Category: Electro Pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Suvi is a Finnish-born, Swedish-based singer/songwriter and elecvtronic pop artist, who first emerged nationally and internationally with the release of acclaimed singles “Find You” and “Bleeding For Your Love,” which resulted in  an attention-grabbing European tour. Just as she was ready to release her full-length debut Mad at Heart, everything in her life turned upside down.

The Finnish-born, Swedish-based singer/songwriter and electro pop artist had suddenly felt ill and her mood was constantly changing. She began to lose weight and was torn — without understanding what was going on within herself. She stumbled into a black hole that she couldn’t get up from. And as a result, the album wasn’t finished and wasn’t released. “The feeling surrounding all this is very blue. So many feelings that comes to life just by thinking about this time, at the same time it almost feels like a dream from another time and place. It’s unreal. Did it really happen? Another feeling that I get when thinking about it is gratitude, and love, for everyone involved and the journey we did together, it’s shaped me a lot as a person,” Suvi says in press notes. 

Interestingly, Mad at Heart will finally be released in February 2019 and the album reportedly is a journey through love, friendship and betrayal while also being about being broken and finding the will and strength to put the pieces back together again. The album’s first single “Come Out and Play” is centered around a production consisting of a looped string sample, thumping beats, and a soaring hook paired with Suvi’s ethereal yet sultry vocals. Sonically speaking, it’s a cinematic take on trip hop that reminds me a bit of Portishead and Tales of Us-era Goldfrapp — but with a subtle Middle Eastern feel. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Throughout this site’s eight-plus year history, I’ve written quite a bit about JOVM mainstay David Alexander, an internationally renowned Malmo, Sweden-born singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, electronic producer and electronic music artist, best known for his solo electro pop/dream pop recording project Summer Heart. Over the past year, Alexander has released a single of the month series, 12 Songs of Summer, and according to the Swedish-born singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, electronic music producer and electronic music artist the series allows him to “show people what I am currently working on instead do what I was doing two years ago, which can be the case if you release an album. It’s definitely a way of challenging myself, thinking less and having more fun creating music!”

The series last single “Touch” is a woozy bit of Teddy Riley and Timbaland-era R&B influenced synth pop centered around arpeggiated keys, wobbling bass, an infectious hook and Alexander’s tender falsetto — and reportedly influenced by Toro Y Moi and Animal Collective, the new single is swooning yet dance floor friendly bit of pop that feels and sounds mischievously anachronistic, as though it could have been released in 1989, 2009 or 2019. 

Alexander will be embarking on a 16 date Stateside tour with frequent tourmate Brothertiger that will begin with a February 21, 2019 stop at The Knitting Factory. Check out the rest of the tour dates below. 

 

Tour Dates

Feb 21 Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory
Feb 22 Washington DC – Songbyrd Vinyl Lounge
Feb 23 Norfolk, VA – TBA Productions
Feb 24 Greenville, SC – Radio Room
Feb 26 Atlanta, GA – 529 bar
Feb 27 New Orleans, LA – Gasa Gasa
Feb 28 Houston, TX – Continental Club
March 1 Austin, TX – Barracuda
March 2 Dallas, TX – RBC
March 3 Tulsa, OK – Chimera Lounge
March 5 Kansas City, MO – Riot Room
March 6, Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen
March 7 Bloomington, IN – The Bishop
March 8 Columbus, OH – Spacebar
March 9 Pittsburgh, PA – Cattivo
March 10 Philadelphia, PA – PhilaMOCA

With Brothertiger

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: M.I.A. Releases a Previously Unreleased Collaboration with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann

Born Mathangi Arulpragasam, the London-based rapper, electro pop artist, singer/songwriter and activist M.I.A. is the daughter of the founder of Sri Lanka’s armed Tamil resistance. As a child, Arulpragasam and her family were forced to flee to London, where she became precocious a nd creative immigrant teenager, who her friends called Maya. As M.I.A., Arulpragasam emerged on the global stage with a mashup, cut-and-paste aesthetic that drew from Tamil politics, art school punk, hip-hop beats and the unwavering voice of burgeoning multicultural youth. 

Released earlier this year, the documentary film MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A was drawn from a never-before-seen cache of personal footage that spanned several decades of the artist’s life, offering unparalleled and intimate access of her battles with the music industry and mainstream media as she became one of the most outspoken and provocative figures in contemporary music. The film was first released on iTunes and other digital platforms here in the States, Canada and the UK — and recently, the film’s producers announced that the film will be available on digital platforms across Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Latin America, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Scandinavia, Singapore, Spain and Sweden between March and April 2019 with more countries and regions to be announced. Interestingly, on the heels of the iTunes release of the documentary, the acclaimed Sri Lankan-born, London-based electro pop artist released a previously unreleased song and music video from her archives, “Reload.” 

Originally recorded in 2004, before the release of her critically acclaimed full-length debut Galang, “Reload” was cowritten by Elastica‘s Justine Frischmann, who wrote the beats by experimenting with a Roland 505 beat machine with Arulpragasam writing the lyrics — before Arulpragasam began writing and recording as M.I.A. The song is brash, swaggering mix of thumping hip hop, electro pop, feminist art punk that’s dance floor friendly while revealing an artist, who was just about to come into her own as an artist. 

The video was shot in Justine Frischmann’s basement and features Maya with her friends Rudy, Marsha and Deborah dancing to the song. It captures a brash confidence of young women, fucking around and grooving to their favorite song, while slapping fuckbois and douchebags away. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Gender Bending Visuals of Mysterious Parisian Pop Artist Boy Bamboo

Boy Bamboo is a mysterious, up-and-coming Paris-based singer/songwriter and electro pop artist, and his latest single “Lola” finds the Parisian pop artist pairing his sultry and yearning falsetto with a stark and modern production centered around shimmering guitar chords, thumping beats and arpeggiated synths. It’s sleek and incredibly contemporary — and in a way that recalls Steven A. Clark‘s Fornication Under Consent of the King, Blood Orange and others.

The recently released video for “Lola” is arguably one of the most unique videos I’ve seen this year as it stars the Parisian artist, bending and blurring gender roles as he’s dressed in white and touching his body — but as the video progresses, something is disastrously wrong. It ends suggesting that the video’s protagonist has just had a miscarriage. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

HERO is an up-and-coming Calgary, Alberta, Canada-born, Montreal, Quebec, Canada-based electronic music producer, multi-instrumentalist and electronic music artist. With the release of “Dirty Work” and “The Juice” off his forthcoming Dirty Work EP, the Canadian electronic music artist and producer emerged into prominence both nationally and elsewhere. “Dirty Work” received praise from the likes of MTV Latin America, Complex, booooooom tv and others while, “The Juice” was featured in an episode of HBO’s Insecure; in fact, the song was so well received that they actually wrote HERO into the script, with a character referring to him as “the black Daft Punk.” 

Certainly, with “Stay the Night,” the reference to the Canadian producer and artist as “the black Daft Punk” sounds and feels incredibly fitting, as the sensual and retro-futuristic club banger recalls Homework and Discovery-era Daft Punk, as its centered around a propulsive and sensual groove, arpeggiated synths, vocoder-fed vocals and an undeniable, infectious hook. 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Afro-Caribbean Sounds of Charlotte Adigéry

Charlotte Adigéry is an up-and-coming Belgian-Martiniquais singer/songwriter and her forthcoming David and Stephen Dewaele-produced EP Zandoli is centered around storytelling, her mother’s critical lesson of rhythm’s relationship to musicality, the importance of a sense of humor in a difficult work, and more important, her ancestors musical traditions. 

The EP’s opening track and latest single is the propulsive and trance-inducing “Patenipat,” a track built around thumping, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and a chanted chorus “zandoli pa the ni pat,” a Creole mnemonic that translates into “the gecko didn’t have any legs.” (A zandoli is a commonly found lizard across the Caribbean that’s frequently found climbing the walls of homes across the region.) Interestingly, while based around contemporary electronic music production, the song draws from the Afro-Caribbean tradition, recalling rhythmic drum lines and dance routines  — with the participants moving towards a religious ecstasy.

Directed by Joaquim Bayle, the cinematically shot visuals draw from religious ceremonies with Adigéry and all of the participants driven by the propulsive rhythms of the song. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Memory Keepers is the Austin, TX-based electro-punk side project of The Sour Notes‘ Jared Boulanger and Amarah Ulghani.  The duo’s latest single is a propulsive, synth and vocoder-led cover of Brian Eno‘s “Uncle Third” that retains the original’s motorik groove — and in many ways, the original feels like pre-Autobahn-era Kraftwerk while the Memory Keepers cover feels like The Man-Machine. 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

rum•gold is a Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, who quickly emerged into the local scene with the release of two singles “Where There’s Smoke” and “Cashmere Cage” along with introductory interview on Pigeons and Planes back in June. The up-and-coming local singer/songwriter’s debut EP yaRn is slated for release next year, and to build up further buzz, rum•gold recently released the third and latest single from the EP, “Get Through.” 

Featuring a James Chatburn minimalist yet textured production consisting of a sinuous bass line, a mournful and gorgeous trumpet arrangement (played by the Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter)and thumping boom bap-like beats, “Get Through” is centered by rum•gold’s achingly tender and soulful falsetto.  Sonically speaking, the song (to my ears, at least) recalls Maxwell and Moses Sumney, complete with a deeply intimate, emotional honesty and vulnerability.  

As rum•gold says about the song in press notes, “‘Get Through’ is a self revelation. Its about finding that vice to get through a hard place, while also understanding that you wouldn’t be who you are today without going through said hardship. Its about learning to understand that contradiction is natural and if allowed can be incredibly freeing.”