Tag: Boys Noize

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Tobacco Returns with Another Abrasive Yet Anthemic Bit of Electro Pop with Surreal Visuals

Sweatbox Dynasty, the long-awaited follow-up to Ultima II Massage was released earlier this year and you may remember that I wrote about Sweatbox Dynasty’s first two singles “Gods In Heat,” and “Human Om” and while furthering his burgeoning reputation for scuzzy and abrasive electronic music; however, just underneath the murky surface of both singles, there’s a breezy and dreamy melodicism that adds a strange sense of calm, as well as a darkly mischievous sense of humor. And the album’s third and latest single “Dimensional Hum” continues on a similar vein as the album’s preceding singles as a gorgeously, twinkling synth melody floats over layers of buzzing and grinding synths while vocals fed through vocoders and distortion slash and burn through some of the muck and grime.

Adding to the grimy, almost low-budget feel of the song, the recently released music video follows an escaped prisoner as he skareboards to freedom with a cheap, Halloween-themed wig as a disguise.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Swooning and Psychedelic Visuals for Boys Noize’s Equally Swooning and Urgent Single “2 Live”

Mayday’s latest single “2 Live” is an ecstatic and swooning, club banger which features layers of cascading and twinkling synths, tweeter and woofer rocker bass drops, propulsive and insistent beats are paired with a swooning and anthemic hook to create what may arguably be one of the Berlin-based producer’s most euphoric and lovelorn songs to date. Interestingly, the recently released music video, which continues Ridha’s ongoing collaborations with LIL INTERNET and SUSBOY follows a young couple as they explore the outskirts of Mexico City in the near future — and while the couple is desperately in love, the video explores what can happen when song love and virtual reality are combined. Ultimately, the result is a video that’s psychedelic and yet urgent.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Tense, Paranoid Visuals and Sounds of Boys Noize’s “Mayday”

The album’s latest single, album title track “Mayday” has the internationally renowned producer pairing layers of glitchy and stuttering cascading towards the listener, industrial clang and clatter, enormous tweeter and woofer rocking, boom bap beats, wobbling and tumbling low end and a wild array of vocal samples in a swaggering, club banger that feels tense and paranoid, as though its creator was aware of the fact that he’s being monitored every single moment of his life, whether he noticed or wanted it. Interestingly, along with scoring the soundtrack to Oliver Stone’s latest major motion picture Snowden, about the controversial Edward Snowden, who revealed a complicated and invasive governmental surveillance, “Mayday” is featured in the movie and the recently released video, which was created by collaborators LIL INTERNET and Susboy combines footage from Snowden with public global surveillance camera footage and some sobering facts about the NSA and their surveillance program. It should frighten the shit out of you.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Creepily Uneasy Visuals for Tobacco’s “Human Om”

Sweatbox Dynasty, the long-awaited follow-up to Ultima II Massage is slated for release this summer, and as you may remember I wrote about “Gods In Heat,” the first single off the album. I think that single will further cement his burgeoning reputation for crafting scuzzy, abrasive and anthemic electronic music as he pairs layers of abrasive industrial clang and clatter, skittering drum programming, surface-level analog tape hiss and sizzle, a chanted mantra and an infectious hook; but with a subtle dreamy element that nods towards psych rock. The album’s second and latest single “Human Om” pairs layers of buzzing, whirring synths, industrial clang and clatter, mathematically precise handclap-led drum programming and mantra-like lyrics fed through vocoder. Interestingly, the song displays a dreamy and breezy melodicism just underneath the murky surface and as a result it gives the song a darkly mischievous feel; but while radiating a strange sense of calm.

Directed by the artist himself, the recently released music video employs the use of distorted rubber masks of celebrities, politicians and other characters nodding over the song’s distorted beats and superimposed over a variety of scenes and scenarios — and it gives the video a nightmarish, surreal logic while it lulls the viewer into an uneasy hypnotic state.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Certainly, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past year or so, you’d likely be familiar with electronic music artist and producer Tobacco, who is perhaps best known as the frontman of renowned indie act Black Moth Super Rainbow. As a solo artist, Tobacco has developed a reputation for crafting an abrasive yet anthemic sound — while seeming as though he wants to channel Daft Punk,  The Black Keys, Kraftwerk and Boys Noize — but from some dystopian future in which rusty, poorly maintained machinery and instruments whirr to grinding halt.

Sweatbox Dynasty, the long-awaited follow-up to Ultima II Massage is slated for release this summer, and earlier this year, I wrote about the album’s first single “Gods In Heat,” a single that I think will further cement his burgeoning reputation for crafting scuzzy, abrasive and anthemic electronic music as he pairs layers of abrasive industrial clang and clatter, skittering drum programming, surface-level analog tape hiss and sizzle, a chanted mantra and an infectious hook — but with a subtle dreamy element that nods towards psych rock. The album’s latest single “Human Om” pairs layers upon layers of buzzing and whirring industrial synths, mathematically precise handclap-led drum programming and chanted lyrics fed through vocoder with a dreamy psych rock-leaning melodicism that subtly lightens the murkiness.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the course of the six year history of this site, Berlin, Germany-based producer, electronic music artist, DJ and Boys Noize Records label head Alex Ridha, best known as Boys Noize has become one of this site’s earliest mainstay artists; in fact, his Out of the Black landed at number 8 on the site’s Best of List back in 2012. And since then, Ridha has been remarkably prolific as she’s collaborated in musical projects with internationally recognized mega-hit producer, electronic music artist and DJ Skillex and renowned pianist, composer, experimental pop artist and emcee Chilly Gonzales. Additionally, his label recently celebrated its tenth anniversary with a series of collaborative efforts featuring the work of a number of up-and-coming and renowned contemporary electronic music artists and producers including Tiga, Johnny Sack, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Atom TM, Pilo SCNTST and others.

Earlier this year, Ridha released “Overthrow,” a single that revealed the German producer, electronic music artist and DJ has expanded upon his signature sound — in this case, glitchy and chopped up samples, tweeter and woofer rattling bass and beats and enormous drops were paired with industrial clang and clatter and ominously swirling electronics in a song that stomped, strutted, swaggered and threw a vicious haymaker or two. “Euphoria,” which was released last month, sounded as though it drew from the legendary house music pioneer Larry Levan as a looped vocal sample was paired with skittering and propulsive drum programming and glitchy keyboard keys in a song that evoked a woozy rush of blood to the head. “Starchild,” a collaboration with indie electro pop sensation Poliça pairs vocalist Channy Leaneagh’s sultry and plaintive vocals with glitchy and stuttering beats, gentle cascades of twinkling and shimmering synths in what may arguably be Ridha’s moodiest and most pop-leaning single he’s released to date.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past two or three years or so, you may recall that I wrote about Colchester, UK-based electronic producer and multi-instrumentalist Dominc Gentry. Originally starting his career with his solo writing and recording project Attaque, the British multi-instrumentalist and producer has had a rather interesting career trajectory — he initially wrote and produced hard techno singles released to critically praise through some of the world’s renowned electronic music labels including Kitsune, Boys Noize, Turbo and others. However, with the release of his acclaimed full-length Only You — in particular, album single “Only You” — Gentry’s sound had gone through a decided change of sonic direction with his sound becoming breezily ethereal and atmospheric in a fashion that reminded me quite a bit of Octo Octa’s impressive Between Both Sides. 

Gentry spent the better part of 2015 touring to support Only You — playing Secret Garden Party and London’s renowned club KOKO among countless others; however, after last November’s terrorist attacks in Paris, Gentry felt it was inappropriate to continue with the Attaque moniker and decided it was time for a new direction. And so he starts off 2016 with his latest project Light Falls.

“Prism” the latest single from the British producer pairs shimmering and bubbling cascades of synths with distorted and chopped up vocal samples and stuttering drum programming in a hyper-modern, sleek and sinuous club banger that reminds me quite a bit of the aforementioned Octo Octa’s Between Both Sides and Snap!‘s “Rhythm Is A Dancer,” as the song possesses a swooning Romanticism.