Well, it’s finally out in the wild, the last seven months of my life have come to fruition as we are amazingly proud to present ‘electronic rumors volume 1’.
I won’t go on about it, it’s possible that i would have a hard time reviewing it objectively, so take a listen to Ride The Universe’s awesome minimix of the compilation featuring all 15 tracks.
It’s almost weird that it’s real now and if you like physical media I would really recommend the CD, it comes in a stunning DigiPak designed by Sebastian Bentler.
♫ Electronic Rumors Volume 1 MiniMix (Mixed By Ride The Universe)
electronic rumors & Ninthwave Records
Present
electronic rumors Volume One
Available 13th February 2012 on CD and Digital Download featuring the best in new ElectroPop, Dreamwave, Nu-Disco and Indie-Electro.
For the past four years music blog electronic rumors (electronicrumors.com) has been serving up the latest and greatest news and tracks in the world of Electro/Disco/Indie/Dreamwave/Synth/Stuff/Thing/Pop and now they have teamed up with respected Us ElectroPop label Ninthwave Records (Heaven17/White Town/The Modern) to release electronic rumors Volume 1, featuring of some of the best artists making Dreamwave, Nu-Disco, ElectroPop and Indie-Electro in the last twelve months including exclusive tracks from Ride The Universe (Dreamwave supergroup acclaimed, for their reMixes, with their début original), the much hyped Show Your Shoe, Futurecop!, beaumont, Substatic and Echoes and the first time on CD for Queen Of Hearts and Ronika, both tipped by the mainstream press for chart dominance in 2012. They feature alongside some of the most exciting electronic music that broke out in 2011.
Here is a new video for Goldroom’s track ‘Nights In Nantes’.
Goldroom is, of course, Josh Legg, Binary head honcho and one half of NightWaves. He’s been getting some great press and inclusions in some awesome mixtapes since he unleashed his three début tracks on the world. Great things are expected from Goldroom.
The melodic Indie end of Dreamwave, NightWaves, are in the process of finishing up their début album, but while that goes on NightWaves/Binary main man Josh is also expressing himself in the form of his brand new solo project Goldroom.
Cool licks, dreamy synths and Josh’s heartfelt vocal style are the order of the day here. The three tracks josh has unleashed on the world vary in sound, from the Funk tinged Indie-Dance of ‘Morgan’s Bay’ to the DiscoPop of ‘Nights In Nantes’, but the vibe running throughout is the epitome of Binary. One of summer days, late nights and good times, and that vibe ties the tracks together nicely. It’s kinda’ a sweet mix of influences actually, there’s a Disco groove, some nice Indie licks, some bits of 80’s Pop and R&B, all wrapped up in a atmospherically evocative package. Goldroom could be the new soundtrack to your summer city nights.
The core of LA’s Binary collective, NightWaves, have worked their magic on Huston band Glasnost’s new single ‘Corridor’.
Glasnost’s original walks the line between raucous Indie-Electro and retro Nu-Disco, in kinda’ the same way Fenech-Soler do but more dancefloor orientated. it a big, full track that will have your speakers demanding to be cranked up loud. NightWaves apply their trademark laidback groove to the track, keeping the energy high but with a more hazy night-time vibe.
I doubt NightWaves need much introduction to readers of electronic rumors, they are the heart and soul of the Binary family.
As NightWaves Josh Legg and Kyle Petersen, besides founding Binary Entertainment and inventing the term ‘Dreamwave’, make the kind of music that epitomises everything that Dreamwave should be. Optimistic and aspirational, their songs conjure up memories of loves and losses, heartbreaks and sunsets, the best times in your life revisited, the times when nothing else mattered.
From their first single ‘She’s Electric’, through compilation appearances, to last years ‘Sweet Carrie’, NightWaves are evolving at a rapid rate, yet keeping this evolution organic sounding. The duo’s début offerings were pretty straight ElectroPop. Their 80’s inspired melodies and vocals stood-out amongst the emerging retro synth scene as being particularly true to the classic SynthPop sound. Their most recent single ‘Sweet Carrie’, though, was a dreamy Indie-Electro summer soundtrack that came a both a shock and a gift. I will admit that I’m always a bit weary of synth bands who start using guitar (in an ‘another one bites the dust’ kinda’ way, but that’s my problem, I’ll deal with it!) but within seconds of ‘Sweet Carrie’ opening you could tell that this was such a natural progression for NightWaves, it sounded so right. The track blew up online, and rightly so. Synth and guitar blended in to a whole that was so much bigger than the sum of it’s parts. ‘Sweet Carrie’ encapsulates, I think, the Dreamwave philosophy, good times and a summer that never ends.
While working on their début album NightWaves has kept their fans happy with remix after blog destroying remix that have gained them DJ support and radio play all over the world.
NightWaves, ambassadors of Dreamwave, here’s what they had to say:
ER: So how did you guys get together, where you in other bands previously?
J: Yeah Kyle and I have both been musical our whole lives. I played cello for a number of years and Kyle can play the trumpet quite well. We both dove into being in rock bands in our teens. I was a bit of an acoustic singer songwriter in the early 2000’s, as was Kyle (and a hell of a lot of other young males). Its a bit corny to listen back on, but I do believe it broke our songwriting chops to be stripped down to just a guitar and voice. I think it gives NightWaves a big leg up to have written so many songs that way while a lot of other electronic producers are just starting to learn how to construct a song well.
ER: And what came first, NightWaves or Binary?
K: Binary came first, but not by much. Josh and I started Binary in early 2008, and then by mid-2008 we were moved into our office with Binary being our main priority. Since we had some space in our office, we thought it would be a cool place to bring our music gear and have a little space dedicated to being creative and making music. So within the first few weeks of the full launch of Binary, NightWaves was born in some early moments of free time. It was a pretty spontaneous beginning that started with some pretty amateur sounding early demos, haha.
ER: Who are your heroes and influences, both musically and otherwise?
K: Hmm, well that can probably be split into a few groups. There are a ton of musical influences that shape the music I try to make, ranging from pop punk groups like Saves the Day, to Phoenix, Daft Punk of course for their amazing ability to create a spectacle, Miike Snow is influencing how I want to make music now…there are a ton of random past influences. My heroes in music relative to my life are people like Busy P and James Murphy that have built very unique entities and had the resilience to stay at the top of their game and make a lot of the right moves to build their own brand of sound and scene in their towns. And I’d have to say my parents…both are very musical and always supported me in music and inspired a lot of my taste in music and I wouldn’t be able to do this now without them.
ER: ‘Sweet Carrie’ introduced us to a slightly more guitar oriented sound, more of a chilled summery indie vibe. Was this a natural progression for you?
J: Absolutely. I think we would’ve incorporated more live instrumentation into our earlier songs if we could have. Its pretty difficult from a technical standpoint to incorporate live instruments into a mainly electronic mix and it took some time for us to get ‘good’ enough to make it work. We grew up on guitar music and I think it was very natural for us to start to include more guitar in the songs. You’ll definitely hear more guitar on our record, although in a lot of cases the style won’t be quite as out there in the mix as the guitars were on “Sweet Carrie”.
ER: The video for ‘Sweet Carrie’ seems to perfectly visually capture the atmosphere of NightWaves, who directed it? How did that vision come about?
K: We discovered this really talented filmmaker named Cody Bralts. At the time I don’t think he’d even graduated high school, but he was shooting these gorgeous little videos of his life. They really captured the innocence that makes Sweet Carrie the song that it is. We approached Cody about shooting some footage for us and he was eager to let us go through his material. Our guitarist, David Urbina is actually a film editor during the daytime, so he took the footage and really turned the video into the perfect story to accompany the song. We’re really proud of the way it turned out!
ER: ‘Sweet Carrie’ kinda’ blew up on the blogs, have you seem that blog hype translate into much in the way of new fans or sales?
K: ‘Sweet Carrie’ definitely did well for us…the sales haven’t been very inspiring but I guess that’s a good picture of the music industry these days. But I think a lot of people took notice of NightWaves because of that song and the beautiful video that Dave and Cody put together. Some labels perked up their ears, and a lot of our musician friends were really into the song. Josh heard some dudes singing the hook at the Empire of the Sun concert that just happened here in LA, haha, so it looks like people took notice a bit. The trick is following that up.
ER: What lies in NightWaves’ studio. Do you have and ‘go to’ bits of kit?
K: Lots of delay, all day.
ER: And how does the NightWaves live set up work?
J: We perform as a four piece actually. Kyle and I play keyboards and electric bass. David plays guitar on pretty much all of the tracks. We’ve had a few different drummers over the last couple of years too. We rotate around a bit on stage depending on the song, since everyone can play a few different instruments. The only thing that stays consistent is that Kyle and I sing the songs.
ER: If money was no object, what synth would you like to get your hands on?
K: A Jupiter 8…Josh and I probably both agree on that one.
ER: What does Dreamwave mean to you?
K: Dreamwave, to me, and this has some personal bias of course, represents a lifestyle more than anything else. The good life…appreciating being comfortable where you are in life, and beautiful weather, and memorable days hanging out having some drinks with your friends at the beach, and a general optimism about life and about the future. It has a very sunny feeling to me, and I know that it sounds very southern Californian, but I think the same principles can apply to anyone in their hometown. It certainly has the influences from 80’s music, but sonically that’s not really the point and it has more to do with youth and nostalgia, as we always mention. The ability to always feel young and carefree and looking forward to the next day. I think America needs (and is already starting to gain) a sense of things being alright and the future looking bright. Whether or not that will be the case is kind of irrelevant, because a positive mind can have a pretty profound effect on how we make our future.
ER: You’ve recently started writing your début full length record, how’s that going, what can we expect from the album?
K: Going out to Boston to record was a great chance for Josh and I to take some time away and really focus on the future of NightWaves and making some new music. I think you can expect hopefully a good mix of some darker atmospheric songs alongside some driving SynthPop anthems with big hooks. I want to get weird with this record, but not like, too weird. A nice eclectic mix of beautiful sounds. That’s my goal.
J: Yeah… I think we’re up to 18 or 19 pretty completed demos. We’re not quite satisfied yet, so I think we’re looking to write another batch of songs (5-10) before we’ll start the process of finalizing things. The response from friends and family has been great so far though. I think we’ve done a good job of maintaining our ‘sound’, but hopefully pushing our songwriting and production skills to another level.
ER: Are NightWaves more of a cereal or pile of pancakes for breakfast kinda’ band? Would that change the night after a show?
K: I never really eat breakfast, unless it’s a weekend brunch after a night out, at which point I’ll have some eggs benedict. That or I’ll have a bacon and egg breakfast burrito from Pete’s Burgers on Hoover and 24th St…best breakfast burrito in the city, nay, on Earth. And they have the best coke in the city too, with crushed ice, which is crucial. Were you looking for a deeper answer?
Welcome to Binary week, here on electronic rumors, readers!
Over the next seven days we’ll be dedicating most of our output to Binary Entertainment, that haven for all things ElectroPop, all things Indie-Electro, all things Nu-Disco. That’s right…all things Dreamwave!
A couple of years ago this sound had no name, the Valerie crew had their little corner of the retro, 80s, inspired ElectroPop/Nu-Disco world pretty sorted, but not named, and around the world there were great artists producing music you could only really describe as Valerie-esq. While The Valerie Collative were making music largely inspired by American teen movies of the 80’s their sound still had a strong European quality to it…enter the Binary stable of artists, who took this mixture of melodic retro ElectroPop and contemporary, dancefloor aimed, production and ran with it. Adding a healthy dose of LA-centric Americana, a certain swagger if you will, to the genre and naming it. Dreamwave.
I’ll admit I was a little hesitant about the name when I first heard it being used. ‘I’ve been listening to ElectroPop for over 20 years’ I thought ‘it really doesn’t need a new name’, but credit is due to Josh and Kyle (Binary’s founders) as their vision of Dreamwave has stuck, and makes sense (even to me!) now. In retrospect the guys did a amazing job by giving this scene a name, it’s more than just a style of music (the Binary artists themselves span quite a diverse range of electronica), it’s an attitude, a soft focus outlook on life where loving and dancing are the priority. When you think of Dreamwave, not only do you thing of the perfect smooth ElectroPop/Nu-Disco blend but also of warm summer nights, partying in LA.
Whether it’s the laidback Indie-Electro of NightWaves, the Disco flavours of Keenhouse or LexiconDon’s real world ElectroPop the Binary crew are putting melody back on the dancefloor, or Disco back into songwriting, and the term Dreamwave is becoming so ubiquitous now that January’s print edition of The NME named Dreamwave their ‘D’ in an ‘A to Z for what to watch in 2011’. Let’s hope their readers take note!
Not only did Josh and Kyle pull off the (pretty hard) task of branding a type of ElectroPop, but they also branded a feeling. An aspirational lifestyle that can be yours, even if you can’t get to LA, through the music of the artists who call Binary their home.
J: Well, I suppose it started out of a frustration for doing what people consider to be conventional lives and jobs. Kyle and I both desperately wanted to try doing something special and different before we became tied down by things like a mortgage, a marriage, or kids. We’ve been musical compatriots practically since the day we met (sailing in Long Beach!), so starting a music company was something we felt really excited about trying. We spent a bunch of time thinking long and hard about what we wanted Binary to be, and eventually, near the middle of 2008, we quit our jobs and haven’t looked back since!
ER: Is there a Binary Mission statement?
J: For a long time we were somewhat known for saying that our mission was to “bring the song back to the dancefloor”… In a lot of ways that is definitely still a mission of ours. Most of the music we work with, put out, or write about is expertly produced electronic music that’s made for fans of all music, not just dance junkies. I don’t think that part of the mission has changed. What I’m no so sure about anymore is whether or not you could call Binary a ‘dance music’ music factory. Kyle and I love a lot of different kinds of music and I think Binary will end up being a home for a lot of music that people can’t dance to. I believe our mission is to provide an artist friendly home for great songwriters, be it on the blog, on our label, or as an artist that we manage.
ER: How do you find your roster?
K: Well our roster hasn’t changed since it was fully in place back in September of 2008. But for that process, it was a mix of musicians we were associating with at the time through a friend and we were really impressed by the material they were putting together (Fabian and Alex from LexiconDon), a couple guys we found on some blog posts (Short Circuit and Alfa), we found The Kids Are Radioactive by scouring through MySpace, which took up a lot of our time in the early days of Binary. And we saw Keenhouse play a show that another one of our friends was promoting. We spent a ton of time just jumping in head first into this community of artists online, on MySpace, that were making original music and showed a certain creative edge rather than just chopping up some songs and making remixes…it was really a great journey to take. So we found what we thought was the best and the guys that showed the most potential, and guys that were in the LA area since we were trying to build a local scene and community here, and that’s how we ended up with the roster we currently have. Nowadays, because of the blog, we get a lot of promo emails, so we’ll find a lot of upcoming talented producers that way, and just staying on top of blogs looking for new artists. I personally really like finding the totally unknown guys that I can just sense have a lot of potential and watching them grow into bigger things, whether that’s due to us or not, but unfortunately that’s getting a lot harder since MySpace has died…which is the only bad part about MySpace dying.
ER: Is LA really as cool and romantic as the music would suggest?
K:Haha, yeah, I think so. LA is as cool and romantic as you make it. LA gets a bad reputation around the world (though I think this is changing a lot) and people think it’s plastic and fake, and yeah, there are certainly big parts of the city that are like that. But it’s a very big place…big enough for all of us to create or live the life we want to live. When I first moved out here from Chicago I actually kinda’ hated this place, but once you settle in and can comfortably call it home, you start to find your own little world that works for you, with the friends you want, going to the places you want to go to, doing the things you want to do. I can’t think of a better place to live in your young 20’s than the east side of LA. We’re just all such like-minded people here, and everyone kinda’ gets each other, and we all know that we’re all kind of out here trying to live the dream. So it all works out, and some days you’ll find yourself on the freeway looking at the big green hills and the blue sky with the sun shining and you take a breath and really appreciate being here right now.
ER: Where the ladies at?
K: My lady’s at home, she’s awesome. Oh you mean where are the ladies on Binary? Haha, man there are a lot of times we wish we had more of a female presence on the label, whether that be having a full fledged Binary female artist, or even just a source to go to for female vocals on some tracks. I really hope that day comes soon, cause we could really use it. The problem is that it just seems harder to find…as I said we haven’t really expanded our roster in any case, but even if we had, I don’t usually come across female producers or singers sending us their music that would fit well with Binary. We try and push our current artists to collaborate with other singers, especially female singers, because a lot of times that is the best thing that could complement a track they may be working on, but it’s tough working on random collaborations like that. I don’t know, I think we’re going to need to start exploring some other channels. But that day will come and it will be a great day.
To get you started on your week long journey down the Binary rabbit-hole here’s NightWaves ‘Binary Hour’ mixtape, showcasing some of the best from the label:
Over the course of this week we will be profiling and interviewing each act on in the Binary stable. We’ll be featuring loads of awesome music, some exclusives, mixes and a competition so make sure you check back daily as we bring you the low-down on some of the finest ElectroPop being produced today.
Multi-national duo Walter Sobcek are releasing their début EP for Sismic Music this month and, frankly, it’s pretty awesome!
The title track ‘Je Me Souviens (Original ZHive reMix)’ is a strange combination of uplifting and melancholy, French and English, dancey and dreamy, with some almost baroque phrases that all adds up to a truly satisfying crescendo. It may have just missed the summer but this is pure strain summer haze ElectroPop.
Speaking of summer haze ElectroPop, LA’s kings of the scene NightWaves return the reMixing favour (Walter Sobcek reMixed their ‘Sweet Carrie’) with a smooth, chilled, driving reMix.
We’ve got another reMix of LexiconDon’s awesome ‘December Sunset’, a track we’ve featured a coupleof times already, this time by label mates NightWaves.
NW’s Josh and Kyle give the track more of an organic groove. Less electronic sounding, more sounding like a jam. Sweeping synths are replaced with organs giving the track a live music feel. The original is one of the best ElectroPop tracks of the year so far and this reMix takes it into the ‘best Pop song’ category too.
Be sure to check out the original track too right here.
If you’re fans of Binary records and that sweet LA SynthPop sound then keep it locked to electronic rumors in the coming weeks, we have a pretty special Binary even planned for y’all!
The album, ‘Pink + Blue’ is due to drop 24th August on dubFrequency/Binary.
Andrew Verner A.K.A. Short Circuit is fast becoming the king of Robo-Pop. Coming out of L.A.’s Binary family, the go-to gang for forward thinking cotemporary ElectroPop, Short Circuit has been responsible for some awesomereMixes of late, but the time has come for him to release some original material into the wild.
Setting himself apart from the pack with his heavy use of vocodered vocals, his début single, ‘Let Go’, is a robotic love letter set to a soundtrack of warm synth leads and burbling basses. The single is backed by the kind of reMix package that has fans of electronic Pop music grinning like idiots all day after hearing it. Fellow Binary act, the reliably amazing, NightWaves bring a bit more of a Dreamwave flavour to the track, although heavier than you’d expect from these guys They bring the robot to the Disco with some thick bass sounds and screaming synths. Small Pyramids take ‘Let Go’ to a more chilled, atmospheric, place with a deep electronic groove while Popskarr reveal themselves as one to watch after turning in a blinding, funky, late night House mix.
So here we have for you some of the reMixes that come with the single, kicking off with LexiconDon, who keep hold of the chilled summer vibe but pull it in more of a straight ElectoPop direction with stunning results. While everyone else in the world is chilling to this tune in the sun with a beverage, Walter Sobcek heads straight for the dancefloor with his take on the track leaving Alfa to crack out an arpeggio driven Electro reMix. It’s a storming reMix package, well worth a purchase!
electronic rumors 