week.
Ben Fries directs the clip, which at first glace is one of those awful ‘lyric videos’ but upon further examination is a clever, sticker based journey through New York via the medium of VHS tape.
Holy Ghost!’s new Dynamics album is released 10th September on DFA
Buy Holy Ghost!’s music from:
It’s been a while. This is Dreamwaver Cavaliers Of Fun’s first proper single of the year, and right slap-bang in the middle of a heatwave is the prefect time to unleash such laid-back summery bliss.Valley Of Dreams delivers everything you’d want from a hazy beach tune. Nostalgic, funky, slightly ethereal and all covered in island vibes. All brought to you by ‘the ever-awesome Holographic People’.
Pouring Tropical Disco and Dreamwave into a mixing bowl Cavaliers Of Fun cooks up only the finest of both. It’s the kind of song we all wigged out to in the summer of 2010, but updated with slick Disco licks and Tropical purcussion. A solid Disco beat is complimented by hazy, heavily effected guitars and a bouncy synth bass. As Ricco Vitali presents his passionate croon, thick synths create an irresistible sunkissed mood. The Single is loaded with reMixes too, Freak You strips the beach vibe from the tune and morphs it into a Technoid stormer with 90s House overtones. Riddled with noisy effects and a heavy Rave leads and rolling snare fills, this one’ll have you grinning and dancing. Saint Pauli uplifts the single with a big room mix where they take everything big. Big lead stabs, Big Disco snyths and a Big stomping beat. Fellow Holographic Peopl-er Shelby Grey’s Bonus Beats Dub is pretty special too, possible the EP’s highlight, a proper 12” extended mix that strips the original to it’s synth basics and layers orchestral hits, robo synths and a rocking B-Boy beat. We’d love to hear this one with the vocals. These tunes sit alongside a luscious Poolside Disco mix from Poindexter on a release that is, surprisingly, free to download. There’s need to be no discussion, download this right now.
♫ Cavaliers Of Fun – Valley Of Dreams
♫ Cavaliers Of Fun – Valley Of Dreams (Freak You reMix)
♫ Cavaliers Of Fun – Valley Of Dreams (Saint Pauli reMix)
♫ Cavaliers Of Fun – Valley Of Dreams (Shelby Grey’s Bonus Beats Dub)
Buy Cavaliers Of Fun’s music from:
Just when you thought you had a rest, the man Patrick Baker is back, and he’s more New Jack Swing than ever. His new single, Control, is proof (if you needed it) that Baker has now fully transitioned from 80s SynthWave superstar to 90s Swingbeat crooner. And it’s a transition we welcome, especially during the summer, it sets Patrick apart from the pack and gives him a uniqueness. Also, he’s very very good at it.
Control is the prefect example of that. Laid back summery R&B grooves with a 90s Swing (sorry, it;s really hard to write about it without saying ‘swing’ 100 times) Control just makes you want to slip the shades on and ride around in an open to jeep, possible in a very over saturated world, wearing a gold chain. Yeah, you know what I mean. Both from a production and a vocal point of view, Patrick Baker is killing it right now.
Patrick Baker’s Control is out now as a free download.
Buy Patrick Baker’s music from:
Here’s the video for Portland based Minimal Synth Robo-Pop duo Soft Metals’ Tell Me, taken from their stunning new album Lenses.
Re-edited from a short film titled Hardcore, from filmmakers Erin Frost and Shaun Kardinal, the clip features lots of getting it on.
Soft Metals’ Lenses is out now.
Buy Soft Metals’ music from:
electronic rumors 