Tag: 1989

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay LutchamaK Shares Melodic House Banger “1989”

French electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK has had a busy 2024: 

  • The JOVM mainstay began the year with a two-track release through Techno Parade titled Job Done, which featured “Job Done,” a glitchy and swaggering bit of techno meets footwork featuring machine gun-like skittering beats, glistening synth arpeggios paired with tweeter and woofer rattling thump. It’s an accessible and euphoric club banger meant to be played loudly and meant to encourage you to dance and sweat.

  • He followed that up with Flip the Funk, a four-track EP, which was digitally released through British electronic label Biotech Recordings and featured EP track “Pride,” a lush and soulful bit of deep house-meets-techno that reminded me of house music nights on WBLS back in the day. 

  • Then there was the standalone track, “Acid Drift” a slick, seamless synthesis of tribal house, deep house and drum ‘n’ bass that slaps hard while being dance floor friendly, which was released through Rue des Trois Rois Records.

  • Over the summer, he released the eight-track mini album  Great Broken Masses of Land through his own TERMusik. The album featured album opener and album title track “Great Broken Masses of Land,” a trance-inducing, late night, club banger anchored around skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump and dense layers of oscillating yet melodic synths, a chopped up mantra-like vocal sample paired with his unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks. “City Energy,” a crowd pleasing, club banger featuring glitchy oscillations, bursts of glistening synths and some industrial, tweeter and woofer rattling thump that showcases an artist, who actively pushes his sound and approach in new directions, while still remaining wildly accessible. And “B Queen V 2,” which featured glitchy oscillations, bursts of glistening and melodic synths, skittering beats and remarkably catchy hooks paired with a dreamy vocal sample. 

Last month, the JOVM mainstay released the four-song Lunar Ascending EP, which featured:

  • “Lunar Ascending,” a woozily hypnotic banger that’s heavily indebted to Detroit house and a bit of Tour de France-era Kraftwerk.

  • “Healing Dub” is a synthesis of trance-inducing dub and house music that features glistening synth stabs with skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling riddims paired with a reverb-soaked patois vocal sample.

LutchamaK closes out 2024 with the C10Cl10O mini-album and the Altered Oceanic Climate EP. C10Cl10O‘s latest single “1989” is a melodic bit of house that sounds inspired by Larry Levan‘s Paradise Garage DJ sets — but with a modern feel. House music all night long . . .

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Parisian Electronic Act Voie81 Releases a Nostalgia-Inducing Visual for “1989”

Deriving their name from the French of word for “track” while simultaneously being a bit of a punny joke based on the French word or voice — voix — and for 1981, a paradigm shifting year that saw massive technological and societal changes, the Paris-based electro pop/New Wave outfit Voie 81 prominently features three female vocalists hailing from Paris, Madrid, and Berlin, who sing unifying and socially conscious lyrics in German, English, Spanish and French. 

Their full-length debut, Ralentir, which translates into “slow down” in French finds the act further establishing a sound that’s heavily indebted to and influenced by the analog synth sounds of the 80s while thematically focusing on humans’ resistance to an unfair and unjust world — and the hope fora much better, fairer world.

Last year, I wrote about album track “Nirvana,” a euphoric track with an arena friendly hook and sultrily delivered French vocals that — to my ears — that reminded me a bit of early-to-mid 80s New Order, Giorgio Moroder, Tour de France-era Kraftwerk and even contemporaries like DBFC.

“1989,” Ralentir‘s latest track is centered around a relentless motorik groove, glistening synth arpeggios, angular guitars, thumping beats and brief bursts of industrial clang and clatter. The end result is a song that seems to mesh John Carpenter‘s retro-futuristic soundtracks with New Order. As the band explains “1989 is more than the last year of the 80s! It symbolizes a pivotal stage, when everything has accelerated : technological, climate and enormous geopolitical changes.”

Directed by the members of Voie 81 and Oculusprime.tv, the recently released video, which was also edited by Oculusprime.tv features stock footage of some of the world-changing technology and events that happened in 1989 from new video games, the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well as young people partying and just enjoying life.