Category: dance pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Canadian Artist Freddie Future Releases an Intergalactic Visual for Summery “Loving You (So High)”

With the release of 2019’s self-titled full-length album, an effort that featured the attention grabbing single “Too Heavy,” the Toronto-based indie dance pop artist Freddie Future exploded across both the Canadian and international scenes while establishing a sound that’s inspired by Rüfüs Du Sol, Elderbrook, Majid Jordan, Cannons and A R I Z O N A among others. Since the release of his full-length debut, the rising Canadian dance pop artist has received praise from the likes of Clash Magazine, Exclaim!, Variance Magazine, Northern Transmission, Toronto Guardian and Canadian Beats. He has had his work playlisted on MrSuicideSheep, Spotify’s New Music Friday Canada, Fresh Friends, JustVibing and Outliers playlists, and as a result, his work has amassed over 2.6 million streams.

Freddie Future’s latest single “Loving You (So High)” is a summery club banger featuring shimmering synths, wobbling bass lines and tweeter and woofer rocking beats paired with Future’s ethereal yet plaintive vocals and a rousingly anthemic hook. While sonically recalling Octo Octa’s Between Two Selves, “Loving You (So High)” manages to simultaneously evoke dipping into a bracingly cold pool on a sultry summer afternoon and the swooning euphoria of discovering new love.

“’Loving You (So High)’ was the first track written for this new project, and instantly I knew there was something special here,” the rising Canadian artist explains. “The song is about being so consumed with a desire for someone that their love feels like the best drug you could ever have. It’s that ultimate state of euphoria you feel when you truly love that person. The song started with a few vibey chords but really came together once the catchy vocal hook was made. “I get so high off loving you. So high, so high, so high”.”

The recently released video by Physical Presents is an intergalactic visual that features several holographic projections of the rising Canadian artist on an extraterrestrial moon with an enormous planet and a floating space cube in the background. It’s a fittingly futuristic and trippy visual that captures the song’s swooning longing.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Blinker the Star Covers a Classic Madonna Hit

The past couple of years has seen an increasingly number of pieces covering JOVM mainstay act Blinker The Star, led by its Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind, Jordon Zadorozny. Zadorozny’s tenth Blinker The Star album Arista is slated for a July 2, 2021 release. And unlike his previously released material, Arista is a covers album that finds the Canadian JOVM mainstay tackling hits by Solange, ZZ Top, No Doubt, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys, Boz Scaggs, The Rolling Stones, Land of Talk, Aerosmith and others.

I had a daydream where I imagined Clive Davis signing me to Arista Records. He said, “Zadorozny, you’re all right. But you have no hits. And hits are the lifeblood of the artist. I’m going to sign you to Arista but I get to choose the songs”. So I let the imaginary Clive Davis in my head A&R this album, as he would have for Whitney Houston or Santana. You might say I have A&R issues.”

of my favorite Madonna songs — “Holiday.” Interestingly, the Blinker the Star version pulls turns the party anthem into an achingly wistful ballad longing for good times and easier days.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Paris’ QLAPs Returns with a Glistening Banger

o create accessible, pop-leaning dance music. Earlier this week, I wrote about the French trio’s “I Can’t Wait,” an infectious and swaggering club banger that reminded me of Yelle and JOVM mainstays L’Imperatice.

I don’t want your love,” was released earlier this year, and it continues a run of club friendly material centered around glistening synth arpeggios, sultry vocals, tweeter and woofer thumping beats and a euphoria inducing hook within a song that expresses the coquettish — and somewhat confusing — push and pull of love and lust.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Paris’ QLAPs releases an Infectious Club Banger

QLAPs is a Paris-based electro pop trio that features members QLAPs is a Paris-based electro pop trio — Zuvey, Emmanuelle Trance and Tom Miles — that features members, who come from very different backgrounds but have managed to create accessible, pop-leaning dance music.

The French trio’s latest single “I Can’t Wait” is an infectious and swaggering club friendly banger centered around skittering, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, shimmering synth arpeggios, sultrily delivered vocals, a shout-a-long chorus and an enormous hook. The end result is a song that brings Yelle and JOVM mainstays L’Imperatice to mind.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Black History Month: Nile Rodgers

Today is the 16th day of February — and the 16th day Black History Month. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been proudly featuring Black artists across a wide and eclectic array of genres and styles with the hopes that these artists can guide you towards further understanding of the Black experience.

As the month goes on, I hope that you’ll be reminded of these urgently important facts:

Black culture is American culture — and Black music is American music.
America’s greatest and beloved contributions to the world are Black music styles — the blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and hip-hop.
Black art matters.
Black lives matter — all of them, all of the time.

Nile Rodgers has written, cowritten and/or produced some of the biggest and most beloved dance floor and pop hits of the past 50 years while working with a who’s who list of artists across a diverse and eclectic array of artists. I’d guarantee that Rodgers has worked with an artist you love on a song you love. And as a result, his sound and approach has been instrumental in your life.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rose Rose is an emerging indie pop project that features two, young, self-taught multi-instrumentalists and producers, who are split between Paris and London. The project is the culmination of two years of experimenting, then developing and honing their sound — a sound that finds them blending elements of house music, 70s disco and pop.

The duo’s debut single “Sugar Hill” is a glittery and carefully crafted pop confection centered around atmospheric synths, stuttering four-on-the-floor, a sinuous bass line, Nile Rodgers-like guitar, ethereal vocals and an infectious, two-step inducing hook. Upon hearing the track, it shouldn’t be surprising that the British-French pop act’s sound will draw comparisons to Daft Punk‘s Random Access Memories — with “Sugar Hill” possessing a similar warm, sepia-toned nostalgia.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Brooklyn-based psych pop/dance pop act Psymon Spine — Noah Prebish, Sabine Holler, Brother Michael Rudinski, and Peter Spears — can trace its origins back to when its founding duo of Noah Prebish and Peter Spears met while attending college. Bonding over mutual influences and common artistic aims, Psymon Spine’s founding duo toured the European Union with Prebish’s electronic project Karate. And as the story goes, while in Paris,  Spears and Prebish wrote their first song together. By the time, they arrived in London, they were offered a record deal. 

When the band’s founding duo returned to the States, Spears recruited Micheal “Brother Micheal” Rudinski and their Karate bandmates Devon Kilbern, Nathaniel Coffey to join their newest project. And with that lineup, they fished out the demos, which wold eventually comprise their full-length debut, 2017’s You Are Coming to My Birthday. The band went out to support the effort with immersive art and dance parties like their Secret Friend party series across Brooklyn and through relentless touring.

Prebish was also splitting his creative time with rising Brooklyn-based dram pop act Barrie and around the same time, his work with the rising dream pop act began to receive attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere through the release of a handful of buzz worthy singles, followed by their full-length debut, last year’s Happy to Be Here. Interestingly while with Barrie, Prebish met his further Psymon Spine bandmate, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sabine Holler.

Without live shows and touring, the members of Psymon Spine have been busy releasing new material this year, which included two singles:

  • “Milk,” a coquettish, club friendly banger with Barrie that brings In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy and Soft Metals‘ Lenses and received quite a bit of attention internationally — with the single receiving praise from   Vanyaland, High Clouds, Echowave Magazine, The Revue, Hype Machine and a list of others.The track also landed on  Spotify playlists like Undercurrents, All New Indie and Fresh Finds, as well as the YouTube channels of  David Dean Burkhart, Nice Guys‘ and Birp.fm. And lastly, the track received airplay on BBC Radio 6.
  • “Modmed,” an  Andrew VanWyngarden-produced and cowritten, strutting disco-tinged track that’s actually deceptively upbeat, as it captures the ambivalent and confusing mixture of frustration, doubt and relief of a relationship that had long petered out and finally wound down to its inevitable conclusion. Interestingly, the song is inspired and informed by personal experience: Prebish and Holler’s difficult decision to leave Barrie to focus on Pysmon Spine full-time.

Psymon Spine’s third single of this year, is the hazy and lysergic banger “Confusion.” Centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, a wobbling bass line, blown out beats and Prebish’s plaintive vocals, a trippy spoken word-delivered break and a looping guitar solo, Psymon Spine’s latest single brings Tame Impala‘s Currents to mind. Much like its immediate predecessors, “Confusion” continues a run of carefully crafted and breezy, hook driven pop.

Interestingly, the release of the single manages to simultaneously coincide with the announcement of the Brooklyn-based act’s third album Charismatic Megafauna while encapsulating the album’s overall theme and vibe — the complicated feelings involved in the dissolution of human relationships. In particular “Confusion” finds the band channeling the confusing and contradictory feelings following the sort of breakup that has lead to a major rift in the larger social circle — but while also possibly hinting to the end of a friendship or working relationship. And as a result, the song seems to evoke the desire to dance away the hurt, for a little while at least.

Charismatic Megafauna is slated for a February 21, 2021 release through Northern Spy.



Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Psymon Spine Teams Up with MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden on a Glittery Club Banger

Rapidly rising Brooklyn-based psych pop/dance pop act Psymon Spine can trace its origins to when founding duo Noah Prebish and Peter Spears met while attending college. Bonding over mutual influences and common artistic aims, the duo went off to tour Europe with Prebish’s electronic act Karate. While in Paris, Spears and Prebish wrote their first song together and when they got to London, they were offered a record deal.

Upon returning to the states, Spears recruited Micheal “Brother Micheal” Rudinski and their Karate bandmates Devon Kilbern, Nathaniel Coffey to the band — and with that lineup they fleshed out the demos, which would eventually become their full-length debut, 2017’s You Are Coming to My Birthday. The members of the rising Brooklyn-based act then supported the album with immersive art and dance parties through their Secret Friend series across Brooklyn, as well as relentless touring.

Simultaneously, Prebish’s work with rising Brooklyn-based dream pop act Barrie began to receive quite a bit of attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere with a handful of buzz-worthy singles and their critically applauded full-length debut, last year’s Happy to Be Here. Interestingly, this led Prebish to meet his Barrie bandmate, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sabine Holler, who then joined Psymon Spine.

“Milk,” a collaboration with their former bandmate Barrie was the first bit of new material by the Brooklyn-based act inn three years — and it’s the first recorded output with their newest member Sabine Holler. Since the single’s release, it has received airplay on BBC Radio 6 and earned praise from a number of media outlets including Vanyaland, High Clouds, Echowave Magazine, The Revue, Hype Machine and a list of others. The track also landed on a number of YouTube channels including David Dean Burkhart‘s. Nice Guys‘ and Birp.fm, as well as Spotify playlists like Undercurrents, All New Indie and Fresh Finds. Additionally, Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson featured the track. None of this should be surprising: the track sonically recalls In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy and Soft Metals‘ Lenses –but with a mischievously coquettish air that makes it a club friendly banger.

The Andrew VanWyngarden-produced and cowritten “Modmed” is a glittering and strutting disco-tinged track, centered around wobbling low end, glistening synth arpeggios and a sinuous bass line and a soaring hook. While drawing from 80s New Wave and classic house music, the track interestingly enough, is deceptively and ironically upbeat: the track actually captures the ambivalent and confusing mix of frustration, doubt and relief of a relationship that’s finally come to a conclusion. In particular, the song actually describes Prebish’s and Holler’s decision to leave Barrie and focus on Psymon Spine full-time.

“Psymon Spine invited me into the studio one winter’s day and we had a fun and funky time ripping Juno basslines and dialing in lush tones,” Andrew VanWyngarden recalls in press notes. “I like that their dj and record digging knowledge comes through distinctly on this track.”

Directed by the band and edited by Noah Prebish, the recently released video for “Modmed” is a delirious and playful lo-fi visual in which we see the members of the band goofing off and rocking out to the song in a variety of situations. This is split with footage of the members of the band actually performing the song. It’s all run through trippy filters and VHS-styled graininess, which also helps enhance the track’s retro-futuristic vibe.