Category: Indie Electro Pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: ALYA Teams Up with Bhramabull on a Slick Banger

Bhramabull is an enigmatic, emerging hip-hop producer, who can trace the origins of his career back to being a fervent fan of hip-hop and hip-hop culture. Inspired by the genre’s beloved pioneers, the emerging underground producer developed and honed a gritty, hard-hitting boom bap-inspired sound with a fresh and edgy twist, fueled by an unyielding passion for crafting raw, authentic beats.

ALYA‘s latest single, the Bharamabull-produced “Crazy.Trap” feat. ALYA is a heady mix of meets-boom-bap-meets trap that’s a remarkably accessible and slickly produced bed for ALYA’s slightly processed and sultry, pop starlet delivery paired with some incredibly catchy hooks. The result is a headbanger that brings back memories of Timbaland — but with a subtly modern take.

Directed by Alya Michelson, Tim Carmon and Dilia Alshina, the recently released video for “Crazy.Trap” prominently features a rubber room: We see ALYA put her hands onto her desk top — and then suddenly her world becomes irrevocably changed. We then see her in a rubber room with a late 70s-early 80s computer, expressively dancing to the song. We also see a lone dancer in the room, dancing. Where do the worlds of tech and the human begin? Where do they end?

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Alex Paradoxe Shares Club Friendly “T.U.E.R.”

Alex Paradoxe is a queer, Brussels-based artist who pairs defiant protest-fueled lyrics with a sound that draws from electro pop, pop and rock. His latest single “T.U.E.R.” is a dark yet club friendly industrial-inspired, club banger built around tweeter and woofer rattling thump, woozy synth oscillations, big bass drops, buzzing guitars paired with sultrily delivered vocals.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Kai Tak Teams Up With Dol Ikara on Brooding and Shimmering “Blush”

Born in Hong Kong and adopted by American parents, who worked at a camp for Vietnamese refugees seeking opportunity in the city nicknamed the Pearl of the Orient, the Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Chris King may be best known for his work in Cold Showers and his production work for a list of artists that include Tamaryn, House of Harm and Fearing.

Led by King, the Los Angeles-based collective Kai Tak derives its name from the now-retired Hong Kong airport, famously known for its harrowing approach just above and through the city’s skyscrapers. Founded during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when King started to write songs as a vehicle for connecting with his own unconventional roots and as a platform for collaboration with the numerous musical friends made from his lengthy career as a producer and engineer. Operating without any deadlines or creative constraints allowed King to use and explore every technique he had learned over the years, incorporating re-sampling, drastic pitch shifting, time-stretching, liberal use of tape delay, recording live drums with MIDI drum triggers, and creating his own sample-based synthesizers using found sounds recorded during various trips to Hong Kong.Sonically King and company specialize in sculpting moody soundscapes that draw inspiration from shoegaze, trip hop and electronica.

Back in December 2022, King assembled a live lineup and within a year, Kai Tak has opened for Blonde Redhead, Tamaryn and Public Memory. The collective has plans to tour in support of their full-length debut, which is slated for a June 2024 release through á La Carte Records.

Coming off the heels of the album’s first two singles, “Jalen Rose,” feat. Draag and “Villains In My Mind,” feat. Foie Gras, the album’s third and latest single “Blush” featured Dol Ikara‘s Claire Roddy, a collaboration that can be traced back to when the two artists were paid together by chance for a live show. Built around a brooding and cinematic arrangement that — to my ears — sounds like a synthesis of Massive Attack and Cocteau Twins with skittering boom bap paired with looping and glistening strings and swirling sheogazer textured synths serving as a lush bed for Roddy’s soulful, smoky croon.

“Chris came to me with this transportive instrumental while I was dealing with a bit of a writer’s block,” Roddy explains. “These lyrics are an ode to that very moment of inspiration where suddenly feelings, words, and melodies spring right out from the drought, as instantly and vulnerably as a blush.”

“When Claire explained the meaning behind her lyrics, I almost couldn’t believe it,” Kai Tak’s Chris King explains. “The music also came to me during a bout of writer’s block, which was broken by one of my old tried and true methods – watching a visually stunning movie on mute and composing music inspired by the imagery.  In the case of ‘Blush,’ the inspiration was Fallen Angels, which has always made me feel like I’m permanently suspended in the most beautiful fever dream.” 

Kai Tak will be performing at Lunar New Year themed show on February 10, 2024 at Los Angeles’ Genghis Cohen that will feature bands with at least one Asian member. Fittingly. there will be some Lunar New Year traditions — every attendee will receive a Lucky Red Envelope with various prizes inside. The night’s DJ will play a mix of tradition Chinese music and contemporary tunes. It’s an event that Kai Tak’s Chris King hopes to turn into an annual tradition.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Formwandla Shares Club Friendly, Brazilian Bass Remix of “Te encontrar”

Formwandla is a rising Brazilian-born, German-based electronic producer. Late last year, he released “Te encontrar,” a collaboration with Rio de Janeiro-based singer/songwriter Isabela Silvino, which was also his second song featured lyrics sung in his native Brazilian Portuguese.

“Te encontrar” was a radio friendly yet club rocking production with glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless motorik groove paired with Silvino’s melancholy and yearning delivery. To my ears, “Te encontrar” managed to sound like a sleek, hook-driven synthesis of The Weeknd and Euro pop 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.”

The Brazilian-born, German-based producer begins 2024 with a remix of “Te Encontrar.” Dubbed “Brazilian Bass Remix,” the remix pairs Isabella Silvano’s melancholy and yearning delivery with an even clubbier, deep house-meets Euro dance-inspired production featuring glistening synths and synth oscillations and thumping beats and enormous bass drops. The remix reveals that Silvano’s vocal can work with just about any style of electronic music.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: N’Faly Kouyaté Shares Breezy, Genre-Defying “Premiers Pas”

Guinean-born, Belgian-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist N’Faly Kouyaté has had a long-held interest in bridging the distinct worlds he inhabited mos too his life: the ancient and the modern, his native Africa and the West. Growing up, Kouyaté received a rigorous and traditional Guinean musical education. When he later relocated to Belgium, he received traditional Western conservatory training.

Throughout his lengthy career, Kouyaté has collaborated with an eclectic and diverse array of internationally acclaimed artists across a wide range of styles and genres, including Peter Gabriel, William Kentridge, Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, Ray Phiri and others. But by far, the Guinean-born, Belgian-based artist may be best known for his work with the Grammy Award-nominated, groundbreaking, genre-defying outfit Afro Celt Sound System. 

Kouyaté’s solo debut reportedly sees the acclaimed Guinean-born, Belgian-based artist creating and developing a new genre which he dubbed Afrotonix, which seems him pairing polyphony, electronic production and traditional African instruments like the kora, the balafon and regional percussion instruments.

The Guinean-born, Belgian-based artist’s latest single “Premiers Pas” is a slickly produced, breezy, hook-driven bit of pop featuring atmospheric synths paired with twinkling kora, a supple yet propulsive bass line and skittering tweeter and woofer rattling beats with Kouyaté’s plaintive delivery singing lyrics in Malinké and French. While being club and lounge friendly, the song is rooted in several powerful and urgent messages with the song being a cry for African autonomy without colonial influence, but the song also seeks and demands a more equitable world for all, as Kouyaté also calls out abuse in both the workplace and domestic spheres.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Cisco Bluff is an emerging Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His second single, which also is the first official single off his forthcoming EP “Second Sight” is a slickly produced and funky 80s-inspired synth pop track built around glistening synth arpeggios, lush synth pads, a sinuous bass line and skittering beats paired with Bluff’s melancholy and yearning delivery and an uncanny sense of catchy hooks.

While sonically “Second Sight” reminds me a bit of Rush Midnight, St. Lucia, and others, the song as Bluff explains “essentially began as a ballad about sexual desire. It’s about falling into rapture, fantasy taking hold and being pulled into a hypnotic state of longing.”

“The song was originally written on guitar and later arranged around a rhythm I had programmed on my Oberheim DX drum machine, the same one used on many 80s classics,” the Los Angeles-based artist adds. “What you hear in the song is that original hardware. Everything else came together around that beat, which I immediately knew wanted big arpeggiated synth bass and lush pads.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: San Diego’s Crystal Night Shares Swooning “Julia”

Crystal Nights is an emerging and mysterious San Diego-based indie electro pop project. The Southern California-based project’s debut single “Julia” is a lush and swooning bit of nostalgia-inducing, 80s inspired pop featuring glistening synths, wobbling bass synths paired with yearning and ethereal vocals and soaring hooks. “Julia” is the sort of tears falling while you’re on the dance floor song that will take a hold of your broken and bruised heart.

The accompanying visuals are taken from the night out in Tokyo scene from Lost in Translation.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sun Moon Sky Shares Cinematic “Into The Light”

Sun Moon Sky is a British-Swedish duo — Jenny (vocals) and Joe (production) — that can trace their history back some time: They’ve worked together for years with each other and in other projects, including a project that ended up on a label, touring and with material on soundtracks, while landing a Top 10 hit before calling it a day after complications and drama.

For the British-Swedish duo, Sun Moon Sky is a creative reset, in which they craft music that they describe as sad-but-hopeful, cinematic-yet-intimate pop that’s a island of empathy and escapism for these complicated times — both for themselves and for listeners. Sonically, the duo creates epic soundscapes that sees them pairing analog synths, programmed arpeggios, live instrumentation, drum machines and Jenny’s blues-influenced vocals. They describe their sound as seemingly existing in the space between several different genres and styles, and note that some have dubbed their sound art pop, apocapop, alt rock, electronica, sci-fi blues and more. 

Late last year, I wrote about the swooning “State of Grace,” an intimate yet cinematic bit of pop featuring twinkling keys, buzzing power chords, skittering four-on-the-floor paired with Jenny’s expressive delivery and the duo’s penchant for crating rousingly anthemic hooks that at points seemingly nodded at Eurythmics “Here Comes The Rain Again” and “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” and Michael Jackson‘s “Beat It.”

The duo begin 2024 with the slow-burning and dramatic “Into The Light.” Built around gated reverb-soaked drum beats, Jenny’s gently vocodered vocals, lush layers of atmospheric synths and bursts of bluesy guitar, “Into The Light,” continues a run of shimmering and cinematic material rooted in earnest, heart-worn-on-sleeve intimacy that recalls Kate Bush and others.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Radiant Baby Shares Slinky “Mort de Rire”

Félix Mongeon is a Montréal-based singer/songwriter, musician, producer and creative mastermind behind Radiant Baby. Mongeon’s Radiant Baby debut EP It’s My Party caught the attention of Lisbon Lux, who signed him and then released the Montréaler’s 2019 full-length debut, Restless. Restless saw Mongeon creating a sound that meshes crisp electronic sounds with organic instrumentation to convey a more mature and dynamic aesthetic.

Since the release of Restless, the French-Canadian artist has very busy: He has made the rounds of the provincial and national festival circuit, with sets at Festival Pop Montréal, M pour Montréal, Festival Mode et Design, Picnik Électronik, Festival Fringe de Montréal, Santa Teresa Fest and Canadian Music Week. He also played at New Colossus Festival.

2021 saw the release of Mongeon’s sophomore Radiant Baby album, Pantomime, which was followed up with a deluxe edition of Pantomime (Deluxe) last year.

The French Canadian artist starts 2024 with “Mort de Rire,” the third single from his forthcoming third album slated for a summer 2024 release. “Mort de Rire,” is a slinky bit of synth-driven New Wave-like funk paired with Mongeon’s dreamy falsetto that sounds as though it could have been released sometime between the late 1970s and early 1980s. The song, as the rising Canadian artist explains inspects the twists and turns of our darkest sides — without taking itself too seriously.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Ghostly Kisses Share Spectral “On & Off”

Québec City-based indie pop outfit Ghostly Kisses — singer/songwriter Margaux Sauvé and Louis-Étienne — derives its name from William Faulkner’s “Une ballade des dames perdues,” which seemed to Sauvé like the perfect reflection of her ethereal voice.

With the release of their acclaimed full-length debut, Heaven, Wait, the French Canadian pop outfit received attention both nationally and internationally for crafting hauntingly gorgeous and spectral electro pop that pairs her ethereal delivery with moody productions featuring swirling and ambient electronics, twinkling keys and propulsive drumming.

After touring with Ry X, Men I Trust, Lord Huron, and Pomme, the Québec City-based outfit launched their “Box of Secrets” initiative, which gave their fans an anonymous place to share their most deeply personal thoughts. What the duo quickly discovered a global, post-pandemic, postmodern era of pain — an intense and strange loneliness felt around the world. The duo synthesized those missives into their highly-anticipated sophomore album Darkroom.

Slated for a May 17, 2024 release through Akira Records, Darkroom sees the acclaimed Canadian duo willing those inner monologues they received into view, tears falling on the dance floor, but to find mystic connection in the darkest, electronic corners. The duo’s writing style reflects their ability to bridge the gap between people, who may feel far away. Typically, Sauvé and Santais would each set up in a different room, sharing snippets via email and only meeting up to finalize ideas. “Writing separately ensures we’re not influenced by anything else, and we can bring more depth to our process,” Sauvé explains.

For Darkroom, the Box of Secrets project provided an unusual baseline for the material’s influence, rather than just their own individual experiences. After compiling demos, the duo brought in new collaborators to further bolster their new electronic palette: co-producers George FitzGerald and Oli Bayston. Longtime engineer and Santais’ cousin Alex Ouzlileau further shaped the album in the studio and Gabriel Desjardins’ string arrangements also help to add depth and drama to the overall proceedings.

Unlike their previously released material, the duo tested the material while touring, a new step in their creative process that also served as portal into connecting more with their music and their fans.

Darkroom‘s lead single “On & Off” is a looping and hook-driven, spectral pop song built around Sauvé’s ethereal yet expressive delivery, glistening synths and squiggling bursts of funk guitar that evokes the tumult of an inconsistent, confusing and complex love. The track “depicts a complex and tumultuous cyclical relationship where two people constantly break off and get back together,” Ghostly Kissses’ Margaux Sauvé explains. “The lyrics draw inspiration from a revelation in the ‘Box of Secrets,” which was the conceptual inspiration behind our new album.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Pill Couple Share An Anthemic Banger

Pill Couple is a Vietnamese-based electronic duo, with members who grew up in the US and Russia, who have been friends since school. The duo’s sound sees them experimenting and meshing different genres and styles including dream pop, dark wave, synth wave, psychedelia and hip-hop rooted in melodicism, emotive vocals and heart-worn-on-sleeve lyrics that thematically focuses on sorrow and hope.

The duo’s latest single “Violetize” is a slickly produced bit of synthwave/darkwave featuring buzzing synth oscillations, glistening synths, industrial clang and clatter, tweeter and woofer rattling thump and Nik’s expressive delivery paired with rousingly anthemic hooks and chorus. The result is a song that pairs pop craft with modern production and earnest lyrics.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Mawzy Shares Hazy and Introspective “Better Man”

Toronto-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Matthew Cooke is the creative mastermind behind the emerging indie pop project Mawzy. And with the project’s debut EP Escapism and full-length debut, last year’s Long View, Cooke quickly developed an approach that sees him penning lyrics that capture the “unnavigability” of life and romance in his hometown paired with lush synths and crafted melodies.