Category: remix

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Trentemøller’s Hard-hitting Remix of A Place to Bury Strangers’ “Fear of Transformation”

Late last year, New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — released their seventh album Synthesizer through Dedstrange. 

While Synthesizer is the album’s title, it’s also a physical entity, a synthesizer specifically made for the album — and a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl. The album’s cover art doubles as a circuit board and functional synth for curious and enterprising fans. “It’s pretty messed up, chaotic. But it feels really human,” the band’s Oliver Ackermann says. 

In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. The album celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community. 

The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The new lineup which featured Ackermann and his friends John and Sandra Fedowitz was especially inspiring for Ackermann. “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says. “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.” 

The album captures the band at a place of reinvention, where they take a carefully honed sound and approach and crack it wide open to gut its then reimagine it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also built a new instrument — the synthesizer at the core of the album’s overall sound. 

Synthesizer may arguably be one of the band’s most live-sounding albums to date, accurately capturing the rawness and explosiveness of the band in a live setting, which is a fitting for a band that is best in a live setting, where the material takes on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. “We’re artists,” Ackermann says, “Going to shows and bringing that imperfect and beautiful DIY ethos is important.” 

Album single “Fear Of Transformation” is a snarling and scuzzy New Wave/goth punk synth-driven ripper featuring layers of oscillating synths, a relentless motorik groove, explosive bursts of feedback paired with the band’s long-held penchant for rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and Ackermann’s punchy delivery. 

Thematically, the track focuses and delves into the struggle of overcoming internal barriers. As the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann explains, “Sometimes fear builds up and pins you in a cage. A conversation occurs in my head where I have to convince myself to just fucking do something to break out of it.” The song embodies that internal dialogue, capturing the battle between the compulsion to avoid fear and the push to confront it. And as a result, the song is a raw, uneasy and intense conversation with the devil within.

Acclaimed Danish producer and multi-instrumentalist Trentemøller recently gave “Fear of Transformation,” the remix treatment. The Trentemøller remix adds harder, big beat era-like beats, which manages to add an even darker, industrial electronica-like feel to song. The thematic conversation with the devil at the core of the song has much higher stakes: Damnation and destruction or salvation, which will you choose?

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Yul Shares Subtle Yet Brooding Remix of Sylvain Hellio’s “Nous étions heureux”

Sylvan Hellio is a Rennes, France-based artist, who released his debut EP, L’homme du bois through Résiste Records back in 2023. The EP featured “Nous étion heuruex,” a broodingly atmospheric trip hop-like lullaby anchored around twinkling guitar and skittering beats and Hellio’s dreamy delivery.

Yul recently remixed “Nous étions heureux,” but his remix manages to be subtle: Yul retains Hellio’s dreamy delivery and much of the original production but the brooding air is emphasized through the addition of a supple bass line, and bit of 808 kick. The result is a remix that feels a bit murkier and eerier.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Parra for Cuva’s Chilled Out Remix of Christian Löffler’s “A Life”

Christian Löffler is an acclaimed German musician, producer and DJ, whose work is widely celebrated across electronic music circles for a distinct sound that seamlessly blends elements of ambient music, techno and house. 

Released earlier this year, Löffler’s third album A Life sees the German-born musician, producer and DJ continuing to push his sound and approach in new directions while exploring new emotional depths. The album features “Y,” a lush and flirty, crowd pleasing banger featuring Mogli‘s yearning delivery paired with woozy and glistening synth arpeggios, thumping tweeter and woofer rattling low end, skittering beats and a rousingly anthemic, euphoric set of hooks and choruses.

Album single and album title track “A Life” is a lush electro pop tune featuring bursts of twinkling piano, glistening Giorgio Moroder-like oscillations that slowly boil dup in intensity, skittering beats paired with a yearning cooing vocal sample that’s chopped up and pitched down. The result is a song that’s mediative and cinematic yet intimate.

Recently Parra for Cuva remixed “A Life.” The Parra for Cuva remix retains the yearning and cooing vocal sample but places it within an lush and soulful production that pairs squiggling, reverb-soaked The Edge-like guitars, skittering beats and woozy synth oscillations. Sonically bringing Washed Out and Brothertiger to mind, the Parra for Cuva remix retains the original’s intimate feel but while giving it a moody, chilled out vibe.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Wesley Reid Shares Marc O’rell Remix of “Reach Out”

British electronic music producer Iwan Bedford and American electronic music producer Wesley Reid collaborate together in the transatlantic electronic music project O.a.G., which is influenced by 80s and 90s synth pop — think Yazoo (known as Yaz in the States), Depeche Mode, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, OMD, and others. 

O.a.G’s Wesley Reid has collaborated with German producer Marc O’rell on a sleek, hook-driven house remix of “Reach Out” that sounds a bit indebted to French touch.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Major Lazer’s House Music Remix of Amadou & Mariam’s “Mogolu”

Over the course of their almost 50-year career, the iconic and beloved Malian duo Amadou & Mariam have an illustrious career that has been them take the Malian blues that made them a household name in Africa and opened it up to rock, hip-hop and EDM/dance influences, spreading their unique Afropop message and joie de vivre. “We’ve always dreamed of tearing down walls and opening people’s ears to new sounds so the whole world can discover and appreciate Malian music,” Amadou & Mariam says.

Released last month, the compilation album La Vie Est Belle highlights the pairs legacy as one of Africa’s most famous duos and the massive influence they’ve had paving the way for an exciting, new generation of African artists, who have begun to dominate the Western mainstream. The Malian duo have also been ambassadors of Afro-pop, who have collaborated with some of the most iconic and biggest stars of Western mainstream music, including U2, Coldplay, Stevie Wonder and David Gilmour — with their seven studio albums selling over one million records globally.

Amadou & Mariam have made the rounds of the global festival circuit with stops at Coachella, Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, as well as at The World Cup, NPR’s Tiny Desk and this year’s Paris Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony, where they covered Serge Gainsbourg‘s “Je Suis Venu Te Dire Que Je Me’n Vais.” They’ve also made the run of the late-night TV circuits across both the US and U.K.

And adding to their global profile, the duo have collaborated with JOVM mainstays Sofi Tucker, BLOND:ISH, Santigold, Akon, TV on the Radio and Damon Albarn.

La Vie Est Belle features new and exclusive material, as well as essential songs recorded and released over the last 20 years, including material off Dimanche à Bamako, the album that propelled the duo into pop stardom, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Album single “Mogolu,” which derives its title from the Bambara word for “people” is a celebration of all things human — human encounters, travels, cultural exchange and diversity, echoing the acclaimed pair’s longstanding commitment to global peace. Featuring layers of skittering and propulsive African polyrhythm paired with the Malian duo’s gorgeous boy-girl melodies and harmonies and glistening guitarrs “Mogolu” is a sleek and incredibly catchy synthesis of the traditional and the modern that has managed to burn up dance floors while subtly recalling the likes of La Confusion‘s “Bofou Sakou.”

Mogolu Remixes EP features remixes of “Mogolu” by a series of acclaimed producers including PPJ, Busy Twist and Major Lazer, the powerhouse production outfit led by Diplo. The Major Lazer remix of “Mogolu” turns the song into a slickly produced, club banger with dense layers of oscillating synths, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump while retaining the gorgeous melodies and soulfulness of the original.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rhythm Scholar’s Club Friendly Remix of The Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger”

I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the ridiculously prolific, New York-based producer, DJ, remixer and JOVM mainstay Rhythm Scholar through this site’s almost 15-year history. During that period, the New York-based JOVM mainstay has built a national and international profile for crafting slickly produced, crowd-pleasing mashups and remixes. 

2024 has been a rather busy year for Rhythm Scholar. He has remixed a handful of some of the most beloved songs of the 1980s:

  • A woozy remix of one of my favorite Tears for Fears tunes “Change”

  • A club friendly remix of Duran Duran‘s 1984 track “Wild Boys” a that featured chopped up vocals for the hook, several Duran Duran samples and a blazing Andy Sexton guitar solo while retaining Simon Le Bon‘s vocal, the memorable hook and the synth melody

  • A remix of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” that retains Curt Smith‘s imitable vocal and pairs with a subtly modernized remix with bursts of strummed acoustic guitar, thumping beats, swirling atmospheric synths, twinkling keys and soulful horn solo

To celebrate the 40th — god, 40th! — anniversary of the release of The Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” one of my favorite Police songs ever, the JOVM mainstay turns the beloved song into an uptempo club banger that retains Sting’s vocal and elements of the song’s melody but paired with skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling beats, glistening synth arpeggios. The song also features some mischievously placed samples from “Synchronicity Part 2,” “Voices In My Head” and more, as well as something from Andy Summers‘ solo work.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bad Robot Shares Max Blücher Remix of “Aero III”

Micheal Ricker is a Delaware-based electronic music producer and artist best known as Bad Robot. And if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of months, you might remember that I’ve written about two of Ricker’s latest Bad Robot singles”

  • The aptly named “Supermassive,” which features skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling thump, scorching bass synths and a woozy and wobbling synth melody. Fittingly, it’s the sort of club and festival banger that sounds as though it should knock a building over. 

  • “Close To You,” which according to Ricker, is “a bit of a departure into a brighter, more ‘pop’ sounding progressive house style.” Built around an almost mantra-like glistening synth phrase, shimmering synth arpeggios and skittering beats, the motorik-like “Close To You” is both summery and remarkably catchy, while seemingly nodding at Discovery-era Daft Punk-like French touch.

Last year, Ricker released his full-length debut, Year One, which featured “Aero III,” a gritty banger anchored around a woozy polymetric melody and skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling thump. Recently, Max Blücher remixed “Aero III” that retains the original’s woozy polymetric melody but pairs it with more aggressive, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump with some brief bursts of industrial clang and clatter, and some eerie ethereal synths. The result is take that gives the song a spacey, house music quality.

“Inspired by the gritty sound design and frantic polymetric melodies of my original track ‘Aero III,’ Max has taken the musical DNA and infused it with his own. While the original is great, Max definitely improved the quality of the track with his production skills and imagination,” Ricker explains. “This house remix is an ethereal journey through space and time with elements of Deadmau5 that are felt even in the cover artwork.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sarah Lake Shares Ernie Lake’s Nu-Disco Remix of “Soul Shaker”

Lake relocated to Nashville back in 2017. And since then she has released music that has been featured on Tidal, Apple Music and a variety of Spotify playlists. As a songwriter, the Canadian-born and now-Nashville-based artist has written songs for The Voice Season 13 finalist Moriah Formica, Ms. America Betty Cantrell — and Reba McEntire took her song “Amen” into the studio in 2018.

And although as a songwriter, she continues to write material across a range of formats and styles, as an artist, Lake’s work has firmly in the realm of Americana/folk.

Her latest songs “Devil in My Head” and Messy” have been featured on Nashville-based radio station Lightning 100. “Missing Home” has been added to several Apple Music playlists. And the video for “Wide Eyed Girl” was added to CMT online.

Released earlier this year, the Everette and Lake cowritten “Soul Shaker” is a hook-driven and anthemic bit of country pop — or perhaps pop country? — that captures the swooning sensation of love with a folksy and lived-in earnestness. Recently, Ernie Lake, who remixed Pink‘s “Get The Party Started” and Taylor Swift’s “Willow” among a lengthy list of others, remixed “Soul Shaker,” turning the track into a summery, Stevie Nicks “Stand Back”-meets disco heyday-like bop featuring wah-wah pedaled funk guitar, soaring and cinematic bursts of strings, conga, and a relentless funky groove — all of which seem to serve and emphasize Lake’s easy-going soulful delivery.

Lake hopes that the song will take listeners to a happy place and back to simpler times of roller skating rinks and dance floors.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rhythm Scholar’s Soulful and Atmospheric Remix of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World”

I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the ridiculously prolific, New York-based producer, DJ, remixer and JOVM mainstay Rhythm Scholar through this site’s 14 year history. During that period, the New York-based JOVM mainstay has built a national and international profile for crafting slickly produced, crowd-pleasing mashups and remixes.

2024 has been a rather busy year for Rhythm Scholar. If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of months, you’d know that I wrote about his  woozy remix of one of my favorite Tears for Fears tunes “Change,” and his sleek, club friendly remix of Duran Duran‘s 1984 track “Wild Boys” a that featured chopped up vocals for the hook, several Duran Duran samples and a blazing Andy Sexton guitar solo while retaining Simon Le Bon‘s vocal, the memorable hook and the synth melody.

The JOVM mainstay returns with a remix of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” that retains Curt Smith‘s imitable vocal and pairs with a subtly modernized remix with bursts of strummed acoustic guitar, thumping beats, swirling atmospheric synths, twinkling keys and soulful horn solo. With this remix, Rhythm Scholar manages to place a classic and beloved song within a contemporary context while managing to retain the original’s brooding and uneasy air.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Khotin’s Blissed Out and Ambient Remix of Bodywash’s “Kind of Light”

Montréal-based JOVM mainstays Bodywash — Chris Steward and Rosie Long Dector — can trace their origins back to when the pair met while attending McGill University. But when they met, the pair didn’t immediately share a common musical language: Steward grew up in London listening to celestial dream pop while Dector grew up in Toronto listening to folk and Canadiana. But the music they began writing together saw the pair bridging their influences.

With the release of 2016’s self-titled EP and 2019’s full-length debut, Comforter, the Montréal-based duo firmly established their sound — slow-burning and dreamy material centered around ethereal vocals, intricate guitar lines and pulsating synths. 

The Canadian shoegazers’ sophomore album, last year’s I Held the Shape While I Could was inspired and informed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent lockdowns. The duo used the unexpected hiatus to write new material, which was darker, more experimental and more invigorating than its immediate predecessor. The new material also reflected on Steward’s and Long Doctor’s seperate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the psychological and emotional fallout. 

In the lead up to the album’s release, I wrote about several singles, including the album’s first, “Kind of Light,” an expansive track that began with a slow-burning and elegiac intro and a skittering yet propulsive kick pattern that a slowly builds up and breaks out into a high-energy, boom-bap-like breakbeat paired with scorching guitar, and squealing and wobbling bass synths. Long Decter’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals are at the front and center, expressing heart-wrenching despair and yet hope. Throughout, the song suggests that while loss is natural and expected, there can be hope; that there are only a handful of things that in our lives that are truly permanent — and that for the most part, it can get better. 

“I wrote ‘Kind of Light’ in bed,” Long Decter says. ““It was the fall of 2018 and Chris and I were both going through experiences of learning not to trust what feels like home. He sent me a plugin for a new organ sound, suggesting it might provide inspiration. I sent him back chords, a kick pattern, and some vocals about trying to pull your legs back; trying to take your energy out of the wreckage and put it into yourself. The process of deciding what’s worth keeping, what can be reworked and what gets tossed in the fire. A process that is devastating and also weirdly invigorating, because you can see new possibilities opening up in front of you. And you can start to look for light somewhere else.”

Just ahead of the Montréal-based duo’s North American tour dates with Blushing and Airiel in June, they share a remix of “Kind of Light,” by Edmonton-based electronic artist Khotin. The Khotin remix turns the tense and cathartic original into a blissed out, ambient euphoria that’s perfect for contemplative chill out sessions. (By the way, the Blushing/Airiel/Bodywash tour includes a June 19, 2024 stop at Johnny Brenda‘s, one of my favorite rooms in Philly and a June 20, 2024 stop at Baby’s All Right. The tour dates, as always, are below.)

“Khotin’s Release Spirit was in heavy rotation while we were on the road last year, soundtracking everything from the craggy cliffs of the Pacific Northwest to the dreaded NJ Turnpike, so we were keen to have him remix ‘Kind of Light,’” says the band. “His version takes the tension and catharsis of the original song and injects it with blissed-out euphoria. It’s a track that’s destined for a sunrise slot in the chill-out room, channeling the West Coast rave psychedelia of Pilgrims of the Mind along with the more ambient influences that informed our last record.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Helsinki Lambda Club Shares Ethereal, Swim Deep Remix of “Good News Is Bad News”

Formed back in 2013, Helsinki Lambda Club is a Japanese indie outfit led by Kaoru Hashimoto, whose influences range from 70s rock to modern indie pop. And as a result, the band specializes in a genre-defying sound and approach that encompasses garage punk attitude, and New Wave and psych rock spirit with catchy melodies, playful lyrics and experimental soundscapes that frequently morph from sunny surf rock to full on psychedelia.

Celebrating their 10th anniversary, the Japanese outfit released their third album Welcome to Helsinki Lambda Club, which they supported with touring across Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Taiwan. Building upon a growing international presence, the members of Helsinki Lambda Club played at SXSW earlier this year, receiving attention from American music press — and garnering a video feature on Grammy.com.

The band is gearing up for their first UK tour next month, HLC Airlines, which will feature shows in London, Birmingham and Brighton‘s The Great Escape Festival.

Continuing the celebration of their first decade, the Japanese indie outfit is launching a series of remixes of some of their signature tracks. The first of the series sees British indie pop act Swim Deep giving “Good News Is Bad News” the remix treatment. While the original version is a jaunty, hook-driven bop seemingly inspired by The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, the Swim Deep remix turns the song into a dreamy and ethereal soundscape inspired by Low and Souvlaki-era Slowdive.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Formed back in 2020, Austin-based shoegazers DAIISTAR (pronounced Day-Star) — Alex Capistran (vocals, guitar), Nick Cornetti (drums), Misti Hamrick (bass) and Derek Strahan (keys) — have established a narcotic blend of noise and melody that draws from the neo-psychedelic era of the 80s and 90s, but modernizes it with modulating synths, heavy guitars, bouncing bass lines and spiraling hooks. 

The Austin shoegeazer outfit’s Alex Maas-produced full-length debut, last year’s GoodTime featured the fuzzy The Jesus and Mary Chain-meets- Crocodiles-like “Parallel” and revealed a band that paid a remarkable amount of attention to craft with a penchant for catchy hooks. The band supported the album touring across North America with The Black Angels, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols, and included festival circuit stops at Levitation, Desert Daze, SXSW, Freak Out, Treefort, as well as a KEXP session. 

The Austin shoegazers are currently on a European tour. Those tour dates are below. But they’ll be releasing the “Clear”/”Velvet Reality (Sonic Boom ” Remix 7 inch through Fuzz Club. Slated for a May 10, 2024 release, the 7 inch will feature “Clear,” a previously unreleased song recored during the GoodTime sessions. “Clear” is a reverb-drenched bliss bomb featuring shimmering synths, Capistran’s dreamily delivered falsetto paired with a slow-burning groove. The song, to me at least, brings road trips on glorious, sunny afternoons — full of hope, possibility, life-altering adventures and laughs. 

DAIISTAR’s Alex Capistran (guitar/vocals) explained that “the idea behind ‘Clear’ was to write the perfect song for a perfect day. A song that comes to mind on a warm and sunny afternoon; inspiring thoughts of attainable bliss and encouraging you to dream up something nice for your future self.”

Album track “Velvet Reality,” closes out GoodTime with a dreamy, washed-out haze. Spacemen 3 co-founder Pete Kember, a.k.a. Sonic Boom gives “Velvet Reality” the remix treatment, further deconstructing the song by making it even more ethereal and hazier than its original while also giving the oscillating and fluttering synths more of an emphasis. The result is an ethereal and narcoleptic bit of shoegaze seemingly informed by doo wop.

TOUR DATES

4/19 ES BARCELONA – BARCELONA PSYCH FEST
4/20 ES ZARAGOZA – LATA DE BOMBILLAS
4/21 ES SAN SEBASTIAN – DABADABA
4/23 CH BERN – CAFE KAIRO
4/24 IT BOLOGNA – COVO CLUB
4/25 IT ROMA – GLITCH
4/26 IT FIRENZE – THE CAVE
4/27 IT LENO – PRIMO MAGGIO ROCK!
4/30 DE BERLIN – LOOPHOLE
5/1 DE VIECHTACH – ALTES SPITAL
5/2 DE STUTTGART – DIE WAGENHALLEN
5/3 DE FRANKFURT – THE UP CLUB
5/4 NL EINDHOVEN – FUZZ CLUB FEST
5/5 DE GIESSEN – PITS PINTE
5/6 NL AMSTERDAM – OCCII
5/7 NL WAGENINGEN – LOBURG LIVE
5/8 NL THE HAGUE – MUSICON
5/9 FR ROUEN – LE 3 PIECES
5/10 UK LONDON – STRONGROOM
5/11 UK HULL – ALOFT AT THE HAWORTH
5/12 UK GLASGOW – THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS
5/14 UK SOUTHAMPTON – HEARTBREAKER
5/15 UK BRISTOL – CROFTERS RIGHTS
5/16 UK FOLKESTONE – THE CHAMBERS
5/17 FR PARIS LE TRUSKEL – CLUB
5/18 FR LE HAVRE – FOUL WEATHER FESTIVAL
5/21 FR LYON – LE SONIC
5/22 FR BORDEAUX – I-BOAT
5/24 FR PORTSALL – O’DONNEIL IRISH PUB
5/25 FR ANGERS – LEVITATION FESTIVAL

Indie Electro Pop by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rhythm Scholar Shares a Club Friendly Remix of Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys”

Throughout the course of this site’s close to 14 year history, I’ve managed to spill copious amounts of virtual ink covering the ridiculously prolific, New York-based producer, DJ, remixer and JOVM mainstay Rhythm Scholar. And during that same period, the New York-based JOVM mainstay has built a profile both nationally and internationally for crafting slickly produced, crowd-pleasing mashups and remixes. 

Earlier this week, I wrote about Rhythm Scholar’s woozy remix of one of my favorite Tears for Fears tunes “Change.” Continuing upon his reputation for being remarkably prolific, the JOVM mainstay artist gave Duran Duran‘s 1984 track “Wild Boys” a sleek remix that features chopped up vocals for the hook, several Duran Duran samples peppered throughout, some blazing guitar work form Andy Sexton and a club friendly thump while retaining Simon Le Bon‘s vocal, the memorable hook and the synth melody among others.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Rhythm Scholar Shares Woozy and Club Friendly Remix of Tears for Fears’ “Change”

Throughout the course of this site’s close to 14 year history, I’ve managed to spill copious amounts of virtual ink covering the ridiculously prolific, New York-based producer, DJ, remixer and JOVM mainstay Rhythm Scholar. And during that same period, the New York-based JOVM mainstay has built a profile both nationally and internationally for crafting slickly produced, crowd-pleasing mashups and remixes.

Earlier this year, Rhythm Scholar released a woozy remix of one of my favorite Tears for Fears tunes “Change” that retains familiar and beloved elements of the song, including the vocal melody, the chiming and percussive synth line, the squiggling New Wave guitar figure and the acclaimed duo’s uncanny knack for anthemic hooks paired with a spacious and dreamy, club friendly production.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Hiwatt Trance House-like Fever Mix of Brittany Bindrim’s “Fever Dream”

Best known for being the frontperson of Chicago-based post-industrial rock outfit i: Scintilla, Brittany Bindrim has stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her forthcoming Matt McJunkins-produced full-length solo debut, Velella Velella, an effort that sees her adopting a dark, electro pop-based sound.

While sonically Velella Velella‘s material reportedly ranges between ethereal ballads and gritty dance floor friendly bangers that also showcases the evolution and versality of Bindrim’s work. Thematically, the material touches on themes of self-discovery, empathy, apathy, disillusionment and growth, rooted in unapologetically vulnerable lyrics. “The songwriting process for every song on the album was a little different, but I didn’t try to force ideas or overthink things,” Bindrim says. “Each song developed very naturally and instinctively.”

Velella Velella‘s latest single, “Fever Dreams” is a slickly produced synthesis of electro pop and industrial electronica featuring buzzing bass synths, glistening synth-driven melodies, skittering beats and some subtle industrial clang and clatter serving as a lush yet woozy bed for Bindrim’s ethereal and expressive delivery and catchy hooks. The result is a song that to my ears reminds me of I Am Snow Angel and Goldfrapp with a bit of Kate Bush.

Ken “Hiwatt” Marshall recently remixed “Fever Dreams” for the “Fever Dreams” singles package. The Hiwatt remix turns “Fever Dreams” into a trance-inducing, club rocking techno track with a subtle speeding up of the original’s tempo paired with harder hitting beats, a dreamy and hazy bridge, along bursts of with throbbing guitars and an industrial clang and clatter-driven coda.