Category: electronica

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chengdu, China’s STOLEN Shares an Industrial Banger

Formed back in 2010, STOLEN is a pioneering and award-winning, Chengdu, China-based electronica quintet that specializes in a high-energy, dance floor friendly sound that features elements of techno, darkwave and post-punk.

Since the release of their full-length debut, 2015’s Loop, the Chinese outfit has built an international profile: Through collaborations with renowned brands like Hermés, Burberry and BMW, they’ve managed to merge their unique sound with current fashion trends. And adding to a growing international profile, they opened for New Order during the British New Wave legends’ 2019 European Union tour.

The Chengdu-based outfit will be embarking on a UK tour in October. The tour will feature newly remastered old and new tracks with enhanced avant-garde VJ visual effects, which promise to be a jaw-dropping live performance. But in the meantime, their latest single “Chaos,” is a darkwave-meets-industrial club banger featuring relentless, Giorgio Moroder-like synth oscillations, glistening synth melodies, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling beats, bursts of angular and discordant, post punk guitars and rousingly enormous hooks and choruses serving as a lush and brooding bed for breathily delivered vocals.

Written, directed and edited by Formol, the accompanying video for “Chaos” is cinematically shot, black and white fever dream featuring one of the most brilliant uses of cassette tape I’ve yet to see.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: WØØLS Shares Painterly “Flooded”

Brock Woolsey is a Californian-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, electronic music artist and creative mastermind of the solo recording project WØØLS. With WØØLS, Woolsey uses a mix of acoustic and digital instruments to create a collage sound characterized by textured synths, fuzzy tones, soft pianos, heavy low end and driving drum patterns that draws from Jon Hopkins, James Blake, Tycho, Shlohmo and Weval among others.

The Canadian artist’s latest EP Santa Rosa is slated for a June 14, 2024 release through Hit the North Records. The EP’s third and final single “Flooded” is a painterly almost shoegazer-like track that opens with a symphonic-like synth melody before quickly featuring glisten synth arpeggios, skittering beats, tape saturated fuzz and twinkling keys in a song that twists, turns and morphs into different textured passages before bringing listeners back to the beginning.

“Flooded” was inspired by Woolsey’s first analog synth, a Sequential Prophet Rev 2. “I was listening to Machinedrum heavily while writing this song. The bridge is a nice break in the song. Delicate piano chords run with tape cassette saturation” says Woolsey. The track opens with a symphonic melody, eventually carrying listeners through a roller coaster of textures and passages. The bridge provides a break in the reoccurring melodies, nearly sounding like a completely different track before making a full circle, bringing listeners back to the track’s essential melodies.”

women who kick ass by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Initial Orchestra Shares Hypnotic “Dynamic Tube”

Currently splitting her time between Paris and Brussels, Sarah Chièze is a classically trained multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer, filmmaker and visual artist, who can trace her curiosity and passion for sound to growing up in a family of musicians.

Chièze started studying at the conservatory before she could actually write. But as a musical prodigy, she learned piano, flute, guitar and singing. And although piano is her preferred instrument, singing has informed her compositional approach and the thematic concern of her work — the construction of language.

When Chiéze went to college, she studied cinema and visual art, which have become important parts of both her professional and personal lives: She composes scores for film and has developed a digital graphics price that allows her to create the artwork for her releases.

Her multimedia project Initial Orchestra sees her crafting compositions that draw from a range of influences, including flamenco, prog rock and classical music among others — and pairing that with sci-fi-inspired images that invite the listener and viewer’s mind and body to freely wander.

Chièze recently released her debut EP, the six-song Resolution. The EP sees the emerging multimedia artist taking the listener on an epic journey while crafting melodies that are simultaneously euphoric and deep. Throughout the run of the EP, its six songs echo and contrast each other.

Anchored around a painterly layers of a looping and repetitive, twinkling melodic phrase that twists and turns around skittering and pulsing trap-like thump, the EP’s latest single “Dynamic Tube” is a mind-bending, cinematic bit of electronic music that channels Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Fat Dog Shares Euphoric Trance Banger “Running”

Led by Joe Love, the rapidly rising London-based electronic act Fat Dog — Love (vocals, production), Chris Hughes (keys, synths), Ben Harris (bass), Johnny Hutchinson (drums) and Morgan Wallace (keyboards and sax) — can trace its origins back to 2021, when Love decided to form a group and take the demos he’d be making as a way to keep himself during lockdown out into the world. Initially, Love had two simple rules: Fat Dog was going to be a healthy band, who looked after themselves and there would be no saxophone presence in their music. But those two simple edicts have long-since been broken.

With Hughes, Harris, Hutchinson and Wallace, Love found like-minded mavericks to help bring the dream home. “A lot of music at the moment is very cerebral and people wonʼt dance to it,” says Hughes. “Our music is the polar opposite of thinking music.” The band’s Chris Hughes should know. He was originally a fan of the band, who at that point had been making a name for themselves with a series of exhilarating and/or wonky shows across South London before he joined.

Those early gigs formed the bedrock of what the rapidly rising British outfit were all about: seizing the moment, drinking too much with the moment, going home separately from the moment, but making up with the moment again the next day. Naturally, the rising British outfit quickly developed a following — and it helped that every show across London had become a huge upgrade on the last.

There’s something far deeper going on with the band. “Thereʼs a sense of community about Fat Dog,” says Hutchinson. And after completing their first shows in the US, including a set at a taco joint, the band has quickly built up a following Stateside. Building upon the buzz in their native UK, the Londoners will tour the UK next month and November, as well as make a run of the European festival circuit, playing sets at festivals in the UK and Europe over the summer.

Amazingly, the band’s breakthrough year or so, has come as the result of only two official singles under their collective belts: “King of the Slugs” and “All The Same,”  propulsive, club rocking, industrial-inspired banger built around glistening synth arpeggios, and orchestral sample-driven hit, industrial clang and clatter paired with skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling boom bap, enormous shout along worthy hooks and a plaintive vocal delivery.

Fat Dog’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, WOOF is slated for a September 6, 2024 release through Domino Recording Co. Produced by the band’s Love, Jimmy Ford and Jimmy Robertson, WOOF‘s material is influenced by Bicep, I.R.O.K., Kamasi Washington and the Russian experimental EDM group Little Big. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the London upstarts firmly establishing music for letting go, anchored around a blend of electro punk, snarling rock, techno soundscapes, industrial electronica and rave euphoria. The sound that Fat Dog makes, according to Love is “screaming-into-a-pillow music.” He continues, “I wanted to make something ridiculous because I was so bored. I don’t like sanitized music. Even this album is sanitized compared to what’s in my head. I thought it would sound more fucked up.”

WOOF‘s latest single “Running” is a hook-driven bit of club rocking trance, built around glistening, razor sharp synth arpeggios, relentless four-on-the-floor, thumping club beats and shouted vocals. But underpinning the club friendly euphoria is a tense, paranoid unease that befits our corporate sponsored hellscape.

Directed by Stephen Agnew, the accompanying video for “Running” is a surreal, breathtakingly cinematic visual with hints to Ken Russell, Ingmar Herman and others that reveals the true origins of the cult of Fat Dog and their real leader.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: AC Grüns Shares Woozy and Hypnotic “Cosmic WiFi (Radio Free Babble On Mix)”

AC Grüns is a Pacific Northwest-based electronic music artist and producer, who has quickly established a unique sound that’s simultaneously ethereal and immersive and sees him blending house, techno and downtempo paired with crisp beats and deep bass.

His latest single, the sparse and minimalist “Cosmic WiFi (Radio Free Babble On Mix)” is a woozy and hypnotic track anchored around looping and arpeggiated bursts of analog synths and twinkling keys paired with skittering beats. Sonically seeming to channel The Chemical Brothers‘ “Star Guitar” and Kraftwerk, is a mind-bending yet accessible bit of playful experimentation with a cosmic sheen.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: ALIAS Shares Swaggering and Genre-Defying “EMPTY HEAD” with KROY and Cadence Weapon

Emmanuel Alias is a French-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, dilettante and polymath who had had a varied and rather accomplished career in music before he started his eponymous psych rock project ALIAS. 

After spending nine years studying jazz at the Darius Milhaud Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence, France, Alias relocated to Montréal in 2014. Upon his arrival in Québec, Alias landed a job at XS Music, where he worked on scores for HBO’s Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, ICI Télé’s  Une autre histoire, Hubert et Fanny and Cerebrum et Mon fils, Mariloup Wolfe’s feature film Jouliks and for a number of Cirque du Soleil productions. In 2017, Alias also worked for Musique Nomade, where he produced multidisciplinary Oji-Crie’ and Mi’gmaq artist Anachnid‘s DREAMWEAVER, which was nominated for an Association québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) Award and long-listed for the Polaris Prize. 

The French-born, Montreal-based artist also produced singles by Q-052, Annie Sama, Chances, iskwē and Beyries. And he also had a stint as the musical and stage director for Ananchid.

Along with his production and songwriting work for other artists, the French-born, Canadian-based artist has managed to have had a host of different projects to accommodate his need to explore different genres, releasing punk, hip-hop and even ambient material under different monikers, before starting his solo recording project ALIAS, a cathartic psych rock project that sees him crafting retro-tinged sons rooted in fantastical, batshit crazy, hallucinogenic tales paired with fuzzy guitars and wild tempo changes.

Alias’ sophomore ALIAS album Embrace Chaos will be released through Simone Records. Embrace Chaos will feature “CURSED” and “TRUTH OR TRUST,” a woozily euphoric bop featuring glistening synth arpeggios, whirring bas synths, relentless four-on-the-floor paired with razor sharp, incredibly catchy hooks. The result is a LCD Soundsystem-meets-Psymon Spine-like soundscape that’s roomy enough for Alias, along with fellow Montréalers Virginie B and Meggie Lennon to playfully trade neurotically self-aware and vaguely paranoid verses and hooks throughout. 

Embrace Chaos‘ third and latest single “EMPTY HEAD” sees the French-born, Canadian-based artist further establishing a genre-bending and genre-defying sound. Featuring guest spots from acclaimed Canadian emcee Cadence Weapon and KROY, the hook-driven “EMPTY HEAD” features elements of industrial electronica, hip-hop and punk rock delivered with a swaggering, in-your-face aplomb.

Directed by Gabrielle Thiffault, the accompanying video for “EMPTY HEAD” features Alias at a birthday party — or some other related gathering — with a table seated by mannequins and masked people. Throughout the French-born, Canadian artist seems to lose his mind and behaves poorly.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 68th Birthday, Peter Hook!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates former Joy Division and New Order member Peter Hook’s 68th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay LutchamaK Shares a Breakbeat-Inspired Banger

Throughout this site’s 13-plus year history, there have only been a handful of artists I’ve written about more than the wildly prolific French electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK. 2023 has seen the French JOVM mainstay continuing to be as prolific as ever: 

  • Earlier this year, he released the five-track EP Zirconium, which featured material that oscillated between several different styles and genres, including tech house, breakbeats and more. 

  • Then he followed up with the seven-song EP Let The Drums Go, which featured material that frequently meshed elements of tech house, breakbeats and electro pop. 

Late last year, the prolific French electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay released the seven-song mini album Cross My Heart, which features one tech house track and mostly downtempo material. Earlier this week, I wrote about “Pillow Talk,” the mini-album’s only tech house track, a track that nodded a bit at Trans Europe Express-like minimalism before quickly morphing into a house music banger that pairs relentless tweeter and woofer rattling thump with glistening and bubbling synths, bursts of skittering hi-hat, chopped up vocal samples and the JOVM mainstay’s penchant for enormous hooks.

Cross My Heart‘s latest single “Chill Out” is a sleek and slickly produced synthesis of drum ‘n’ bass, breakbeat, ambient electronica and downtempo house that seems like a lounge friendly take on house music.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Formwandla Teams Up with Isabela Silvino on a Melancholy Yet Club Friendly Bop

Formwandla is a rising Brazilian-born, German-based electronic pro. His latest single “Te encontrar,” a collaboration with Rio de Janeiro-based singer/songwriter Isabela Silvino marks his second song featuring lyrics sung in his native Brazilian Portuguese.

“Te encontrar” is built around a radio friendly, club rocking production featuring glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless motorik-like groove paired with Silvino’s melancholy and yearning delivery. To my ears, Formwandla’s latest single manages to sound like a sleek, hook-driven synthesis of The Weeknd and Euro pop seemingly rooted in the sort of heartache familiar to Portuguese fado.

“I had a certain feeling of longing and melancholy in my head and I wanted Isabela to simply put her feeling into words and melody,” the Brazilian-born, German-based electronic producer and artist explains. “She had very few fixed instructions from me so that she could develop freely. The result is an exciting interplay of European-influenced dance pop and Brazilian emotions.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Don Gog Shares Narcoleptic Yet Sultry “I Feel”

Don Gog is a mysterious and enigmatic Stockholm-based DJ and producer, who spent a handful of years between the late 90s and early 2000s heavily involved in Gothenburg‘s hip-hop scene, working as a DJ and producer, who worked with an array of Swedish, French and American emcees, including Jeru the Damaja, Looptroop Rockers and Astma, who’s best known for his work with NoNoNo. The mysterious Swedish producer and DJ has also worked on TV and film scores, winning a number of intentional film festival awards throughout his lengthy career.

Don Gog steps out into the spotlight as a hip-hop and electronica artist with their forthcoming EP Cybernetics, which sees the Swedish artist and producer focusing on blending music inspired by Massive Attack, Portishead Aphex Twin and others, and visuals together in a trippy fusion. By keeping the artist behind the project ambiguous, the idea is that listeners and viewers can focus more on the art, as opposed to the person behind it.

Cybernetics EP‘s latest single “I Feel Love” is narcoleptic and trippy fusion of dub and trip hop built around rubbery, tweeter and woofer rattling low end, staccato and percussive synths and skittering beats. Uma E’s sultry vocal sample singing “I Feel Love” bursts out of the haze.

“I wanted it to feel like a trip, a journey in your head,” Den Gog explains. “To mix electronica with dub and blend the two styles… the complicated thing was to find the electronica melody that would work with the dub beats… It was challenging to blend two diverse elements into a single cohesion.”

Directed by high fashion photographer and videographer Fofo Altinell, the accompanying video follows a woman painted in silver wandering through and exploring different natural environments, but its intentionally shot and edited in a way to make the viewer feel as though they were tripping while viewing it, thanks to kaleidoscopic effects and tricks of the light.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: FOLLO Shares Meditative “Nôma”

FOLLO (born Lucas Dubiez) is a 20-something video director and self-taught, emerging, electronic music producer, who can trace the origins of his music career to meeting fellow French electronic music producer Zerolex (born Jeremey Vieille). As the story goes, Vieille encouraged Dubiez to write and record his debut EP, 2021’s Lumen. 

Dubiez’s sophomore EP, last year’s Écume features five instrumental tracks inspired by French 79, Rone, The Blaze, and the films of Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and Hayao Miyazaki, including “Divine,” a cinematic yet dance floor friendly track that nodded at post apocalyptic sci-fi soundtracks.

The French producer will be releasing his third EP Sense through Odeva Publishing next year. The EP’s first single “Nôma” is a sleek and meditative composition built around a glistening, reverb-soaked, synth arpeggio-driven melody, and a relentless motorik groove paired with skittering beats. The result is a trance-induing song that manages to be simultaneously lounge and club friendly with an escapist quality.

Dubiez explains that “Nôma” “is an ode to nature, travel and escape. Its progressive melody and layers of synthesizers drowned in brilliant echoes offer a glimpse of vast landscapes and infinite expanse. There is then no limit to what the imagination can create on this soft and airy rhythm.”

Directed by the French producer, the breathtakingly beautiful, accompanying video for “Nôma” features some gorgeous natural scenes shot in lingering and longing takes before we see a hoodie wearing person looking at the expansive scenery around them.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Brazil’s Belagio Shares Vibey “Caldo È Pra Tomar”

Marcelo Altenfelder is Brazilian singer/songwriter musician and producer, who has played with Four Tet and dabbled with post-rock before starting his own band Holger back in 2006. And sine then Holger has become one of his homeland’s most influential indie rock bands.

After spending close to two decades with Holger, Altenfelder began recording a series of sparse, instrumental tracks that saw him blurring the boundaries of post-rock, dub, electronic music and ambient. The result is the acclaimed Brazilian artist’s solo recording project, Belagio.

2023 has been a busy year for the acclaimed Brazilian artist: He has released two albums Nuvem 9 and the recently released, Entradas Para Sair. Entradas Para Sair is a sonic departure from its immediate predecessor, with the album being a blend of ambient and post-rock with Altenfelder playing and recording all the instrumental parts himself, employing the use of analog instruments for an organic aesthetic.

Clocking in at a little over two minutes,. Entradas Para Sair‘s latest single “Caldo È Pra Tomar” is breezy composition built around looped handclaps, wobbling and glistening synth arpeggios and brief bursts of supple bass line before quickly evaporating into the ether. Sonically, “Caldo È Pra Tomar” brings L’Eclair and JOVM mainstays Mildlife, with the vibey composition possessing a similar lounge and club friendly groove.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Switzerland’s Djinn & Tone, Inc. Shares Brooding and Cinematic “Petit Génie”

Fribourg, Switzerland-based electronic project Djinn & Tone, Inc. can trace its origins to when its founder — Mathias and Marc — met at a super secretive and illegal gathering during the European Union’s second COVID-19 lockdown back in 2020. The pair bonded over common mutual musical interests and decided to collaborate together. Since its formation, the project has continued with Mathias as the main organizer of the project — and the current configuration features local players from the city.

The project’s latest single, the Portishead-meets-industrial electronica-meets-Pink Floyd-like “Pete Génie” is a brooding and cinematic track built around Fanny Corboz‘s yearning delivery, glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless motorik groove, industrial thump and explosive cymbal blasts from Michael Déforné. The result is a trippy yet chilled out track that will transport you to another dimension.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Berlin’s Rozarc Shares Shimmering and Minimalist “S.S.7”

Sinan Özgur Koç is a Berlin-based, Turkish electronic music producer and artist, drummer and sound engineer, best known as Rozarc. Koç has grown up with a diverse array of music influencing his own work ranging from Bjork, Amon Tobin, and Nine Inch Nails to Siouxsie and The Banshees and Kyuss among others. But as an electronic music producer and artist, his work is influenced by techno, tech-house. industrial, synth wave, downtempo, glitch and IDM while paired with sound design ideas moulded with narrative and cinematic structures. 

The Berlin-based producer and artist first emerged into the electronic music scene with his debut EP, 2019’s five-song  Odds Are Tough, which saw him quickly establishing a forward-thinking, genre and style-defying sound and approach to his productions while being remarkably harmonious. Koç’s full-length debut, last year’s 12-song Flamacue was released to quite a bit of attention with the album being showcased in FAZEmag, The Groove Cartel, The Further, Zero Music Magazine, R+, Roadie Music, Zone Nights, Electronica.org.uk, and a list of others. 

Last week, I wrote about “Sand Grains,” a track built around layers of fluttering and shimmering synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rattling thump and skittering beats that seemed like a slick synthesis of John Carpenter soundtracks, Tour de France-era Kraftwerk and Snap!‘s “Rhythm Is A Dancer” — but with a club friendly accessibility.

Album track “S.S.7” begins with a brooding introduction featuring twinkling piano that’s gradually paired with propulsive thump. Eventually, the piano is replaced with gentle layers of glistening and bubbling synths. The end result is a trippy mix of downtempo, cinematic piano and minimalist techno that nods a bit at some of the atmospheric, classically-inspired moments of Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express and others.