Here’s the new video for the amazing Tesla Boy’s devastatingly good recent single Fantasy.
Complimenting the sexy DiscoPop is a clip featuring model Dasha Malygina. i should tell you something about it, but I’ll wait until you’ve watched it.
It’s NSFW, just so you know.
Tesla Boy’s Fantasy is out now.
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Following on from their acclaimed track I Want You, London Indie-Electro quartet I Am In Love are releasing their new single, Palm, in October. It’s a track that’s been kicking around for a while but it’s impending release makes this as good a time as any to feature it.
Palm is a genre defying wall of beautiful noise. Taking cues from Shoegaze, EBM, ElectroPop and ‘80’s Indie, the song confronts you with wall-of-sound guitars tempered with a Euro Industrial synth bassline and impassioned Post-Punk vocals. It’s like a compendium of every thing great about Indie music in the ‘80’s, with a contemporary sheen. Luckily, for us, it feel mostly like a SynthPop track, full of urgency and a nervous tension that drives the song to it’s conclusion.
♫ I Am In Love – Palm
Check out more from I Am In Love on SoundCloud.
Berlin based SynthWave producer Norman Knight, better known as Alpha Boy, is fast becoming one of he most prolific artist on the scene. It was only April that he released his last compilation of work, the Blockbuster Album, and he’s already set with a brand new LP. Released today, Heroes On Tape cements Alpha Boy’s status as one of SynthWave’s unsung heroes. How does he keep the quality up?
From the second the album begins, with an intro piece titled Crus’n In 1982, it;s clear that despite his high quantity output, Alpha Boy isn’t just chucking out any old tracks. Heroes On Tape is fourteen track of some of the best ‘80’s inspired Electro around. The album is built around tributes to classic TV shows and movies of the decade. With titles like Master Of The Universe, Macgyver, Harold F., Flux Capacitor, BMX and Starman, the album is is the music equivalent of a night in with a stack of VHS tapes. Continuing the trend seen on Blockbuster, Heroes On Tape keeps the retro soundtrack feel, but moves itself away from standard SynthWave fare with musical nod to classic SynthPop and Pop of the era with rolling drum fills and catchy lead lines. Various tracks take on audio cues too, like Danielson [sic] (as in Daniel San), a homage to The Karate Kid, which gently covers the post-Italo electronics with an oriental feel and the tense sense of urgency found amongst I’m Coming To Get You. Highlights of the album have to be the warm Sci-Fi Italo melodies of Master Of The Universe, which dips and builds and never looses it’s dancefloor excitement. Harold F., a track so full of soaring synth leads that just listening to it is uplifting. Flux Capacitor, which powers along in rapid fire arpeggios, keeping things danceable amidst the hypnotic synths and evocate tones, and the nostalgic electronic pump of BMX. Alpha Boy has delivered another amazingly good body of work here, how he keeps up the pace is anyone’s guess, but he never seems to let the high output damage the music’s quality, in terms of either arrangement or production. Definitely recommended SynthWave.
♫ Alpha Boy – Master Of The Universe
♫ Alpha Boy – Harold F.
♫ Alpha Boy – Flux Capacitor
♫ Alpha Boy – BMX
Heroes On Tape is released today at Alpha Boy’s Bandcamp.
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Russian duo Crystal Bridge stopped by the electronic rumors inbox recently to prove one again that when it comes to retro SynthPop music, Russia is leading the pack. Taking more of a cue from the likes of Tesla Boy rather than their SynthWave peers, Crystal Waters produce some excellent New Wave tinged ElectroPop.
The two original tracks on the SoundCloud are quite different beasts, held together by a nostalgic ‘80’s sound and a nod towards teen movies of that era. The Secret Letter Or Two Overboard could quite honestly have been taken from the soundtrack to any number of John Hughes or Joel Schumacher(pre-Nipples Batman) movies. Bright, shimmering synths play out melodies that feel strangely familiar against a brooding soundtrack of dramatic tones. On No Account Don’t Choose, on the other hand, is a jump up vocal SynthPop track full of twisting retro leads and slick guitar. Deeply seeped in carefree American ‘80’s Pop, On No Account Don’t Choose is a catchy, exuberant display of what Crystal Bridge can do. More pleases.
♫ Crystal Bridge – The Secret Letter Or Two Overboard
♫ Crystal Bridge – On No Account Don’t Choose
Check out more from Crystal Bridge on SoundCloud.
Goin’ Old School isn’t a trip down music memory lane, it’s a mugging in the dark alleyway of nostalgia:
Later this week we’ll be shutting up shop for a while, as we are off to Bestival. More on that tomorrow but today’s Goin’ Old School highlights three classic SynthPop acts who will be appearing at Bestival this weekend, starting with ex-Ultravox dark Electro pioneer John Foxx and 1980’s He’s a Liquid.
Headlining Bestival on the Saturday are New Order. Here’s the Arthur Baker produced Confusion from 1983.
And finally SynthPop pretender Gary Numan kicks of Bestival on Thursday night. This is his finest moment, 1985’s Call Out The Dogs.
You can buy most of this music from:
Little Bear’s London ElectroPop/House outfit Ursa Minor (Little Bear) are gearing up for the release of their new EP, titled Shell. In advance of this five track release they have let slip the EP’s lead track. WTF Is Love, and one of it’s reMixes. It’s evocative stuff.
It’s a deep, deep track. Accompanied by an ominous Acidic burbling the tracks work both a sparse SynthPop/early House mix and Little Bears ethereal vocal line to their fullest. This track has a nice, atmospheric mix of raw Roland drum sounds with vintage House feel and gritty European SynthPop beauty. It’s not even the best track on the EP either! Ular Gray takes things to a Deep House place with his reMix of the track. Even going so far as to deepen the vocals, giving them a haunting, ringing quality that sits well with Gray’s classic, hypnotic, House groove.
♫ Ursa Minor (Little Bear) – WTF Is Love?
♫ Ursa Minor (Little Bear) – WTF Is Love? (Ular Gray reMix)
Ursa Minor (Little Bear)’s Shell EP is out on 1st October
Buy Ursa Minor (Little Bear)’s music from:
Goin’ Old School isn’t a trip down music memory lane, it’s a mugging in the dark alleyway of nostalgia:
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark kicks off a full-on SynthPop Goin’ Old School with Enola Gay from 1980.
1983, our favourite Depeche Mode era, spawned Everything Counts.
Although not Erasure’s first single, 1986’s Sometimes was easily their breakthrough tune.
You can buy most of this music from:
Goin’ Old School isn’t a trip down music memory lane, it’s a mugging in the dark alleyway of nostalgia:
We’re going all SynthPop ballad’s today, starting with Depeche Mode’s Somebody, from 1984.
Next, because I like to slip a little The Human League in wherever I can, it’s 1986’s Human.
And we’ll finish up with the ultimate ‘80’s ballad. Spandau Ballet’s True, from 1983
You can buy most of this music from:
One of Germany’s best SynthWave producers Mental Minority has not one, but two, new tracks for us. Both are something a little new form this guy, but still keeping the ‘80’s synth flavour. Two tracks, two moods, check them out.
So This Is For You is a drawn-back slice of synthesizer romanticism. Bringing the tempo down slightly and turning over the Italo beats and bassline to shimmering chords and bell-like chimes, Mental Minority crafts the kind of track that would hit the emotional beat in that ‘he finally gets the girl’ bit of an ‘80’s teen movie. These Old Photographs All Show Me Wearing Black is kinda’ a sentiment I can relate too as well as being a robo funk homage to the original Futurists. Channelling a bit of Kraftwerk and the likes of The Normal and Cabaret Voltaire Mental Minority has even added the hiss of old vinyl amongst the biting analog synths and cheap drum machine sounds. It;s a hunting Minimal Synth piece that just shows the depth of influences MM has, and how creative he can get with a synth.
♫ Mental Minority – So This Is For You
♫ Mental Minority – These Old Photographs All Show Me Wearing Black
Buy Mental Minority’s music from:
Goin’ Old School isn’t a trip down music memory lane, it’s a mugging in the dark alleyway of nostalgia:
Nik Kershaw has just brand new single, The Sky’s The Limit, and album EI8HT, so let’s revisit Human Racing from 1984.
The smooth side of Paul Hardcastle with the soulful Electro Boogie of Don’t Waste My Time, featuring Carol Kenyon, from 1986
Ending today’s Goin’ Old School is the Pop Funk of Thompson Twins with 1982’s Lies.
You can buy most of this music from:
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