Category: Indie Electro Pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays H2SO4 Return with a Slick Club Banger

Over the past 12-15 minutes or so, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering British electronic outfit and JOVM mainstays H2SO4. Last year was among the busiest years for the British outfit as they released a batch of slickly produced club bangers.

They began the year with “Outsiders (BassBears Mix),” a sleek, Balearic house-like banger built around glistening synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rattling beats, enormous bass drops and euphoria-inducing hooks paired with sultrily delivered vocal sample fed through a bit of distortion. This one sounds as though it would rock clubs at Ibiza on any given night.

Continuing a rather prolific period for the British outfit, their latest single “Following The Line,” a slick yet accessible deep house banger that wouldn’t sound out of place at Avant Gardner or Ibiza while subtly channeling Tweekend-era The Crystal Method and Come With Us-era The Chemical Brothers.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Queens’ ANI Shares Flirty and Summery Bop “Miss U”

Ani Djirdjirian is an emerging, Queens-born and-based, queer Armenian-American singer/songwriter, best known as ANI. Despite her training as a classical musician and vocalist, the Queens-born and-based artist’s work sees her seamlessly meshing elements of soul, pop, R&B and electronic music paired with earnest lyricism informed by her studies in social work and her desire for her work to be a conduit for listeners to explore their own emotions, embark on journeys of healing and rise above the limitations imposed by archaic perspectives.

For the Queens-born and-based Djirdjirian, she hopes to break down barriers and redefine norms of self-expression and resilience within both the music industry and Middle Eastern culture.

Released last month, Djirdjirian’s debut single “Miss U” is a slickly produced bit of thoughtful and coquettish Quiet Storm-inspired pop built around glistening synths, finger snap-led percussion, a supple yet subtle bass line and bursts of funk guitar paired with the Queens-born artist’s yearning delivery and a remarkably catchy, two-step inducing hook. Simply put, it’s the perfect song to play when you want to tell that love interest of yours how you feel — without being cringey. The song also reveals a budding superstar talent with an effortlessly soulful and dynamic range.

Shot at Rockaway Beach during Golden Hour, the accompanying video begins with the Queens-born artist sitting in a chair on the shore. She’s reminiscing about someone she really digs, who can’t be there at that moment. Throughout, Djirdjirian embodies the song’s flirtatious yet earnest nature.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Le Couleur Shares Eerie and Unsettling Visual for Sultry “À la rencontre de Barbara”

Montréal-based pop outfit Le Couleur — currently founding members Laurence Giroux-Do (vocals), Patrick Gosselin (bass) and Steven Chouinard (drums) along with newest members Phillipe Beaudin (percussion, synths), Jean-Cimon Tellier (guitar) and Louis-Joseph Cliche (synths, vocals) — debuted over a decade ago with 2013’s Voyage Love EP. Since then, the Canadian outfit has released 2015’s Dolce Désir EP, their critically applauded full-length debut, 2016’s P.O.P. and 2020’s Concorde, which have seen them plumb the depths of human desire, while firmly establishing a glittery and vintage-inspired electro pop sound that draws from a varied array of influences including 70s erotica, psychedelia, disco, yéyé and French chanson.

The French Canadian pop outfit’s long-awaited third album Comme dans un penthouse is slated for a September 22, 2023 release through Lisbon Lux Records. Comme dans un penthouse is reportedly a concept album that finds the band revisiting a past album character: Barbara, the assistant, who stole her former employer’s fortune on 2016’s P.O.P. Giroux-Do was drawn back to Barbara when upon returning from the Montréal-based outfit’s most recent UK tour, she began feeling that her life was “flat, beige and pointless” and developed a “fear of falling into a routine,” while Barbara’s “search for novelty, new feelings, an addiction” was roughly the opposite.

The album will feature two singles I’ve written about so far:

  • “Sentiments nouveaux,” a sleek, slickly produced bop that to my ears sounded like a synthesis of Tame Impala, VEGA Intl. Night School-era Neon Indian and Nu Shooz.

  • “Autobahn,” a song fittingly built around a relentless motorik pulse, glistening synth arpeggios and the Montréal-based outfit’s penchant for crafting razor sharp, catchy hooks paired with Laurence Giroux-Do’s ethereal and sultry delivery. “Autobahn” reintroduces Barbara from 2016’s P.O.P. Barbara has stole her boss’ money and fled to a collection of islands off the Panamanian coast. She has been on the run for a while, and is addicted to the chase and quest for new feelings, new experiences. Or as the members of Le Couleur says “sentiments nouveaux.” Barbara’s journey ends in a catastrophic car crash; for her, the end may well be the best way out. And yet despite the dark subject matter, “Autobahn” is the sort of song meant to be played loudly while speeding on the highway.

Built around glistening Giorgio Moroder-like synth oscillations, squiggling Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar, tight four-on-the-floor, and a relentless motorik-like pulse, Comme dans un penthouse‘s latest single “À la recontre de Barbara,” manages to continue a remarkable run of sleek, retro-futuristic, dance floor friendly jams. But underneath the disco vibes is a tension that’s sultry, unnerving, irresistible while simultaneously nodding at classic spy thriller soundtracks and French chanson — thanks in part to a guest spot from Choses Sauvages‘ Standard Emmanuel.

The song’s title translates into English as “Meet Barbara,” and the song fleshes out the album’s main character, while chronicling her destructive lust for thrills.

Created by Nathan Nardin and his team at The NNS, which includes Steven Laudat and Alizée Legrain, only uses AI to an eerie, unsettling effect. Hardin and his collaborators aim to explore the icy social dynamics that such artificial universes can bring forth. Barbara’s dehumanization and the eerie coldness of the video’s computer-generated world is somehow quite fitting.

As Le Couleur put it, “In the heart of a glittering metropolis, a pair of shoes triggers an enigmatic quest for an elusive figure. Guided by urban lights, a traveler explores a nocturnal stroll, awakening lost memories and forgotten dreams. As secrets converge, Barbara’s mysterious story unfolds, captivating the viewer between reality and illusion.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Indonesia’s Bottlesmoker Shares a Tribal and Urgent Remix of Rome in Reverse’s “Here it’s all over”

Antonella Pacifico is an Italian-born, Copenhagen-based, self-taught musician and producer, whose career started in earnest with a stint in a Rome-based post rock outfit. Pacifico relocated to Copenhagen to focus on solo music production — and in 2014 her own project, Rome in Reverse, which sees her crafting a sound with elements of melted club dance music, blissed-out trance techno, ambient dub and dreamy trip hop driven by thumping electronic beats.

Released earlier this year, “Here it’s all over” is a slow-burning and melancholy track built around glistening and atmospheric synths, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump paired with Pacifico’s yearning delivery. Last year, Pacifico toured Southeastern Asia and discovered rising Indonesian electronic music production duo Bottlesmoker.

Bottlesmoker — Angry and Noble — have created a unique, crowd-pleasing sound and approach that meshes elements of tribal beats, psychedelic vibes and pop. The Indoneisan duo have opened for an eclectic array of internationally acclaimed acts including Ladytron, Architecture in Helsinki, Porter Robinson, Tycho, M83, and Battles. They’ve also played sets across the global festival circuit with stops at Laneway Festival, Big Mountain Music Festival, Zandari Festa and others.

Pacifico was captivated by their exceptional talent and was seeking a collaborator, who could truly connect with the emotion at the core of “Here it’s all over” — and she recruited Bottlesmoker. Bottlesmoker’s remix of “Here it’s all over” pairs Pacifico’s yearning delivery in a hallucinogenic and hazy production featuring layers of tribal beats and glistening synth oscillations, giving the yearning at the core of the song a forceful immediacy.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Jenn Champion Shares Meditative “Famous”

Born Jennifer Hays, the Tucson, AZ-born, Seattle, WA-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and producer Jenn Champion can trace the origins of her music career to when she met her then-future Carissa’s Wierd bandmates Ben Bridwell and Mat Brooke at the local pizza shop, where they all worked at the time. In 1997, the trio moved to Olympia, WA for about a year, before settling in Seattle, where the trio formed Carissa’s Wierd.

The trio released three albums before splitting up in 2003 — but interestingly, the trio cultivated a rabid cult following, which has resulted in the release of three compilation albums of their work, including 2010’s They’ll Only Miss You When You’re Gone: Songs 1996-2003, which was released through Hardly Art Records.

Since Carissa’s Wierd’s breakup, Champion has moved forward with several acclaimed solo projects including the guitar and vocal-based pop project S, with which she has released four albums, including 2010’s I’m Not As Good At It As You and 2014’s Chris Walla-produced Cool Choices. While critics and fans have raved over her open-hearted and willingness to eschew conventions while crating sad songs meant to be cried to and with.

The last half of Champion’s last S album found her moving towards an electronic-based sound with album track “No One”  being a complete embrace of electronics. “I feel like a door got opened in my mind with electronic and digital music. There was a room I hadn’t explored before and I stepped in,” Champion said at the time. And although she intended to follow up Cool Choices with “a rock record — guitar, a lot of pedals, heavy riffs,” her plans had changed. “I couldn’t pull myself away from the synthesizers and I realized the record I really wanted to make was more of a cross between Drake and Billy Joel than Blue Oyster Cult.”

After the release of “No One,” Champion’s music publisher partnered her with Brian Fennell, an electronic music artist, songwriter and producer best known as  SYML and the pair co-wrote “Leave Like That,” which was featured on SYML‘s Hurt For Me EP.

Champion and Fennell hit it off so well that after Champion had written the demos for 2018’s Silent Rider, she enlisted Fennell as a producer. Fennell agreed and then they spent the next five months working on and refining the album’s material. “In the studio with Brian, I was more open than I had ever been,” Champion recalls, and as a result the material evolved into a slickly produced collection of dance floor friendly anthems. But the album saw Champion maintaining the earnestness and vulnerable that has won her critical praise — all while imploring the listener to dance, dance, dance, dance, dance their heartache, outrage and disappointments away for a little bit.

Champion’s long-awaited third album The Last Night of Sadness is slated for an October 13, 2023 release through Gay Forever. The self-produced and self-recorded The Last Night of Sadness will remind the listener of her technical skill as a musician, but more important, it places her production process front and center. “I’ve always been able to be vulnerable in my music but with these songs and what I was feeling I wanted to keep this album pure. I was afraid that if I let it go outside of me, I’d dilute it,” Champion explains. “Sadness is in the title but this is the most confident record I’ve ever made. I took away all the places I could hide.”

When asked what it was she wanted to express with the album as a whole, Champion says “Suffering. And what a miracle it is to be heavy.” So yes, the album is heavy. But it’s also open and vulnerable the way you can only be when grieving. The album’s material sees the Seattle-based artist grappling with morality — of others, of herself and of the world in general. And yet it isn’t hopeless or joyless. There are moments of reprieve, in which you’re reminded that life is ultimately about the small joys and small victories.

The Last Night of Sadness‘ first single “Famous” is an 80s synth pop-inspired mid-tempo ballad built around glistening synth arpeggios, a poppy drum machine-driven groove paired with an incredibly catchy hook and Champion’s earnest, heartbroken delivery. At its core, is a wizened, self-aware narrator, who is coming to terms with their life — and they do so with an unvarnished, vulnerable honesty as she reflects on a rebellious youth and the gradual compromises and adjustments of adulthood. But the song is rooted in an existential dread and uncertainty that comes as you get older.

“I wanted to make a song about coming to terms with fame versus success and what it feels like to realize I have what I want,” the Seattle-based artist says. She continues, “As an artist sometimes it feels like fame and success are used interchangeably and over the course of my career in music I’ve seen how fame can bring with it all this money and opportunity but is also a gilded cage. This song is one that just came to me on a run one morning as I looked out over the city and I had to pull out my phone and start writing. I’ve gone through a reset of my priorities in the last few years and this song and this album are about the journey through existential dread that has me where I am now.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Alex Paris Shares an Infectious and Summery Bop

Alex Paris is a Houston-born singer/songwriter. He located to Los Angeles for college and upon his graduation, he began releasing material independently last year.

The Houston-born singer/songwriter recently relocated to Brooklyn. And since moving to Brooklyn, he has been inspired by the city’s house, tech house and deep house scenes.

Paris’ latest single “Feel” is a fun, summery bop that’s simultaneously lounge and dance floor friendly: The Houston-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s plaintive delivery ethereally floats over a sleek production featuring glistening synth arpeggios and thumping beats.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Denmark’s Ani Even Shares Woozy “Timewine”

Mysterious, Danish electronic music artist Ani Even is a self-described “electro cave/rave/chantcore artist.” Late last year, the mysterious Danish artist shared “The Nearest Star,” a slow-burning, euphoric ode to the Winter Solstice featuring sampled layers of Benedictine monk-like chants, indigenous-like throat singing, Even’s plaintive vocals, thumping club friendly beats and glistening synths. The result is a mind-bending mix of rave music, drum ‘n’ bass, shoegaze and spiritual music that sounds as though it should be played at Stonehenge as part of a ritual to celebrate the solstice.

Even started the year with “Dogstar.” Deriving its title from Sirius, a star in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius, also known as the Dog Star is the brightest star in the night sky. For those in Egypt, the rising of Sirius roughly correlates to the cyclical flooding of the Nile River, while the ancient Greeks, it marked “the dog days of summer,” the hottest part of the summer. For the Polynesians, who were mostly located in the Southern hemisphere, the rising of Sirius marked the beginning of winter — and the star was used as a guiding reference while navigating the Pacific Ocean.

Centered around layers of glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless motorik groove, skittering beats paired with heavily vocodered and distorted vocals and euphoric hooks, “Dogstar” manages to sound as though it pulls from elements of Giorgio Moroder-era disco, Kraftwerk-era techno, and Little Boots-era electro pop and meshes them into a seamless, crowd-pleasing fashion. 

The Danish artist describes the song as “a journey from the melancholic to the joyous. The Sirius star (Canis Major) is sometimes reffered [sic] to as the Dogstar [sic]. A guiding light on the night’s sky, which helps you navigate through the darkness towards a brighter horizon. Follow your heart and you will find your destination.”

Ani Even’s latest single “Timewine” is slow-burning track built around woozy synth oscillations, skittering beats, the Danish artists dreamy effects-soaked vocal and soaring strings. The track is meant to evoke having a conversation with a dear one over glasses of wine — and a bit of warm, booze-soaked nostalgia.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Minneapolis’ speakeazie Shares Lush and Swooning “Love Me Wild, Love Me Crazy”

This weekend has been an extremely busy but very fun one:

  • Friday night, I caught French 79 and JOVM mainstay Brothertiger at Racket NYC.

  • Last night, I was at GlobalFest at Lincoln Center. I specifically wanted to see JOVM mainstay Juana Molina. But was thrilled to see a collection of great artists playing music from all over the place, including Native American rapper Supaman, Congolese outfit Jupiter & Okwess and Haitian rockers Ram. It was a full day and my feet and knees are paying for it.

  • Today, I’m hoping to catch Xylouris White at Union Pool‘s Summer Thunder. Much like yesterday it’s looks to be a glorious day to see live music and to drink a few beers.

But in the meantime, there’s still work to do, right? So let’s get to it.

Emerging Minneapolis-based electro pop artist speakeazie with an obsession for noir aesthetics from the 1920s. Sonically, she pairs effortlessly soulful vocals with a dreamy synth pop-driven sound.

Although the project started back in 2021, she released her full-length debut Prohibition Hippie last year. The album featured “Disintegrate,” which amassed over 70,000 streams in its first five months. Building upon a growing profile with the dream pop and synth pop scenes, the Minneapolis closed out the year with the Bootlegger’s Blood EP.

The rising Minneapolis-based artist’s latest single “Love Me Wild, Love Me Crazy” is a swooning track built around a relentless motorik pulse, strummed reverb-soaked guitar and skittering beats serving as a lush bed for speakeazie’s effortlessly soulful and yearning delivery. It’s the perfect song for dancing by yourself in your room — or for an intense makeout session.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ohio’s SUMMORE Shares Eerie and Brooding “Magic Pill”

Central Ohio-based synth pop duo SUMMORE — Julie (vocals, lyrics) and Justin (synths, production) specialize in a a brooding and hypnotic sound: Their brighter sounds are often laced with hidden meanings and darker interpretations just beneath the surface. Their darkest and most bleak material often have brief moments of optimism that help to create an emotional balance that opens them up to a state of meditation, self-reflection and healing.

Last September, after playing a packed house at an intimate venue in Columbus, the duo stopped for a late night bite. As they sat parked, a drunk driver lost control, became airborne and hit them like a missile. The impact blasted the drop from one side of the parking lot to the other within a second and changed their lives — except for one constant: their love and dedication for creating music.

They boldly continued. In spite of everything, including long-term injuries both physical and emotional, they found enough strength through their recovery to chronicle their harrowing personal experience on their sophomore album New Pain.

New Pain‘s latest single is the brooding and atmospheric “Magic Pill.” Featuring glistening synth oscillations, atmospheric electronics, skittering trap triplets, “Magic Pill” is an eerie soundscape built for Julie’s plaintive and ethereal vocal. The result is a song that brings Soft Metals‘ 2013 effort Lenses to mind but full of palpable unease.

Directed by the duo, the accompanying video features the duo brooding and longing for a magic pill that would take their pain — both physically and mentally — away forever.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Phil Galloni is a Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, studio engineer and producer, who has been running Voltiv Sound since 2015. His solo recording project Waverly Drive can be traced to when he turned some downtime in the studio to the project’s debut EP, last year’s Living in a Fantasy, which saw him crafting material that drew from indie rock, New Wave, indie pop and electro pop — and is perfect for driving up the coast, daydreaming and just escaping life’s absurdities.

As a solo artist his work has been covered in a number of publications including The Line of Best Fit, The 405, Clash Magazine, Post-Punk.com, Good Music Radar, Havoc Underground, We Write About Music and more.

Building upon a growing profile, Gallini’s sophomore Waverly Drive EP Now I Know is slated for release Friday. While Living in a Fantasy was a carefree and uptempo batch of songs, Now I Know is a matured, mid tempo follow-up that thematically questions everyday reality through the lens of escapism and surrealism and touches upon themes of love, trust, loss, class systems and more. Several studio musicians contributed to the EP including Magic Wands‘ Chris Valentine, Miguel‘s, Mayer Hawthorne‘s and Grace VanderWaal’s Melissa Dougherty, Dropkick Murphy‘s and Stu Hamm‘s Halley Feaster, Chebaka’s and Allá’s Christiaan Dageforde, Stefan Ponce‘s and KO AKA Koala‘s Jess Hoover, Macy Gray‘s and Family Company‘s Alex Kynh, French Montana‘s and The Weeknd‘s Russ Mitkowski and Cameron Ljungkull.

The EP’s latest single “Mind Play” is decidedly 80s New Wave/synth pop song built around gentle layers of glistening synths, skittering beats, Galloni’s yearning vocal paired with the Chicago-born, Los Angeles producer and artist’s penchant for remarkably catchy hooks. Sonically, “Mind Play” manages to bring Human League’s “Human” and New Order to mind while being rooted in seemingly lived-in personal experience.

Galloni explains that “This song is about how much better things could be in life and love if we stopped playing games with each other.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Ian Asher’s Remix of JAIN’s Infectious, Smash Hit “Makeeba”

French-born with international pop sensation JAIN is a true international citizen: She has spent significant portions of her live in the United Arab Emirates and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her full-length debut 2016’s Zanaka quickly put her on the global pop map: The album sold over one-million copies worldwide, with singles “Come” and “Makeba” climbing the charts. Adding to a growing profile, the accompanying video for “Makeba” led to the French-born pop earning artist her first Grammy Award nomination for Best Music Video.

JAIN’s sophomore album, 2018’s Souldier reached #1 on the French charts, with the album achieving double platinum status, while album single “Alright” was certified diamond. That same year, Rolling Stone named the French-born pop artist, “An Artist You Need To Know.”

The French pop star has played over 300 shows in 15 countries across the European Union, North America, South America and Asia, as well as the rounds of the global festival circuit with sets at Coachella and Lollapalooza. She has also performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Later . . . with Jools Holland, the 2018 Ryder Cup and the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Her highly-anticipated third album The Fool was released earlier this year through Columbia/Sony Music France. The album serves as a new chapter for the French-born pop sensation. Thematically, the album chronicles the stages one goes through whenever they make a fresh start — fear, excitement, innocent, self-doubt/doubt, letting go, epiphany and more. And while her perviously released work saw her effortlessly meshing a myriad collection of genres, styles and instrumentation including Arabic percussion, African rhythms, electro pop, reggae, soul and hip-hop, The Fool is a decided change in sonic direction with the material drawing from Kate Bush and Stevie Nicks. 

Recently, the French pop sensation’s hit “Makeba” has gone viral globally. I’ve seen at least three different Instagram reels today that have mentioned the song. And understandably, artists and producers from across the globe have shared their own takes on the smash hit single, including American producer Ian Asher. Asher’s remix retains JAIN’s coquettish delivery and the song’s incredibly catchy hook but while stepping up the tempo quite a bit — creating a subtle yet breezy house meets footwork take.

The Ian Asher remix serves a reminder of why the song has become so wildly popular a few years after its release — it has a hook that you can’t get out of your brain, no matter what you do.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Houis Teams Up with Couch Prints on a Dreamy And Bittersweet Breakup Song


Houis (pronounced “weece”) is French-American, New York-based multi-instrumentalist, producer and visual artist, who has developed an R&B lo-fi sound with elements of indie electro pop and indie house, influenced by Bonobo and Tom Misch. 

The New York-based multi-instrumentalist, producer and visual artist’s debut album Outgrown is slated for release this year through Berlin-based label Lekker Collective. The album reportedly depicts the full range of Houis’ influences, including UK garage inspired lo-fi instrumentals, 80s inspired indie pop, R&B and neo soul while featuring guest spots from Emmett Kai, Blush’ko and and others. 

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles:

  • “Longtemps,” a woozy, neo-soul-like instrumental built around boom bap beats, glistening keys, reverb-drenched guitars and a funky hook. The song manages to subtly nod at  J. Dilla instrumental beat tapes while evoking a desperately needed feeling of serenity in a mad, mad, mad world.

  • “Can’t Explain,” a warm, intimate and dreamlike song with a trance of bittersweet melancholy built around built around glistening Rhodes and skittering boom bap paired with Foriegnlocal.’s coquettish delivery and Ushuaia‘s blasts of fluttering guitar.

Outgrown‘s latest single “Say Enough,” a slow-burning and vibey bit of lo-fi electro pop featuring fluttering and twinkling synths, skittering 3/4 beats. New York-based pop duo Couch Prints contribute achingly tender vocals expressing the sense of regret, heartache, unease and uncertainty that comes with the end of a relationship.

“The instrumentation was  definitely the most experimental song on the album. It has a pop-like arrangement, while using a 3/4 beat (inspired by some Bonobo songs I’ve been listening to lately),” Houis explains. “The FX, fluttering synths, and vocal chops were also inspired by Mount Kimble’s live rendition of “Before I Move Off” on KEXP (one of my favorite songs for the past decade).’Say Enough’ walks the line between electronic and chillhop.”

“At its core, ‘Say Enough’ is a song about feeling empty,” the members of Couch Prints explain. “For us, some of the worst moments in life have not been about sadness, but about pure apathy”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

As a founding member of The B-52s, Cindy Wilson is a pioneer of the New Wave sound that redefined rock and pop music in the late 70s through much of the 80s. And if you love the legendary Athens, GA-based outfit as much as I do, you know that Wilson has one of the most distinct, melodic voices in rock — and that she’s known for her ability to deliver powerful emotions throughout her work.

Back in 2016, the New Wave legend stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist. Since then she has released two EPs and her full-length solo debut —  Sunrise EP and Supernatural EP and Change, which saw her collaborating with electronic musicians and producers Suny Lyons and Ryan Monahan. The collaboration with Lyons and Monahan proved to be a decided sonic departure from Wilson’s best known and beloved work that also managed to stay true to Wilson’s alt rock, punk and New Wave roots: Her world famous vocals were paired with a backdrop of dreamy and ambient, dance floor friendly music. And as a result, the material subtly continues Wilson’s long-held reputation for being behind some dance floor friendly jams while establishing herself as a singular force in her own right.

Wilson’s forthcoming sophomore album Realms is slated for an August 25, 2023 through Kill Rock Stars. Realms sees the New Wave legend continuing her collaboration with Suny Lyons and features contributions from Sterling Campbell (drums) and Maria Kindt(strings). The ten-song album reportedly her most ambitious to date, with the material inviting the listener on a journey that peels back the layers of our common humanity — and digs deep into our minds and souls. Continuing upon the contemporary, electro pop of its predecessors, the new album is rooted in carefully crafted material that reveals that the New Wave legend has her fingers on the pulse of contemporary music, while being a new chapter in her already storied career.

Last month I wrote about album single “Wait,” a song built around an atmospheric production featuring skittering beats, glistening synths and euphoria-inducing hooks paired with chopped up vocal samples serving as a lush bed for Wilson’s yearning delivery.

Realms‘ third and latest single “Delirious” is a trippy, Gary Numan-like, dance floor friendly bop built around layers of fluttering synths and a retro-futuristic, motorik groove. Wilson contributes a yearning and desperate vocal turn, evoking our wildly uncertain period. It’s arguably the most New Wave-like single, harkening back to the early days of her own career — but with a mischievously modern sensibility.

“I’m so happy that ‘Delirious’ is up to bat!” Wilson told Flood Magazine. ” It reminds me of elements of the new wave music we started out doing. I think it has the desperate vocals of the time, with a psychedelic fusion. Terrance McKenna loved ‘Private Idaho!’ Maybe he would have liked ‘Delirious!'”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Tiphanie Doucet Shares a Synth Pop cover of Julien Doré

Tiphanie Doucet is a French-born singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who currently splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. Doucet can trace her love of performing to her childhood: She was a child actor, who appeared on French TV. After earning a merit scholarship, the French-born, Los Angeles-based artist, relocated to New York, where she studied acting and musical theater at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA).

Her music career started in earnest after appearing on The Voice Canada, where she gained a wide fanbase. Her full-length debut 2018’s Simon Felice and David Baron-produced Under My Sun and 2020’s Painted Blue were released to critical applause. The five-song Painted Blue EP showcased Doucet’s sultry vocal and sophisticated imagery and featured “You and I,” which received praise from Rolling Stone France.

The French-born artist has always played covers throughout her career, and 2020’s Re-Imagined EP feature covers that she re-arranged — and the EP’s material manages to reveal the breadth of her influences. The following year, she released a virtually unrecognizable David Baron-produced cover of Lenny Kravitz‘s “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over,” which was recorded at Sun Mountain Studio.

Last year, the French artist embraced the harp and started producing her own material, including “Joe le Taxi” and “Une Love Song,” which featured bilingual lyrics paired with a pop-folk-meets-electro pop sound.

Doucet’s latest single sees her turning Julien Doré‘s dreamy M83-meets-Air-like “Paris-Seychelles” into a glistening synth-driven bop that retains the yearning of the original while being a perfect vehicle for the French artist’s sultry and coquettish delivery.

“Paris-Seychelles” will appear on Doucet’s forthcoming second collection of re-imaging covers Re-Imagined 2 EP.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: WUKASA Shares Swaggering “Party People”

With the release of their Rory McCallum and Adam Haggard co-produced debut single “Ready For It,” the Scottish indie pop outfit WUKASA exploded across the British scene and elsewhere, receiving praise and attention for a sound that has been described as blend of Glass Animals, Everything Everything, Easy Life, and HONNE. As a result, they’ve had their material appear on Spotify’s New Music Friday, Topshops‘ worldwide in-store playlist, Made In Chelsea, The Official Premier League and Love Island among others.

The Scottish outfit’s latest single “Party People” is a coolly swaggering pop confection built around tweeter and woofer rattling 808s, skittering beats, twinkling synths and dreamily delivered vocals paired with a remarkably catchy hook that’s perfect for both the dance floor and the lounge.

WUKASA explains that “Party People” lyrically characterizes that person we’ve all wanted to be at some point in our lives — the one in charge, the one in total control. The person who makes no apologies, knows they’re the best and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. “The song demands you ‘own it’ no matter how bad things get,” the Scottish outfit explains.