Category: Indie Synth Pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hang Out with Stevenage’s Local Kids in the Wistful Visuals for Saint Etienne’s “Magpie Eyes”

Comprised of founding members and childhood friends Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs along with Sarah Cracknell, the London-based indie pop trio Saint Etienne have been associated with the UK’s indie dance pop and indie dance music scenes since the release of their 1991 debut, Foxbase Alpha, an effort which established the act for uniting 90s club culture with 60s pop and other disparate influences and styles.  Interestingly enough, as the story goes, childhood friends Stanley and Wiggs were both former music journalists, who originally intended their musical project to employ the use of several different vocalists; in fact, their aforementioned debut featured the duo working with a number of vocalists including Moira Lambert and Donna Savage. However, after working with Sarah Cracknell on “Nothing Can Stop Us,” Stanley and Wiggs decided to make Cracknell the permanent vocalist; in fact, since then Cracknell has written or cowritten may of the duo’s songs throughout their eight previously released albums. 

The trio’s ninth full-length album Home Counties was produced by Young Gun Silver Fox’s Shawn Lee and features some accomplished guests including Kero Kero Bonito’s Augustus; Carwyn Ellis, who has worked with Colorama and Edwyn Collins; The Dreaming Spires’ Robin Bennett; Richard X, who has worked with Girls On Top and Black Melody and long-time collaborator Gerard Johnson, who has worked with Denim and Yes — and the album’s latest single “Magpie Eyes” will further cement the trio’s reputation for crafting infectious and breezy pop, while subtly expanding upon their sound. In particular, the single manages to subtly mesh psychedelia, 80s synth pop and New Wave and bubblegum pop in a sleek and slickly produced track; but at its core, is a sweet and wistful sincerity, along with a aching recognition that all things are fleeting. including love. 

Shot in Stevenage, UK, the Tash Tung-directed video focuses on a group of its local kids, including an uncanny bunch of young dopplegangers of the trio, spending time aimlessly hanging out and goofing off. As the band’s Pete Wiggs explained in press notes, Stevenage was once a fleeting vision of a suburban utopia and by capturing the town’s kids, including the band’s doppleganger, the idea was to capture “the ennui and bonhomie of those years when you have no idea how your life will pan out.” As a result, the video possesses a dual and paradoxical sense of the uncertainty and confusion of one’s youth and the knowledge of time rushing by before you can catch up.  The video’s director, Tash Tung adds that he’s been a longtime fan of the trio, and that “it was a great experience to work in a small team, and also with a lot of creative freedom, sing film photography and shooting docu-potraits of kids from the local area in the town centre.’ He goes on to say that one his favorite moments from the shooting was arguably one of the most serendipitous — he cast his friend Eve Mahoney to play the young doppleganger to Sarah Cracknell, when he found out that Mahoney’s uncle, Joe Dilworth was the band’s longtime photographer. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Thom Gillies and June Moon, the Montreal-based electro pop duo Exit Someone can trace their origins to when they met at a show they both played in 2015 — and the duo quickly formed a songwriting partnership, primarily based around resonant pop melodies with lyrics rooted around the essence of love and loss. Their debut EP Dry Your Eyes was released earlier this year on digital and cassette through Atelier Ciseaux Records and the EP reportedly defines a time of musical spontaneity for the duo.

Building upon the attention they’ve received for their debut EP, the duo’s full-length debut Equal Trouble is slated for release later this year, and the album’s first single “Absent Lover” consists of shimmering and wobbling cascades of synths, stuttering drum programming, sultry and tender falsetto vocals and an infectious hook — and in some way the song subtly channels early 80s Prince and 80s synth pop but with a decided lo-fi tinge. At the core of the song is an aching and uneasy longing for a lover, who’s either quite a distance away or cruelly absent right in front of you, and a result while the song is breezy and swooning, it bristles with a barely concealed bitter confusion.

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past couple of years of its seven year history, you’ve likely come across a handful of posts featuring the work of Stockholm, Sweden-based electronic music producer, electronic music artist and Labrador Records label head Johan Angergård, who’s best known for his work with Karolina Komstedt in Club 8, with Rose Suau in Djutstin and his solo recording project The Legends. Now, Club 8 Angergård’s collaboration with Komstedt has a long-held reputation for a being difficult to pigeonhole sonically or aesthetically.  The duo, which initially formed in 1995 began as a Bossa Nova-inspired act with the release of their debut effort, Nouvelle; however, their 1998 sophomore effort The Friend I Once Had, the duo went through a complete and radical change in sonic direction, with the album’s material being entirely electronic and electronic dance music-leaning. Further cementing a reputation for being musical chameleons, the duo’s next three albums, released between 2001 and 2003 were featured old school soul-leaning material.

Throughout the bulk of Club 8’s catalog, Angergård had been the taken up all production duties — until 2013’s Above the City, which had the band working with an outside producer for the first time. However, Angergård returned to producing the duo’s work with 2015’s Pleasure, an album that Karolina Komstedt explained was about “love, sex and jealousy.” And you may recall that I wrote about album singles, “Late Night” a melancholic look at a love affair that starts off passionate before eventually cooling off; “Skin,” a decadent song that channeled Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.”

2017 has been an extremely busy year for Angergård. His solo project The Legends released a solo album earlier this year, Djustin released their long-anticipated full-length debut Voyagers last month and Club 8 released their ninth, full-length effort Lost yesterday.  Lost‘s latest single, the slow-burning and moody album title track “Lost” pairs Komstedt breathily tender vocals with a production featuring chiming percussion and a chopped up and distorted vocal sample. As Komstedt explains in press notes “We’ve tried to step away from standard instrumentation and perhaps sound a little less typically western on ‘Lost.'” In fact, because of its chiming and propulsive percussion, the song possesses a hypnotic and Eastern-inspired quality reminiscent of Wolkoff‘s work with Icarus Moth — but a chilly yet sultry vibe.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially formed in Bryon Bay, Australia the members of up-and-coming synth funk/dance pop act Parcels, comprised of Patrick Hetherington, Louie Swain, Noah Hill, Jules Crommelin, and  Anatole Serret relocated to Berlin, Germany after they all graduated from high school to seriously pursue music and to hone their sound in one of the most culturally thriving and diverse cities of Europe. As soon as they relocated, the quintet quickly developed a reputation for a sound that paired slick studio production with deliberate attention to live performance, and as a result the act caught the attention of renowned Parisian electronic label Kitsune Records and the members of world famous electronic music production and artist duo Daft Punk, who caught the band play a set in Paris, and was so impressed by the Australian-born, German-based act that they decided to mentor the up-and-coming act.

Earlier this year, the members of Parcels along with the members of Daft Punk wrote and recorded their latest single “Overnight” in a secret location in Paris, and the single is a breezy, easygoing, summertime anthem that subtly reveals a careful attention to craft, as the band pairs infectious, razor sharp hooks with a sinuous bass line, Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar and shimmering arpeggio synths — and while clearly nodding at Daft Punk’s “Get Ready,” the song possesses a mischievously sensual swagger.

The Bryon Bay-born, Berlin-based members of the band are touring throughout the European Union and the UK during the year and the tour will include two Glastonbury Festival sets this weekend.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Ella Thompson and Graeme Pogson, GL is a Melbourne, Australia-based electronic music production and artist duo, who with the release of 2013’s Love Hexagon EP and their full-length debut Touch developed a reputation for specializing in a sound that’s very much a contemporary take on disco, funk, boogie, soul and house music, and as a result the Australian electronic music duo quickly earned international attention from The Guardian, i-D, The FADER, V Magazine, XLR8R and others, as well as played sets at New Zealand’s St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival and Splore Festival while nationally they’ve opened for Nick Murphy fka Chet Faker and played a successful headlining national tour to support their full-length debut.

Building upon a growing national and international profile, which resulted in a busy touring schedule, the duo locked themselves away in the studio to write and record the double A-sided single “Destiny”/”Reflect,” and as the duo explain “‘Reflect’ is an extended jam we made at TFS Studio in North Fitzroy, Melbourne. We wanted to try a long form exploration piece. Listen out for the delightful keyboard solo by Harvey Sutherland! Lyrically, it’s about searching inward, when the outside gets a bit much.” Interestingly enough, the song while being decidedly introspective manages to be joyous, suggesting that searching inward can be a profound solace in a cruel world or as George Clinton once wisely sung “The kingdom of heaven is within.” Of course, sonically, the song will further cement the duo’s reputation for crafting a sound that draws so much  from 80s and 90s house music and 80s synth soul that it brings to mind The Whispers “It’s A Love Thing,” “And The Beat Goes On,” and “Rock Steady,” Evelyn “Champagne” King’s “Love Come Down” and Cherelle‘s “Saturday Love” as Pogson pairs a production featuring layers of shimmering and cascading synths, a sinuous bass line, tribal drumming, bursts of shimmering keys and a soaring hook with Thompson’s self-assured vocals. Simply put, it’s arguably one of the most DJ-leaning, club rocking tracks I’ve written about in several months; in fact, if I were DJ’ing, I’d make sure to fit this one into a set.

 

 

 

 

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sultry and Sensual Sounds and Visuals of Anna of the North’s Latest Single “Lovers”

Comprised of the Gjøvik, Norway-born and-based singer/songwriter and musician Anna Lotterud and New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based producer Brady Daniell-Smith, the Norwegian/New Zealand-Australian indie electro pop duo Anna of the North can trace its origin back to 2012. As the story goes, Lotterud was working in a shop in her small town near Oslo, and was settling down with her first love, anticipating a life of routine, normality and banality when a customer came in and changed her life. Polite and well groomed, this stranger began making daily visits, browsing for hours but never buy-in anything. One afternoon, the woman suddenly approached Lotterud and implored her to abandoned the traditional life she had planned out, and go and expand her horizons. The plea jolted something in Lotterud and in an act of rather uncharacteristic spontaneity, she booked a flight to Australia, leaving her life and her partner behind. 

The time Lotterud spent in Australia was personally fulfilling but also incredibly turbulent. She fell in love again, only to have her heart broken as suddenly and inexplicably as her decision to leave Norway in the first place. Around that time, she met her future producer and collaborator Brady Daniell-Smith. At the time, Smith who was also struggling with his own complicated relationships, was performing as an acoustic singer/songwriter in Melbourne, and in a serendipitous moment, Lotterud had caught Smith performing while she was friends. Interestingly, Lotterud and Smith then quickly became friends, with Smith encouraging his new friend to find solace in songwriting — and that by making music they could exorcise the ghosts of their past love lives. The project’s name actually came from a joke — Smith jokingly referred to Lotterud as “Anna of the North” and the name stuck. 

The release of their debut single “Sway” three years ago began an incredible run of attention grabbing singles that have received over 60 million streams across every streaming service, multiple number 1 spots on Hype Machine’s charts and rotation on BBC Radio 1, Triple J and  Beats 1 — and in many ways that shouldn’t be surprising as the duo’s sound pairs brooding, icy minimalism with bright, buoyant and radio friendly/dance floor friendly production. 

The duo’s highly-anticipated full length effort Lovers is slated for release on September 8, 2017 and reportedly the album’s material focuses on a subject familiar to the duo and to countless others — heartbreak. And through the album’s ten tracks, the album goes through the various emotional stages people typically feel after a relationship ends, including turmoil, grief, confusion, and the tentative joy in letting yourself start moving forward. Of course, along with that there’s the recognition that knowing love, including its inevitable heartbreak is necessary and wonderful because it opens up the possibility to know love once more. 

Interestingly,  the album’s latest single, album title track “Lovers” pairs a production featuring layers of shimmering synths, buoyant almost rubbery beats and a soaring hook with Lotterud’s tender and aching vocals, expressing a desperate an urgent longing that’s frustrated and can’t be fulfilled. 

The recently released visuals for “Lovers” features Lotterud at a party by herself surrounded by couples — and in some way she’s haunted by the fact her relationship has fallen apart. As the duo explains “On a literal level, the video is about being lost at a house party and surrounded by couples when your own relationship has fallen apart. Digging deeper, it’s set in the same place as the song, that point when you feel so alone and you’re reaching out but they’re not reaching back. It’s desperate”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ibeyi Returns with Triumphant and Joyous Visuals for “Away Away”

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past three or four years, you may recall that I’ve written quite a bit about the critically applauded French-Cuban twin sibling duo, Ibeyi (pronounced ee-bey-ee). Comprised of Lisa-Kainde Diaz and Naomi Diaz, the sibling duo’s name is derived from the Yourba word for twins ibeji — and interestingly enough, the Diazes are the daughters of Anga Diaz, best known as a percussionist for the world famous Buena Vista Social Club, and for collaborating with Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez and Compay Segundo.
Anga Diaz died when the Diaz sisters were 11 and upon his death, they studied Yoruba folk songs an the cajon, an Afro-Caribbean drum, which their father had specialized in throughout most of his musical career. Interestingly, while Yoruba is a dialect primarily spoken throughout Nigeria and Benin, it’s been spoken in some fashion in Cuba since roughly the 1700s when the slave trade brought Africans to the Caribbean. And in some way, it would seem that when the Diazes started studying their father’s instrument and his musical culture, it gave them a greater understanding of him, his music and their ancestral past. And with the release of their 2015 self-titled debut, the Diaz sisters quickly gained an international profile for a sound that draws from contemporary electro pop, hip-hop, jazz, the blues, and traditional Yoruba folk music in a fashion similar to Henry Cole and the Afrobeat Collective‘s Roots Before Branches; in fact, much like Roots Before Branches, Ibeyi’s work makes a musical and deeply spiritual connection between the African Diaspora here in the West and with Africa that’s both modern and incredibly timeless.  

Now, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve last written about the Diaz sisters, but after touring to support their self-titled debut, the sisters spent the better part of 2016 writing and recording their highly-anticipated, yet still untitled sophomore effort, slated for release through XL Records later the year. And the album’s first single “Away Way” will further cement their growing reputation for pairing slick and swaggering, contemporary electronic production with the Diazes’ gorgeous harmonizing and resoundingly positive and resolute messages, complete with traditional Yoruba chanting.

As Naomi Diaz explained in an email to the folks at The FADER, the song “reflects on at time when Lisa was gazing out her window and thinking about the permanent follow of creation and destruction.” Her sister Lisa-Kainde adds “We are witnesses of the world’s craziness (which is sonically symbolized by the sirens in the track) and we wonder if the promises of better days will be kept. The chorus of ‘Away Away’ represents a burst of positive energy, us taking a conscious step towards movement and action because only the people can make good on that promise. The song culminates with a Yoruba chant for the Orisha Aggayu, a ferryman known for providing strength. Aggayu in nature ignites a violent eruption of volcanos, however, with the intention that the lava ultimately refertilizes the soil to create new life.”  Lyrically and thematically the song focuses on accepting pain as a part of life, and recognizing that it’s a necessary part of life, while celebrating life for its complicated entirety. 

Directed by Christian Beuchet, the video features the Diazes goofing off dancing, singing and immersing themselves in the song’s positive energy and throughout the entire video they radiate an infectious, mischievous joy and comfort within each other. 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

With the release of “Don’t Act Like a Stranger” and “Try To Fight” earlier this year, the San Francisco, CA-based electro pop act Cathedrals, comprised of Brodie Jenkins (vocals) and Johnny Hwin (production) have developed a reputation for crafting anthemic, swooning, 80s-inspired synth pop with a radio friendly/arena friendly vibe. And the duo’s latest single “With You” which features Jenkins gorgeous, pop star belter-like vocals paired with a production featuring strummed guitar, reverb-filled drum programming, swirling electronics and shimmering synths, will further cement their reputation for anthemic pop — with “With You” arguably being the most urgent, yet aching single they’ve released to date. As the duo explain of the song “‘With You’ is a song very special to us, especially during these times of turmoil, about finding sanctuary in the person you love. That sense of comfort and peace you find when someone ‘feels like home’ to you. It is a different mood than the last 2 singles, with a dreamier almost melancholy bent — a bit of a harken back to their first EP.”

 

 
 
Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Striking and Sensual Visuals for Ozteki’s “True Love”

Comprised of cousins Mike Sharp (vocals, guitar) and Joel Roberts (synth, percussion, programming), the London, UK-based electro pop duo Ozteki have received attention across the UK and elsewhere with the release of singles “Touch,” “Already Dead” and “Falling Out,” which revealed that the duo specializes is sleek, percussive, modern electro pop that conveys a complex and paradoxical array of emotions with an almost novelistic attention to psychological detail; in fact, the duo’s latest single “True Love” is based around facing up to the darker aspects of humanity and confronting them with non-idealistic (and selfless) love — and while being a remarkably sultry and sensual song, it simultaneously possesses an underlying swooning vulnerability and anxiousness.

Directed by Christian Cargill and Will Farrell, the recently released video features Otzeki’s Mike Sharp in an eerie and strikingly vulnerable one-take performance of the track that sees Ozteki’s frontman performing the song while lying down; throughout his strained and deeply emotional performance, Sharp’s features gradually become distorted, as a way to mirror the song’s themes — and as the duo explains, the visuals delve the viewer into a pained and revealing world of what is, in their own words, “a dark-hued hymn of love and euphoria.”  

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few years, you may have come across a couple of posts featuring the Dublin, Ireland-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and electro pop artist Sorcha Richardson. Initially relocating to the States to study, Richardson quickly developed a number of close relationships within Brooklyn’s underground electro pop/electronic music scene that wound up influencing the sonic direction of the material she had started to write and record; in fact, the Dublin-born, Brooklyn-based pop artist first caught the attention of the blogosphere with CON VOS, a musical project that received praise from Nylon, Pigeons & Planes, and Indie Shuffle.

Richardson quickly followed that up with her bedroom recorded debut EP Sleep Will Set Me Free EP, which received 200,000 Soundcloud streams and caught the attention of Crosswalk Records/Delicieuse Musique, who released the Last Train EP. Adding to a rapidly growing profile, Richardson has played sets at Northside Festival and CMJ, and several other festivals, as well as a number of headlining shows. Now, it’s been some time since I’ve personally written about the Dublin-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and pop artist, but she’s been rather busy writing and recording a number of singles that have further cemented her reputation for crafting deeply introspective pop, including her latest single, “4AM,” single in which the song’s narrator muses about her current love prospects — with recognition of two things: that if things go wrong in a prospective relationship, it’s not always your fault — and the narrator proudly recognizes that being alone is perfectly fine to want to be alone and unbothered by someone else’s baggage and bullshit. Reportedly, the song, which is by far the most brooding in Richardson’s growing catalog, finds her pairing a sparse, Dido-like arrangement of dramatic piano chords with a soaring, radio-friendly hook with a club-leaning production featuring enormous tweeter and woofer rocking beats, swooning synths and Richardson’s ethereal yet achingly earnest croon. The song manages to walk a careful tightrope between late night, lonely regret over a relationship that has gone wrong and the pride of moving forward as quickly as possible from a flaming disaster — and it’s done with an honesty that comes from personal experience.