Tag: electro pop

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Deriving their name from a playful, Anglophile nod towards the famed physicist Issac Newton, the Paris-based electro pop act Isaac Delusion —  founding members and creative core Loïc Fleury (vocals, guitar) and Jules Paco (keys) — was formed back in 2010. With the release of 2014’s self-titled debut effort, the act received attention for a sound and approach that meshed the acoustic instrumentation with a bold use of electronics — while nodding a bit at dream pop.

The duo then toured exclusively across France and the rest of the European Union to support their full-length debut. Interestingly, 2017’s sophomore effort Rust & Gold found the duo’s sound shifting from the ethereal and atmospheric dream pop of its immediate predecessor with the material focusing on tangible emotions, soulful rhythms and insightful observations on one and the human condition.

The Paris-based electro pop’s first two albums have managed to amass over 500,000 Spotify streams a month. Building upon a rapidly growing profile across their native France and elsewhere, the act played Pitchfork Paris, as well as sold-out headlining shows at venues like  L’Olympia and Elysee Montmarte.

Microqlima Records released the French duo’s third album uplifters last year. Thematically, the album was centered around misplaced nostalgia for one’s long-passed youth, As a result the album’s material is imbued with a longing for the freedom, simplicity and unguarded honesty of their younger selves — and regret for the missed opportunities you can never get back. And much like its predecessors, uplifters‘ material was written and sung primarily in English with a handful of songs written and sung in their native French.

Album single “pas l’habitude” was one of the few album tracks written and sung in French. While the song is a breezy synth pop song, centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, plaintive and dreamy vocals, a sinuous bass line and an infectious hook — but the song’s breezy and easygoing nature is superficial: the song is actually an achingly bittersweet ode to the proverbial loss of innocence and getting older. Life and its ambiguity after all, will break your heart countless times over. It’s up to you to pick up the pieces and move forward.

Franc Moody is a London-based electro pop collective, centered around its core duo and creative masterminds Ned and Jon. Jon comes from a family of classical musicians and as  result, he grew up surrounded by oboes, cellos and violins. Ned grew up listening to the music that his parents played on car trips — classic soul, 50s/60s New Orleans music, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Eddie Cochran. “I loved the melody and the groove of that music, but I think really I loved the energy of it as well,” Ned explains in press notes.

The London-based collective’s core duo met when they ere part of a a collection of bands and musicians, who took over an abandoned warehouse in North London back in 2014. “It was called the Arch,” Jon recalls. “When we moved in, it was bare bones concrete walls. A horrible place basically. We built these two analogue recording studios. There were old microphones, hammered organs, and beaten up guitar amps. It was quite craggy.”

The Arch quickly became known for raucous and packed live shows and parties that went well into the night, with live bands frequently getting on around 3am. We’ve all been to similar parties: there’s no bouncer, one port-a-potty with a line of being desperately waiting to pee but the vibe is amazing. Interestingly, Ned and Jon cut their teeth as live musicians in that environment. “We learned to love performing music that made people dance, in the same way those old funk and soul artists used to,” Ned explains. “In fact, what we were doing at the warehouse was sort of in a similar tradition to the Zydeco sessions and crawfish boils around South Louisiana, purely focused around dancing. It was quite simple.”

Franc Moody started in earnest when the duo moved out of The Arch and began to focus on a project that meshed their various influenced. No longer living in the warehouse, they struggled to find a space big enough to fit a drum kit. Instead, they stated programming drums and an electronic aesthetic began to permeate through their older influences.

Their debut effort, 2016’s self-titled EP consisted of a series of Giorgio Moroder-like instruments; but their breakthrough single, the critically applauded “Dopamine” found the band truly establishing their sound: a disco-tinged sound that was subtly indebted to Prince. Building upon a growing profile, the duo released their sophomore EP, 2018’s Dance Moves which eventually amassed over 20 million streams.

They’ve also developed a mesmerizing live sound, inspired by the warehouse rave scene that they came up in — and those live shows find them surrounded by a cast of collaborators and friends as their backing band. In fact, they’ve opened for Friendly Fires  and a number of other acts. Recently, the London-based electro pop collective remixed “pas l’habitude.” And while they retain Loïc Fleury’s achingly plaintive French vocals, they turn the song into Random Access Memories-era Daft Punk like club banger, centered around a sinuous bass line, shimmering synth arpeggios and four on the floor drum programming.

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New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rising Norwegian Producer Wiese Releases an Upbeat and Infectious Single

Trygve Wiese is a rapidly rising Norwegian DJ, producer and songwriter, best known as Wiese. Hailing from Bergen — the same block that Kygo and Alan Walker once lived — Wiese’s sound manages to draw from similar sources. With his work amassing several million Spotify plays, the rising Norwegian artist quickly caught the attention of Warner Music, but he recently decided to release things through his own label. 

2020 has been a weird and terrifying year for all of us — but in the meantime, the rising Norwegian DJ, producer and songwriting plans to release a batch of new material over the next few months, including his latest single, “I Fell.” Centered around Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar, cowbell, synth arpeggios, an infectious hook with chopped and pitched vocals and Wiese’s plaintive vocals, “I Fell” is a rousing, two-step inducing club banger that hints at house music. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Watch Detroit’s ADULT. Smash a Room in Frustration in New Visual for Tense and Claustrophobic “Total Total Damage”

Detroit-based multimedia and electronic music production and artist duo ADULT. — the husband and wife team of Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus — have developed a sprawling catalog of material that obscures and blurs defined genres and styles, while drawing from industrial electronic, house music, punk rock and visual art with releases through Mute Records, Ghostly International, Thrill Jockey, Third Man Records and a list of other labels throughout their two plus decades together. 

Slated for an April 10, 2020 release through Dais Records, the acclaimed Detroit-based electronic duo’s forthcoming album Perception is/as/of Deception was conceived, written and recorded in a temporary black hole they created: the duo painted their windowless basement entirely black, with the sole intention of sensory deprivation so that they could question their perceptions and witness the resulting ramifications. And as result, the album’s material may be the most introspective and punk-leaning they’ve written to date: the frustration and apprehension that has long been at the center of their work are heightened — but interestingly enough, the material was written with a much more head-on approach, making it forceful and strident.

Last month, I wrote about Perception is/as/of Deception‘s second single, the club banging “Have I Stated at the End.” Centered around a classic electronic body music production featuring industrial clang and clatter, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, shimmering synth arpeggios, an enormous hook and a repetitive mantra that questions the fragility and temporality of life “Total Total Damage,” the album’s third and latest single is a tense and claustrophobia-inducing track centered around industrial clang and clatter, layers of synth arpeggios and Kuperus’ howled vocals. Thematically, the song is a dystopian anthem that focuses on the slow and painful collapse of our society and systems and the growing uncertainty and uneasiness we all feel but while expressing the desperate cabin fever. 

While in social isolation, the members of ADULT. decided to build a room-like set indie their house for the Miller and Kuperus-filmed and edited visual for “Total Total Damage,” which features the duo losing their minds and destroying their room with a sledgehammer.  “We’re hoping that the video speaks to a lot of people, because everyone’s feeling cabin fever and wanting to get out, get back to ‘normal’ life,” the Detroit-based duo say in press notes. 

Indie Electro Pop by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: French DJ and Producer The Wooden Cross Remixes Deleo’s “Unfair”

With the release of “Unfair,” the emerging, Montpelier, France-based indie act Deleo — Emy Eris, Romain Viguier, Nicholas Gaeremynck, and Robin Olivier — quickly established their sound: a trip hop-inspired sound with elements of pop, electro pop and rock within a slow-burning and anthemic single. 

The Wooden Cross, is a French DJ, electronic music artist and producer, who spent several years as a resident DJ for the PACHA Group, a collection of ten well-regarded nightclubs around the world. He was able to spin records at clubs around the world and introduce listeners to his own original work: some of that work wound up being released as singles through PACHA Recordings and other labels, including “Rendez-Vous,” which became the closing anthem of PACHA Ibiza. The enigmatic and highly-regarded DJ recently remixed Deleo’s “Unfair,” turning the slow-burning single into a sultry and summery club banger, centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, atmospheric vocal samples and electronics and skittering beats — while retaining Emy Eris’ pop belter vocals and the original’s enormous hooks. 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms
Over the past few months, I’ve written quite a bit about the emerging and mysterious French electronic music artist, producer and latest JOVM mainstay artist
LutchamaK. The French artist and producer grew up as a voracious music fan and listen, who listened to and loved an eclectic array of music including hip-hop. dub, classical, rock, techno and a lengthy list of others. Unsurprisingly,  while his work is deeply influenced by techno, it reflects a devotion to a lifelong eclecticism: his first two EPs, which he managed to create during lunch breaks at his day job featured material that meshed elements of techno, house and EDM among others. 
Now, as you may recall the French JOVM mainstay has been gearing up to release his full-length debut Invisible Realm but in the meantime, he has managed to be incredibly prolific. Before the album’s release, LutchamaK has another EP Joy Inside — and interestingly enough, he has released two singles off the EP: the shimmering and slow-burning dub of “The Dream,” which is full of irie vibes, twinkling keys, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, a sinuous bass line and dreamy vocals coming out of the hazy mix, and the house music banger “I Do,” which features a hypnotic groove centered around wobbling low end, synth arpeggios and a sultry vocal hooks with subtle modulation. Both tracks will remind the listener of a producer, who masters several different styles and sounds — simultaneously.
New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Dive Index Teams Up with Daughter Darling’s Natalie Walker on a Minimalist and Meditative Song

Will Thomas is a Los Angeles-based composer and electronic music producer best known as the creative mastermind behind the collaborative recording project Dive Index, the minimalist solo recording project Plumbline with which he has released several albums, including two collaborations with ambient music composer Roger Eno. Thomas has also composed scores for film, modern dance pieces and has developed sound installations. 

Thomas’ fifth Dive Index album Waving at Airplanes is slated for a May 29, 2020 release through Neutral Music. Deriving its title from the overly optimistic and childlike act of seeking the fleeting attention of passing strangers for the sake of sheer connection, the forthcoming album will continue Thomas’ long-held thematic interest in exploring both the human condition and the condition of humanity — while also touching upon missed connections, artificial intelligence, contentment, the beauty of the desert and our uncertain political climate. Interestingly, the album continues his ongoing collaboration with Daughter Darling’s Natalie Walker and critically acclaimed English multi-instrumentalist Merz.

The album’s material reportedly finds Thomas setting specific parameters to the material’s overall sound and construction, souring almost everything, including percussion from modular synthesizer with the exception of some piano, acoustic guitar and occasional extraneous sounds — a nail gun and jackhammer — that leaked into the studio and were embraced into the songs. 

Waving at Airplanes’ latest single is the atmospheric and cinematic “Window to Window.” Centered around Natalie Walker’s gorgeous and achingly expressive vocals, twinkling keys, shimmering synths and thumping low-end, is visceral and intimate, and full of regret over lost moments, missed and blown opportunities, passing time and getting older  — and manages to recall Portishead and Tales of Us-era Goldfrapp. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Explosively Aggressive Dance Floor Friendly Sound of Los Angeles’ Carré

Carré is a Los Angeles-based indie electro rock act featuring: 

Julien Boyé (drums, percussion, vocals): Boyé has had stints as a touring member of Nouvelle Vague and James Supercave. Additionally, he has a solo recording act Acoustic Resistance, in which he employs rare instruments, which he has collected from all over the world. 
Jules de Gasperis (drums, vocals, synths, production and mixing): de Gasperis is a Paris-born, Los Angeles-based studio owner. Growing up in Paris, he sharpened his knowledge of synthesizers, looping machines and other electronics around the same time that Justice, Soulwax and Ed Banger Records exploded into the mainstream. 
Kevin Baudouin (guitar, vocals, synth, production): Baudouin has lived in Los Angeles the longest of the trio — 10 years — and he has played with a number of psych rock acts, developing a uniquely edgy approach to guitar, influenced by Nels Cline, Jonny Greenwood and Marc Ribot. 
Deriving their name for the French word for “playing tight” and “on point,” the Los Angeles-based trio formed last year. And as the band’s Jules de Gasperis explains in press notes, “The making of our band started with this whole idea of having two drummers perform together. It felt like a statement. We always wanted to keep people moving and tend to focus on the beats first when we write.”  

Aesthetically, the act specializes in blending aggressive, dark and chaotic elements with hypnotic drum loops inspired by French electronica. Thematically, their work is generally about conception, abstraction and distortion of reality, inspired by a geometric shapes and patterns and a surrealistic outlook on our world. The act’s debut single “This is a not a band” is a propulsive, club banger centered around layers of synth arpeggios, explosive and angular guitar squiggles, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, four-on-the-floor drumming, some industrial clang and clatter, shouted vocals, a distorted vocal loop and an arena rock friendly hook. Sonically, the song finds the trio’s sound somewhere in between Factory Floor, The Rapture, Primal Scream, Kasabian, The Chemical Brothers and The Crystal Method– but with a primal and furious intensity. 

Directed by Patrick Fogarty the recently released video is hypnotic and mind-bending visual shot features glitchy and explosive blasts of color that undulate with the music, glowing geometric shapes and more. 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Fonkyson is a rising Montreal-based future house and electro funk DJ and producer, who has released a full-length album — 2016’s #followme — and a handful of singles through Lisbon Lux Records. The Montreal-based DJ and producer’s latest single “You Got It” is centered around Vaness’ sultry and soulful, come hither vocals, a sinuous bass line, handclaps and finger snaps, shimmering synth arpeggios and tweeter and woofer rocking 808s and an infectious hook  with the end result being a summery, club friendly  anthem that seamlessly meshes 80s synth funk and 90s house.  

“During the creation process of the album, I had this beat I composed, kind of sunny chill 808 bass-driven track with a relaxed west coast vibe,” the rising Canadian producer and DJ says of the song’s creative process. “I firstly aimed for an instrumental but tried some acapellas quickly on the track to have a hint of where it could go, a pretty nice producer trick I often do. Then I fell in love with that R&B vibe a female voice could bring to it. I began to search for an artist to ask for a feat, and saw Vaness’s profile on Soundcloud. I loved her vibe, her range, the vocal fioritures that reminded me of 90s R&B divas. She loved the instrumental and said yes. She took quite some time to record a demo, but I remember when I finally got it, I opened the file and it was exactly what I hoped for and way beyond. It wasn’t a demo, it was the final song. Touchdown.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Over the past few months, I’ve written a bit about the emerging Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, keyboardist and indie pop artist Sophie Colette. Colette initially relocated to New York to pursue fashion design, but she pivoted her ambitions to music after being scouted at a high school reunion by The Party Faithful‘s bassist. About a month after that, the Brooklyn-based pop artist found herself contributing vocals, keys and synths for the band and playing with the band at venues across the New York Metropolitan area. During that same period, she met Degraw Sound producer Ben Rice, who she later presented with a stack of sketchbooks filled with lyrics and visual palettes, which became the genesis of her solo work.

Now, as you may recall “Tonite,” off Colette’s debut EP Strangers and Lovers was featured at Jasmine Chong’s runway presentations to the editors of Vogue, WWD, Elle and others during New York Fashion Week 2017. Selected footage from her Stephen Dirkes-directed music video for “Get Close” was nominated for Best Creative Concept, Art Direction and Visual Effects at the La Jolla International Fashion Film Festival. And building upon a growing profile, Colette supported Strangers and Lovers with a European tour with Berlin-based indie-folk project The Crystal Elephant.

Since then, Colette has released a handful of shimmering pop singles that have caught the attention of the blogosphere, including my dear friends and colleagues at Glamglare, Adam’s World Blog,  as well as receiving airplay on French radio station Déclic Radio 101.1FM. Last year, I wrote about one of those singles ““Would You Like It?,” a dreamy pop confection centered round shimmering synths and Colette’s achingly vulnerable vocals.  The Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and keyboardist began this year with a live set at Rockwood Music Hall that featured her gorgeous chamber pop rendition of Cheap Trick’s smash hit “I Want You To Want Me.”

Interestingly, the Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter’s first bit of original music of this year finds her collaborating with highly-regarded New York-based singer/songwriter, electro pop artist and producer Julie Kathryn, best known for her solo recording project I Am Snow Angel. The end result is the minimalist and ethereal “In Love a Little.”  Centered around atmospheric synths and electronics, twinkling synths and Colette’s vulnerable vocals, the song manages to sound otherworldly while evoking the swooning pangs of a new crush that has begun to turn into love. 

“I met Julie at her Mothership album release show at National Sawdust in January 2019. I didn’t know anything about her prior to the show, and was pretty floored by her exploration of sound, the choreography of her set and accompanying visuals, and her overall vibe,” Colette recalls in a lengthy statement. “I resonated with her spirit and felt a bit of a kinship even as I was watching from the audience. After her set I felt compelled to say ‘hi’ and introduce myself, even though I was intimidated as she was swarmed with other guests and press. She was so warm, gave me a big hug, and suggested I reach out to her to chat soon. It was that simple.

“A few days later I already had ‘In Love a Little’ in mind that I wanted to send to her, hoping she would want to produce it. It had been sitting in my collection of demos for a while and I hadn’t landed on a producer for it. My vision of the song was to have a supernatural slant, ethereal and romantic and weird, which would require a different sonic approach than what I’d done before with other producers. Luckily she loved the demo and we started collaborating.

Working with Julie was an amazing experience – it was very hands on and communicative. We sat side by side and made decisions together, from the tracking to the comping to the mixing. I learned so much about Ableton and the possibility of different soundscapes that could be created outside of traditional instrumentation.

“It became apparent to me that working with a female producer, who inherently applied these types of sounds to her own work, came with the advantage of being able to feel the same nuances of emotion without having to explain them to each other. Each session was an open-ended conversation, and quite nurturing to be honest. Something about that female-to-female energy in a room is really powerful when the ego isn’t there. Not to throw shade at any of the amazing male producers and engineers I’ve worked with, but there’s almost a different quality of ‘safe space’ and freedom when working with a female producer. I felt comfortable to be totally vulnerable and emotional all around, without feeling self-conscious of my sensitivities.

I find it hard to explain in words beyond that…perhaps the best way is to say, ‘girl power’ ? :)”