Category: Indie Synth Pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Stuart Dougan is a Glasgow-born and-based singer/songwriter, who is best known in his native Scotland for fronting French Wives and Smash Williams. Dougan steps out into the limelight as a solo artist, writing and recording every single part of music on his own terms with his latest project The Quilter.

Dougan’s The Quilter debut, Bolt The Door EP is a collection of bold, alt pop songs, som eo which were written and recorded before the pandemic with others written during the initial lockdown. Interestingly, the EP follows upon last year’s immersive and cinematic visual record Dark Cloud/Grey Area, which was equal parts documentary film, live concert and album.

Bolt The Door’s latest single “The Long Weekend,” is an anthemic bit of synth pop featuring shimmering synth arpeggios, a driving groove and a euphoria-inducing hooks and fueled by nostalgia for hook-driven New Order-like dance anthems and for the things we here in the States are slowly getting back — in particular, being in the company of other sweaty and joyful humans at a summer festival and for other mundane things we’ve been deprived of for the past 15 months or so.

“This song was in part inspired by a viral clip I saw from the set of Uncut Gems where the crew had finished filming and were all dancing to ‘I Feel It Coming’ by The Weeknd.  It was just a short clip but I wanted to try and capture the palpable sense of joy that was clearly being felt at the time.  It was written during lockdown and is basically a love letter to my friends and daydreaming about getting to hang out and have fun in a post pandemic world.  I’m very aware that it’s bombastic and over the top in places but I wanted to purposely try and capture a sense of hopeful euphoria that one day, not too far from here, you’ll get to hug all your friends again.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: I M U R Releases a Sultry Pop Banger Rooted in Self-Doubt

Formed back in 2015, rising Vancouver-based indie electro pop act I M U R (pronounced I am You Are) — founding members singer/songwriter Jenny Lea and guitarist and producer Mikey J. Blige and producer/multi-instrumentalist Amine Bouzaher — have firmly established a unique sound that’s a cinematic yet sultry and catchy blend of alt R&B, avant-pop and contemporary electro pop paired with lyrics that tackle personal and often uncomfortable subjects like addiction, recovery, female sexuality, self-reflection, vulnerability and strength, partially inspired by Lea’s early, near-death experience and the strength and resiliency she gained from her recovery.

Since their formation, the act has released a growing batch of critically applauded material:

2015’s debut EP Slow Dive, which featured “Trippin’ On Feet”
2017’s full-length debut Little Death, which featured standout tracks “FFL” “Little Death” and “Breathless.” “Breathless” was featured in SyFy’s Wynonna Earp Season 2 and Freeform’s Good Trouble Season 1.
2018 saw the release of the Thirty33 EP, which featured “Miss You Hate You,” “Should Be” and “Afterglow.” All three of those tracks featured in a number of TV shows including Netflix’s Snowpiercer, Pretty Little Things, Wu Assassins and Workin’ Moms.

Adding to a rising profile, the act has amassed millions of streams globally, which has lead to the band landing on the Spotify Viral 50 Charts. They’ve won an Electronic Music Artist of the Year Award at the 2019 Western Canadian Music Awards — all while receiving critical applause across the blogosphere, including this site. Around the same time, the Canadian electro pop act managed to maintain a busy touring schedule: The act toured in India in 2018. The following year, they made the rounds of the North American festival circuit with stops at Shambala, Bass Coast, Capitol Hill Block Party and Winnipeg Jazz Fest, while playing shows in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.

2019 saw the release of two more singles “Fever” and “Lips, Tongue and Teeth,” which I managed to write about on this site. Much like countless acts across the worlds, the pandemic put their touring plans on an indefinite pause; but the act used the newfound free time to write and record their highly anticipated album My Molecules.

Slated for a June 25, 2021 release, My Molecules will reportedly be a deeply personal journey into Lea’s life, centered around a thread of undeniable realness for anyone who’s experienced love, loss, lust and everything else in between. My Molecules’ second and latest single “Sad Girls Club” further cements the band’s penchant for genre-defying yet infectious pop: sonically the song meshes skittering trap beats, Quiet Storm-like R&B and contemporary electro pop in a sleek fashion. Thematically, underneath its club friendliness, the song is one part unvarnished confessional and one part messy cry at your own party because everything is fucked up.

“Sad Girls Club” was inspired by the first month of quarantine, when all of Lea’s daily distractions ground to a halt, and a lot of her personal demons reappeared. Self-doubt, depression and addiction patterns in her life bubbled up when she felt purposeless and adrift. Writer’s block became a harsh reality. “Sad Girls Club was my break-through from the block, but also by expressing my fears in a tangible way, it helped to pull me out of the mud,” Jenny Lea says in press notes. She goes on to explain that “Sad Girls Club is about the trickery our subconscious mind plays on us when we’re feeling low. It’s about Self-deprecation, unworthiness, and being burdensome.” I M U R’s Amine Bouzaher adds “Ironically, a lot of negative thoughts combined to create an epic, dark banger, and we were able to pour all of those feelings into the production of the track. It’s always amazing to see what incredible art and positivity can come from channeling negative thoughts and feelings.” The Canadian act’s Mikey J. Blige encapsulates the overall vibe of the song, by saying “It’s ok at any age to feel like an emo kid that loves pop music AND trap music.” 

Directed and edited by Sterling Larose, the glitchy visual features Lea laying an iron on herself and at other points wearing roughly 80 pound boat chains to symbolize the emotional weight and heaviness of doubt, depression and addition can have on a person. The tattoo that she gets the video is a real tattoo and the footage of her in the shower was part of an hour-long shower she took after. “I think it was the heaviness that sometimes comes along with being real and being honest,” Lea says. “Just because you’re being honest doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be a happy ending Disney princess movie.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Acclaimed Canadian Multimedia Artist Sook-Yin Lee Releases a Euphoric and Playful Banger

Sook-Yin Lee is a award-winning Canadian filmmaker, musician, actor, visual artist and broadcaster, who has immersed herself in myriad creative collaborations across a wide array of media. Many of those collaborations were made with her life partner and frequent co-creator Adam Litovitz, including their 2015 electroacoustic album jooj.

While financial difficulties and external pressures contributed to the end of their romantic relationship, Lee and Litovitz remained best friends and creative partners, eventually continuing to work on the material that would eventually comprise their sophomore album together jooj two. As he was busy working on a soundtrack for Netflix, Litovitz gave Lee his blessing to continue working on their second album without him. Increasingly, Litovitz struggled with anxiety and depression, compounded by a prescription drug dependency that exacerbated insomnia and pain. Tragically, Litovitz committed suicide on July 16, 2019.

Litovtiz’s death’s a profound loss for Lee — and for those who loved him. As it turned out, Lee saw pieces of Litovitz’s irrepressible spirit — as well as the story of their relationship — contained within jooj two’s material, and was determined to share it with the world. With the assistance of Steve Chahley, Lee finished the album, which was released last month through Mint Records.

Despite the tragic circumstances that surround its completion, jooj two is a celebration of life — especially Litovtiz’s. Much like its predecessor, jooj two’s material its centered around the duo’s life-long love of pop music and playful experimentalism. Interestingly, the album features songs that tap into moments across pop’s vast history paired with a unique songwriting approach that initially came about when Lee responded to a musical phrase with vocal melodies and stream of consciousness lyrics. Litovitz transcribed and interpreted this experiments and retuned them to Lee, who would further refine them. The end result is an album that evokes the feeling of being thrown into the shorthand created between those who intimately know each other.

jooj two’s latest single “Ship It Out” is a euphoric and playful dance floor friendly banger featuring buzzing synth arpeggios, thumping beats, an insistent, motorik-like groove, bursts of cowbell and syrupy, stream-of-consciousness delivered lyrics. Sonically the track — to my ears, at least — manages to recall a slick, hook-driven synthesis of Lipps, Inc.’s 1979 smash-hit “Funky Town,” Kraftwerk’s “The Man Machine” and Giorgio Moroder’s Munich Machine. Personally, if the song doesn’t make you get up and start dancing, there’s something wrong deep in your soul. “When Adam and I made ‘Ship It Out” it made us laugh hard and of course dance!” Sook-Yin Lee recalled in press notes. “I have no idea where the syrupy vocal chorus bubbled up from inside of me… but I’m glad it did!”

Directed by Lee and Dylan Gamble, the recently released video follows an Earthling protagonist — played by lee — as she stumbles upon a curious, interstellar traveler, who engages her sense of curiosity and wonder. Fittingly, the interstellar traveler and our Earthling protagonist initially communicate through dancing. Eventually. the traveller reveals the secrets of the Universe to her, and it includes an urgent warning about the fate of the world she inhabits. Maybe we all need to heed that warning, huh?

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their Joshua Van Tassel-produced sophomore album, 2018’s Ms. Behave, the Canadian folk trio Rosie & the Riveters — Farideh (pronounced fair-i-day) Olsen, Allyson Reigh and Alexis Normand — achieved success on both sides of the border. The album was released to critical praise from the likes of Rolling Stone Country, No Depression, Parade Magazine and PopMatters. And the album was a commercial success: the album remained in the top 10 US folk music characters for 17 weeks and peaked at #3 on the CBC Radio 2 Top 20.

Despite their achievements, Rosie & the Riveters’ Farideh Olsen was burnt out and in desperate need of a significant change: the combination of long days of touring and sleepless nights caring for her then-infant daughter led to a decline in her physical and mental health. Additionally, she had developed an intense case of motion sickness, which made touring even more unbearable. As the story goes, as she was about to embark on a 10 week tour away from her daughter for the first time, she needed a hobby or something that would occupy her time — and not make her sick while passing the time. Olsen settled on meditation and became obsessed: fifteen minutes quickly grew to an hour, then to three hours.

When the tour ended and she returned home, Olsen continued meditating — often 3 hours a day — and started noticing big changes in her health, happiness and creativity. Interestingly, her interest in meditation eventually expanded into an obsession with quantum physics. After spending several months learning about theoretical physics and space, the observer effect and non-locality, Olsen started seeing the influence of meditation and quantum physics on the material she had been writing: Although she had been a folk musician for her entire career, she had begun experimenting with synth soundscapes and 808 beats. This led to Olsen’s latest solo project farideh — and the project’s debut single, the Timon Martin-produced “WaveForms.”

The slow-burning and swooning “WaveForms” is centered around atmospheric synths, tweeter and woofer rocking 808s and Olson’s sultry crooning. And while sounding as though it were inspired by Kate Bush and others, the track is a balance of free-flowing improvisation and craft: “I had mapped out the synths and some beats in my home studio. I didn’t have any lyrics yet. I hit record and the words channeled through my head and out my mouth. The song literally wrote itself,” the Canadian singer/songwriter recalls. She adds, “This song is an expression of the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, In all potentials and dimensions of time and space, my husband and I would always find each other.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: tiger lily and Fluencie Team Up on a Slickly produced, Top 40-like Pop Confection

Rising Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist tiger lily met collaborator and electronic music artist and producer Fluencie when they were both high schoolers: The pair met in the hallways of Seattle’s Ingraham High School. At the time, tiger lily was fronting a grunge band while Fluencie was busking with his keyboard after school for tips.

Fast forward a few years, and the pair have managed to make major moves in their careers: Fluence has been hailed by Dance Music Northwest as “Seattle’s Next Big Thing,” while playing some of the region’s largest festivals, including Capitol Hill Block Party. Adding to a growing profile, the Seattle-based electronic music artist and producer has opened for the likes of Blackbear, Said the Sky, and Joey Bada$$. Simultaneously, tiger lily has won the attention of media outlets like Spin Magazine, IGGY Magazine, DJ Magazine and Earmilk, who described her sound as pop that
“radiates heat . . . the grainy film of memories so sweet and persistent.”

The duo’s first official collaboration together “juneau, alaska” is a slickly produced, radio friendly, Top 40-inspired confection. Starting with an acoustic pop intro featuring tiger lily’s ethereal yet sultry cooing and acoustic guitar, the song morphs into a Taylor Swift/Phoebe Ryan-like banger centered around shimmering and wobbling synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and an enormous hook. But underneath the song’s crowd pleasing surface, the song is rooted in an aching nostalgia for a period of time that seemed simpler and can’t be had again. In the case of “juneau, alaska,” the song describes a longing for the narrator’s high school days — in particular, the memories of an almost beau/situationship, the records they used to love and play all the time and other small but significant moments.

The recently released video features the rising pop star in a director’s chair, being fierce while strobe lights flash and projections of Alaskan scenery show up behind her. At other points Fluence is with the rising pop star, rocking out while Pro Tricking Athlete World Champion Bailey Payne back flips and somersaults around the room.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays New Bleach Return with a Trippy Visual for Deceptively Breezy New Single

Quebec City-based indie pop act and JOVM mainstays New Bleach features a duo known throughout Quebec for their work in acclaimed Francophone indie rock act Caravane — — Dominic Pelletier and Raphaël Potvin. And with the release of New Bleach’s first four singles, Pelletier and Potvin’s newest project proved to be a marked sonic departure from their work in Caravane:

“Awake,” the duo’s debut as New Bleach was an Oracular Spectacular-era MGMT-like single centered around a profound philosophical question: “What if death was just a dream?”
“Silver Lining,” a Quiet Storm R&B meets Beacon-like track that’s one part old-school love song and one part plea for hope in a seemingly hopeless and bleak world. 
“High.” Kraftwerk meets 80s New Wave-like track centered around the age-old desire to get into the car for a road trip — and maybe pull over to do some hallucinogens and daydream. 
“You,” a slow-burning and atmospheric track full of the aching longing and regret of one’s lingering ghosts that featured Ghostly Kisses‘ Margaux Sauvé. 

The JOVM mainstays started 2021 with a gorgeously cinematic live session filmed in the Le Massif de Charlevoix, Quebec. Filmed in a mountainous forest cleaning, just off the coast of the St. Lawrence River, with a morning fog gently lifting, the sessions take place over the course of a day and night with the duo performing behind a futuristic lighting rig. The session features three singles I’ve written about previously — “Awake,” Silver Lining,” and “High.” The setting is breathtakingly gorgeous — in a way that only could be Quebec. 

Building upon a growing profile, the Quebec City-based duo’s debut EP Impressions is slated for a May 14, 2021 through Coyote Records. “Stranger,” the first single off the soon-to-be released EP is a breezy and vaporous synth pop number centered around delicate and shimmering synth arpeggios, ethereal vocals, skittering polyrhythm and a sinuous bass line. Sonically, the track reminds me of 80s synth soul and pop like Billy Ocean, but the song’s breeziness is deceptive. The song thematically asks big, existential questions — namely if true happiness is actually possible.

Directed by the members of New Bleach and Maxyme Gagné, the recently released video for “Stranger” is a stylish and trippy visual that features one of the band’s member several bandaged up as though he barely survived through a horrible accident while watching a series of commercials and terribly tragic news events on an old portable TV.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of “Hydrogen,” indie electro pop duo Darkroom Data — Irish vocalist Gillian Nova and Brazilian composer and producer Márcio Paz — quickly received attention across the blogosphere: the track landed on Hype Machine‘s most popular chart while receiving praise from outlets like Podcart, Obscure Sound, Son of Marketing, Indie Buddie and AnalogoueTrash for crafting moody and atmospheric soundscapes paired with melodic hooks and seductive rhythms. Interestingly, fellow critics have compared their sound to the likes of Chromatics, College, London Grammar, CHVRCHES and Niki & the Dove among others. Thematically, their material fittingly focuses on encounters with dark, fantastical characters and a yearning for lost, late-night spaces.

Building upon the attention that they earned with “Hydrogen,” the duo’s latest single, the Bob Lamb-produced “Groovatta” is a slow-burning and sultry take on synth pop, centered around a sample from 80s electro pop act The System, shimmering synth arpeggios, thumping beats, anthemic hooks and an atmospheric and brooding bridge. And although the band claims that they were inspired by the aesthetic of Chromatics, the song reminds me of Quiet Storm synth soul — in particular, the likes of Cherelle and others.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Liverpool’s Monitors Release a Trippy and Mind-Bending Visual for Dance Floor Banger “The Drill”

Liverpool-based indie trio Monitors is centered around the friendship of three men from completely different cultures — a Brit, a Frenchman and a Bosnian. With the release of 2019’s Notes from the Aftermath EP, the trio established an overall aesthetic that pairs lyrics inspired by the works of William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard and Edgar Allan Poe with a sound that meshes elements of punk, pop and electronica.

Released earlier this month, the Liverpool trio’s sophomore EP The War Office derives its title from a room in Liverpool- based pub Ye Cracke, known as The War Office. Famously, The War Office was where pubgoers had heated discussions about The Second Boer War and British Colonialism. In the 50s, John Lennon and painter Stu Sutcliffe were regulars. Perhaps inspired by The War Office, the EP continues and expands upon the themes that 2019’s Notes from the Aftermath — in particular isolation, addiction, political corruption and ecology. But the EP finds the act addressing those thematic concerns with a much more confrontational and direct approach than its predecessor, paired with a richer melodic sensibility.

The EP’s first single “The Drill” is a propulsive, dance punk banger centered around fuzzy yet funky bass lines, four-on-the-floor, punchily delivered lyrics and enormous hook. Sonically, the song reminds me of Echoes-era The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem. But the song’s inspiration and thematic concerns come from a far darker place — August Natterer’s descent into madness. “He had a hallucination of 10,000 images in 30 minutes,” the band’s Chris explains, ““to the point where after committal he believed he was the illegitimate child of Napoleon and a ‘redeemer of the world’. This song deals with the instability of the mind and its power over the body to inspire, enlighten but potentially to also destroy.”

The recently released video for the song finds the trio in a mental health ward, treating each other — while hallucinating and in the throes of complete madness. Who’s the patient? Who’s the doctor? Are they all insane? That I’ll leave to you. But it’s an appropriately trippy and mind-bending take.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Liam Brown is a Liverpool-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, electro pop artist and producer, best known as the creative mastermind behind the applauded, 80s synth pop-inspired, JOVM mainstay act pizzagirl. Since exploding into the blogosphere in 2018 with Brown has released two EPs, 2018’s an extended play and season 2 and his full length debut, 2019’s first timer — all of which have been championed by a handful of BBC personalities including Huw Stephens, Annie Mac and Lauren Laverne, Gemma Bradley, Shaun Keaveny and Radcliffe and Maconie, as well as KCRW’s Travis Holcombe, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, NME, DIY, Highsnobiety, Wonderland, The Line of Best Fit and a growing list of others.

Brown’s sophomore album, Softcore Mourn is slated for a July 16, 2021 release through Heist or Hit Records. Reportedly, the album will further establish his critically applauded aesthetic, in which he actively pits maximalist pop sounds against claustrophobic production but while delving deeper into the emotional hard-drive in a way that may remind some sonically and thematically of LCD Soundsystem and The Postal Service. But at parts, the album’s material can be seen as a return to form with the album drawing a bit from the sonic palette from an extended play.

“Bullet Train,” Softcore Mourn‘s second and latest single is a high octane banger featuring a chugging synth bass line, twinkling synth arpeggios, Brown’s plaintive vocals paired with a rousingly anthemic hook that sonically recalls mid 80s New Order — i.e. “Bizarre Love Triangle” and others. But despite the uptempo thump and neon colors, the song is ironically rather downbeat, with the song detailing the bitter and uneasy feelings of a nasty breakup.

“Here’s my second single ‘Bullet Train’, another breakup song I think,” Brown says, “but this time, at 200mph. I sound really bitter on this, and for good reason I’d say, my screen time is high, my battery is low and there’s no 5g at the end of this tunnel; haha ;)” 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Keep Dancing Inc. Un Plan Simple Session at Saint Laurent Rive Droit

With the release of their debut EP, 2017’s Initial Public Offering and a handful of follow-up one-off singles, the Paris-based electro pop trio Keep Dancing, Inc. — Louis, Joseph and Gabrielle — quickly emerged as one of France’s hottest and most exciting new acts. The trio supported that material with a tour across the European Union and the UK with Blossoms, which helped them develop a reputation as highly-regarded live act.

Last year’s 12 song, Tom Carmichael-produced full-length debut Embrace was recorded between Paris and Margate, UK, and the album’s material found the rising Paris-based trio crafting remarkably assured and ambitious club friendly bops that effortlessly mesh 80s New Wave, electro pop and disco like with album singles “Could U Stop” and “Start Up Nation.” But underneath the infectious grooves, the band’s material often offers incisive and ironic commentary on our contemporary world and economy.

Un Plan Simple recently invited the rising Paris-based act to film a live session. Directed by Anthony Vaccarello and shot at Saint Laurent’s Rive Droite in front of flashing strobe lights, the band performed three songs for the sessions including the infectious “Start Up Nation,” one of my favorite songs off Embrace, the buoyant, New Order-like “Long Enough” and the acclaimed, Remain in Light-era Talking Heads-like “Could U Stop.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

FORM is a mysterious, enigmatic and emerging French electro pop trio featuring Aksel, Adrien and Hausmane. The trio’s latest single, the slow-burning and atmospheric “Equation” is a sleek synthesis of Quiet Storm-like R&B and alt pop centered around plaintive yet soulful vocals, twinkling and shimmering synth arpeggios and industrial clang and clatter. Sonically, the track reminds me — to my ears at least — of JOVM mainstays Beacon and Kid A-era Radiohead.

The trio explain the song’s creative process was focused on one goal — to retain their stripped down and sincere essence as much as possible. Interestingly, the song finds the trio comparing social conventions to equations: “We mathematically react to things in our lives depending on our values, principles, education, culture . . . This song is very dear to our hearts because it perfectly draws how the future is gonna look like for us, musically.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hungarian Electro Pop Duo Paperdeer Releases a Trippy and Symbolic Visual for “Regularity”

Rising Budapest-based electronic music production and artist duo Paperdeer — Benjámin Kiss and Norbert Biró — will be releasing a new album later this year, written and recorded during pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns.

Earlier this year, the duo dropped a taste of the new album with “Fortress.” Featuring longtime collaborator, Hungarian pop artist Böbe Szécsi, “Fortress” is a sleek and slickly produced track centered around arpeggiated and twinkling synths, atmospheric electronics, skittering beats, a soaring hook and Szécsi’s plaintive vocals. And although the song is bracingly chilly, it’s rooted in the tense uncertainty of our moment as it evokes a pent-up frustration and desperation for necessary change — right now.

The Hungarian electro pop duo’s latest single “Regularity” is a collaboration with ALUMNA centered around looping acoustic guitar, skittering beats, brooding and atmospheric electronics and ALUMNA’s achingly tender vocals. The song’s narrator initially celebrates regularity and predictable routine — but slowly and shakily begins to realize a desire to break out from the security of their mundane routines. Sonically, the song builds up from a melancholic dream to a feverish and pent-up distraction and frustration of someone desperate to break free. “We tried to illustrate the duality of perceptions between young and older generations that is musically accompanied by heavy bassline, agile guitars, and ALUMNA’s fragile voice, which builds from a dream-like melancholy into the feeling of insanity,” the members of Paperdeer explain. ‘The song was inspired by the rigid flip side of the Scandinavian comfort, and an idea of everyday life in a utopic [sic] environment.

Directed by lyricist and longtime collaborator Márton István Szabó, the highly symbolic and trippy visual for “Regularity” employs a carefully picked color platte — deep greens, earthy browns, dark grays — and follows a young boy and a middle-aged man, being chased by wolves in the forest. As the duo explain of the video treatment “‘Regularity’ aims to put you in the perspective of a man, who is bound to his safety and comfort, while feeling an increasing desire to experience danger and excitement, and to live by his heart. The middle-aged man (played by Sándor Tóth) is the soberness that tries to fight against your instincts and drag you back home. Lyricist Márton István Szabó interpreted the concept of the song as “a warning that we tend to grow lazy into our relationships and we almost cage ourselves to the familiarity.” He thinks that the song is also an invitation ‘to roam free, find ways out, to nature, to the conscious rediscovery of ourselves and the world around us.'”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Paupière Releases a Trippy “Groundhog’s Day”-like Visual for Infectious and Breezy “Coeur monarque”

With the release of 2016’s Jeunes instants EP, 2017’s full-length debut À jamais privé de réponses and 2019’s Jettatura EP, the rising Montreal-based indie electro pop duo Paupiére, visual artist Julia Daigle and Polipe’s and We Are Wolves‘ Pierre-Luc Bégin, established their sound, a sound that meshes elements of 80s English synth pop and New Wave — i.e., The Human League, Depeche Mode and others — with French chanson. But just under the breezy pop melodies and catchy hooks, the duo’s work thematically touches upon naive, adolescent and hedonistic romanticism and a contemporary disenchantment. 

Slated for a May 7, 2021 release, the duo’s sophomore album Sade Sati continues their ongoing successful collaboration with We Are Wolves’ Vincent Levesque, who produced their previously released work. Album single “Coeur Monarque” is an infectious and sugary sweet pop confection centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, skittering polyrhythmic beats and boy-girl harmonies. Sonically, the song is a playful, hook-driven mix of Phil Spector-era pop and Ace of Base-like synth pop — but thematically, as the duo explain the song is much darker: “‘Coeur Monarque’ is an imaginary tale about a girl, who lives her life according to her moods. Her freedom contributes to her isolation and she loses herself in it. ‘Coeur monarque’ is a light and poppy piece, just like the protagonist of the story.

Directed by Kevan Funk, the recently released video for “Coeur Monarque” follows a a brash and very stylish woman, who’s caught in a Groundhog’s Day-like loop in which she endlessly repeats the same actions in generally the same fashion with minor — yet very important — differences: the seasons change, which require different outfits and outerwear and a few times the time of day changes. What we wind up encountering is this protagonist preparing for a night out with her usual rituals: making sure her makeup and outfits are just right, smoking a cigarette and/or pre-gaming with a quickly gulped glass of wine or a can of beer. Sometimes a friend stops by to hang out or to pick her up; but generally, she seems to be on her own and heading to meet someone. Much of the behavior is escapist and destructive without much rhyme or reason, except maybe boredom. “We really liked the idea of ​​being caught in a time loop, reliving that same routine over and over again,” the video’s director Kevan Funk says of the new video. “The idea was to focus on the cycle of a festive lifestyle, which in some way drives away the alluring fantasy that we often imagine. Evocative of a life synonymous with the monotonous and destructive treadmill on which our main character sits. “

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
r

Joseph W. Salusbury is a rising Toronto-based singer/songwriter and producer, who started off his professional career with a number of songwriting and production credits include cowrites on Majid Jordan‘s “Something About You” and Illangelo‘s “Your Future’s Not Mine, and vocal production on Nelly Furtado and Blood Orange‘s “Hadron Collider.” Back in 2017, Salusbury stepped out from behind the production booth and the relative anonymity of being a go-to songwriter with his solo recording project Joseph of Mercury. That year, he released three singles “Without Words,” “Young Thing” and “Find You Inside,” which quickly established the Canadian singer/songwriter and producer’s sound — slow-burning synth pop that drew from the likes of  David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Future Islands and Lower Dens among others, paired with his baritone crooning.

Since the release of his debut EP Find You Inside, the Toronto-based Salusbury has been prolific, releasing a number of singles, including his latest single “Pretty Blonde Boy.” Centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, strummed reverb-drenched guitar, a languid backbeat and Salusbury’s achingly plaintive baritone, “Pretty Blonde Boy” is a slow-burning Tears for Fears meets The Smiths-like track inspired by it’s creator’s deeply personal and devastating experience of loss. “Two of my oldest, closest and dearest fiends, both taken too young and barely years apart. If there’s a word beyond ‘brother’ than that’s what they were,” Salusbury explains. “Love wasn’t just enough to balance out all that they carried on their shoulders. Their losses were devastating, breaking me in a way that I’m not sure will ever heal. It was in such eerie succession. They were mirrors of one another, both drawn into this senseless and tragic spiral of prescription pain meds and heroin, combined with fentanyl. Often the brightest lights go out the fastest . . .

“Overwhelmed with grief, I recorded the vocal performance in between tears and clenched fists. As time passed and I gained a resigned joy and acceptance among the sadness, ‘Pretty Blonde Boy,’ began to like an open road, rolling hills… the sun rising, or maybe setting, with that warm magic hour glow and a cool breeze, driving with nowhere to be. In tribute and memorial, for those burdened with pain or crisis, this is a testament to trying to be okay again. To find beauty, appreciation and gratitude in what feels hurtful, hollowing and unfair. ” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Yelle Serves Up Looks in Sultry and Campy Visual for “Noir”

Acclaimed French electro pop act Yelle — Julie “Yelle” Budet (vocals) and Jean-François “GrandMarnier” Perrier (production, percussion) can trace their collaboration back to around 2000 when Budet and Perrier first met and became friends. But the duo didn’t start working on music together until 2005. Initially formed under the name YEL, an acronym for the phrase “You Enjoy Life,” the duo learned of a Belgian band with the same name, and were forced to change their name, eventually feminizing their original name to “Yelle.”

The duo quickly received attention when they posted a song they originally titled “Short Dick Cuizi,” which originally was a written as a mock diss track that referred to Cuiziner of acclaimed French hip-hop act TTC. The song eventually became “Je veux te voir,” which charted at #4 in their native France, and as a result of the buzz surrounding them, they caught the attention of Source Etc Records, who then signed the act. Interestingly, around the same time that the duo had started working on their full-length Perrier met the band’s now-former third member Destable, who at the time was working full-time as a journalist. As the story went, Baudet and Perrier were desperate for a touring keyboardist to flesh out their live sound, and they somehow managed to rope Destable into joining the band.

2007’s full-length debut Pop Up was released to widespread critical acclaim and was a commercial success as a result of “A cause des garçons,” which landed at #11 on the French Singles Chart and “Parle a ma main,” a collaboration with Fatal Bazooka that landed at number 1. Building upon a growing international profile, Baudet, Perrier and Destable spent a three year period between 2006-2009 touring to support Pop Up — with the band being named as MTV‘s Artist of the Week during the last week of March, 2008.

After taking a few months off, the members of Yelle returned to the studio to began work on their sophomore album, and by February 2010 they started their own label Recreation Center, headed by Perrier. Yelle’s sophomore album, 2011’s Safari Disco Club found the act focusing on harmonies, melodies and Budet’s vocals, and was released to generally positive reviews — including  The Independent, who wrote that the album was “essential for anyone, who appreciates dancefloor-friendly European synth pop.” The album caught the attention of Katy Perry, who invited the act to open for her during the British leg of her  California Dreams tour. After they completed that tour, they went on a European tour and went on a Stateside tour that fall. 

The French electro pop act’s third album, 2014’s Completement fou was co-produced by Dr. Luke and a team of producers that included Kojak, AC, Billboard Mat, Oliver, Cirkut, Mike and Madmax. Dr. Luke learned about Yelle through their remix of Katy Perry’s “Hot n Cold” — and after catching them live, he signed them to his label. The album was supported by extensive international touring, which included their third stop at Coachella, an extremely rare feat for a Francophone act, as well as tours across Europe, South American and China.

The acclaimed French act’s fourth album  L’Ère du Verseau (The Age of Aquarius) was released last September — and much like countless acts across the globe, Baudet and Perrier were gearing up for extensive touring to support the album, and to celebrate their 15th year together. In lieu of touring, the band released incredible visuals for album singles “Je t’aime encore” and “Vue d’en Face,” a breezy yet melancholy track centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, finger snaps, stuttering beats and Budet’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals.

L’Ere du Verseau’s latest single “Noir” is a dance floor friendly bop centered around thumping beats, shimmering synth arpeggios, funky bass line and Baudet’s sassy delivery. Interestingly, the song is meant to inspire the listener to strut like they’re on the catwalk, serving fools looks — hard.

Directed by Giant, the recently released video for “Noir” is a campy and fierce as fuck take on haute couture that features beautiful people serving up looks with fierceness while looking like behind the scenes footage of a photo shoot.