Tag: indie synth pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Brooklyn Synth Pop Act The Rungs Release an Intimate and Sensual Visual for “King of Books”

Currently comprised of founding members and married duo Mandy Gurung (vocals, guitar, production) and Diwas Gurung (guitar, production) with the band’s newest ember Steven Bartashev (drums), the Brooklyn-based indie pop act The Rungs was initially created by Diwas Gurung as a music therapy project for his spouse. Bartashev was recruited to complete the band’s lineup and flesh out their sound during the writing and recording project of their most recent EP, last year’s Everyday Visions, which was recorded by the band at the Gurung’s home studio, nicknamed the Well of Yells. 

“King of Books,” Everyday Visions’ third and latest single is a slow-burning and atmospheric track, centered around shimmering and arpeggiated synths, a soaring hook, buzzing and distorted guitar lines and Mandy Gurung’s ethereal cooing. At its core, the song’s narrator has finally realized that they need to let go of the person or thing that’s holding them back — and as a result, the song is the bitter tell off of someone who’s about to move forward. “This song is so personal, but it touches on something dark that I feel a lot of people can relate to in different ways, about recognizing and letting go of something that’s holding them back,” The Rungs’ Mandy Gurung explains in press notes. “It could be a person, a place, a habit, it could be anything that derails you or even makes you sick. “You’re no good for me” is like a twisted mantra for waking up and seeing it. It’s the first step to moving on.” 

Directed by Justin Sindone, the recently released, sensual and incredibly intimate video for “King of Books” is set at a burlesque show with the members of the band playing music while Danielle Saint Velvet seductively dances to the music. “I had seen Danielle Saint Velvet perform a few times in upstate NY and in some clubs in the Lower East Side. Her dances stood out to me because she does such versatile routines and always manages to move so effortlessly,” Mandy Gurung says in press notes. “Every detail, her facial expressions, choreography, costume design, they all flow together. She’s just so talented in that way. When she agreed to do the video we were so psyched! Our video director and crew put a lot of thought into how to capture the choreography, not just filming the dance but really creating something subtle and delicate. They followed her routine in a way that to me feels so captivating and intimate.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Molina Releases a Feverish and Surreal Visual for Atmsopheric and Synth Driven “Parásito”

Rebecca Maria Molina, is an emerging Chilean-Danish singer/songwriter, electronic music artist and producer, who can trace the origins of her career to when she was eight. As the story goes, the Copenhagen, Denmark-based Molina began writing her own music, inspired by the music her mother frequently played for her, including Bjork, Kate Bush and Royksopp. “I remember wanting the Basement Jaxx’ Rooty album for my birthday at the same age as I was dancing to children’s music.” Molina recalls.

When Molina was in her teens, she furthered her musical education by searching the corners of the Internet and following a trail of like-minded bands and artists, eventually becoming obsessed with the work of Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, 70s-80s new wave and punk , shoegaze and the work of Miharu Koshi and Mariah among others. Unsurprisingly, all of those disparate sounds and styles have influenced the Chilean-Danish artist’s work. 

With the release of her debut EP Corpus, Molina received attention internationally from BBC Radio 6, Beats 1 Radio, The 405, The Line of Best Fit and countless others for a songwriting approached that openly embraces experimentalism — but while sonically drawing from late 70s and early 80s synth pop. Building upon a growing profile across Scandinavia and elsewhere, Molina has released three singles “Mike” “Venus and “Hey Kids” off her highly-awaited, forthcoming sophomore EP Vanilla Shell that have not only established her as a unique voice in the alternative pop scene, but have also received attention from a number of media outlets across the globe, including Gorilla vs. Bear and Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber, who highlighted “Venus” among the best tracks of this year. 
Slated for a January 24, 2020 release, Vanilla Shell finds Molina weaving layered vocals, string and flute arrangements and fretless bass into a synthetic universe, frequently characterized by inventive and challenging song structures, catchy melodies and brooding production. “Parásito,” Vanilla Shell’s latest single is centered around layers of ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals, a chilly, motorik-like groove with warm bursts of organic instrumentation — primarily strummed, acoustic guitar, fluttering flute and wobbling fretless bass lines. Sonically, the song is an exploration of the contrasts between hard and soft and the organic and the synthetic that will draw comparisons to Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. But thematically, the song focuses on two familiar emotions — that mix of longing and absorption for another that makes it feel impossible to get as close to that person as you’d want and the desperate, intense urge for that person that makes you feel as though you were a parasite, as though you couldn’t survive without them. In other words, it suggests that love can be kind of parasitical and confusing. 

“Parásito,” is the first song of Molina’s career written and sung in Spanish and interestingly when she wrote the song, she felt a deeply inherent power and energy than in either Danish and English. “I feel Spanish amplifies my message,” Molina explains in press notes. “The drama in the language makes it easier and more natural for me to be an extrovert and emotional.” 

While being a decidedly 80s-era MTV inspired visual, the recently released video possesses a surreal and feverish air that emphasizes the song’s longing at the song’s core. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Reindeer Flotilla is a Los Angeles-based electro pop act comprised of Neal Harris (vocals, keys) and Josh Brown (guitar). The duo started jamming together in the basement of an Atwater Village wine store, playing covers of John Carpenter, Brian Eno and Elliot Smith, which helped them develop their own sound centered around synths and guitar.

The Los Angeles duo’s latest single is an eerily straightforward cover of Radiohead‘s “Lucky,” that’s a bit more atmospheric and shimmering than the original — but while retaining the original’s soaring and yearning quality.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Holy Fuck Releases a Mind-Bending and Hallucinogenic Visual for Motorik-Groove Driven “Luxe”

Toronto-based electronic act Holy Fuck — Brian Borcherdt, Graham Walsh, Matt McQuaid and Matt Schultz — have developed a long-held reputation for playing by their own rules, frequently using miscellaneous instruments and non-instruments including a 35mm film synchronizer, toy keyboards and toy phaser guns to achieve electronic-sounding effects without the use of laptops, programmed backing tracks, splicing and so on. And perhaps more important, the act has never been overly concerned about chasing the limelight or any genre-based trend.

“Luxe” is the first batch of new material from the acclaimed Canadian electronic act since the release of 2017’s Bird Brains EP and interestingly, the single was born out of the quartet’s desire to revisit old and trusted methods of creating new material — primarily by experimenting live on the stage. Centered around a pulsating, minimal synth loop, shimmering and arpeggiated synths, thumping kick drum, the expansive song, which clocks in at a little over six minutes and bears a bit of a resemblance to Tour de France-era Kraftwerk can trace its origins back to a spontaneous encore jam at Luxembourg, Belgium. As the story goes, once they had the early elements of the track worked on in the studio, they sent it to to their good friend and casual musical mentor Kieran Hebden, best known as Four Tet, who picked the early version of “Luxe” as a standout. The Canadian quartet then invited Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor to contribute vocals. Taylor not only jumped at the opportunity but went to Jack White‘s Third Man Studio in Nashville to record his vocals on White’s 1947 Voice-O-Graph.

“Among more literal translations, ‘Luxe’ is the short form of Luxembourg – the city in which the nexus of the song was created,” the members of Holy Fuck explain in an extensive statement. “On this particular night, during soundcheck, we had a pulsing minimal synth loop we’d been tinkering around with. (We were listening to lots of TRAX Records stuff on that tour.) We decided that if the crowd demanded an encore we’d go for it. ‘Luxe’ was the result. Or – as it was then called on the live recorded MP3 – ‘Luxembourg Encore’. Once home from tour we took all the live demos back to the drawing board. We shared everything with our friend Kieran Hedben aka Four Tet. His always-intuitive advice was that he heard a great club track in his ‘very favorite thing here’: ‘Luxembourg Encore’”.

The next moment of discovery came when Graham suggested the band scrap Brian’s vocals and give it to Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip. When we presented Alexis with the concept our reference notes to him, based around Brian’s temporary vocals, were ‘like an old sample you’d dig up off an old folk record… and approached more like a classic house track’. He responded, ‘We could try to record the vocal in a Voice O Graph booth (an obsolete 1940s coin operated phonograph booth) if we can access one…’. As far as we’re aware, there are only two in the world – one in Liverpool (that apparently doesn’t work anymore) and the other at Jack White’s Third Man studio in Nashville. And that is where Alexis sang ‘I’d like to scrap all of this and start over again.’ Fittingly, it was New Year’s Eve.”

Interestingly, “Luxe” also is the first official single off the acclaimed Canadian electronica act’s forthcoming, fifth album Deleter. Slated for a January 17, 2020, the material reportedly finds the band pushing their signature sound in a new direction — with it being polyrhythmic and pleasure focused, as they seamlessly mesh krautrock, deep house and motorik percussion. Thematically (and spiritually), Deleter reportedly explores what happens when humanity and technology coalesce into one big, semi-organic celebration of the joys of spontaneity, repetition and individuality.  As the band puts it, “the robots are smarter than ever, and the algorithm knows more and more what we like as individuals, but we have to remind ourselves that there is music in the margins that can go missing and that that music is more important than ever.”

Directed by Rapapawn, Óscar Raña and Cynthia Alfonso, the recently released video is a mind-bending and hallucinogenic visual featuring floating geometric shapes, and animated version of the band performing the song. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay pizzagirl Releases a Feverish 80s Movie-Inspired Visual for “ball’s gonna keep on rollin”

Over the past year, Liam Brown, a rapidly rising singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and electro pop artist, best known as pizzagirl became one of this site’s many mainstay artists. With the release of last year’s An Extended Play EP, Brown was championed by Huw Stephens, Annie Mac and Lauren Laverne, and received praise from DIY, Highsnobiety, Wonderland, The Line of Best Fit and others for an 80s synth pop inspired sound. 

Building upon a growing profile, the release of his sophomore EP, season 2 further cemented Brown’s reputation for crafting swooning and shimmering synth pop. This year may be the biggest year of the JOVM mainstay’s career to date, as his highly-anticipated, full-length debut first timer is slated for an October 11, 2019 release through Heist or Hit Records, the label home of the Her’s, Baywaves and Honey Moon among others.

first timer‘s second and latest single “ball’s gonna keep on rollin” is a hook-driven, 80s synth pop bop with shimmering synths, explosive blasts of horns, dramatic drum rolls and Brown’s pop star vocals. And while sounding as though it could have been part of the soundtrack of Stranger Things, the track details the journey of a showbiz wannabe — from wide-eyed, hungry and humble origins to buzz-worthy artist to superstar to broke, washed up and bitter former star. In many ways, the success that the song’s protagonist desperately wanted to attain was his worst nightmare.“It’s a Twilight Zone-type of tale of hunting for the big ‘success’ whatever that may be,” Brown explains in press notes. “Anyways, just remember that if the grind is getting you down, that ball’s gonna keep on rollin.”

Directed by Tom Chetwode-Barton, the recently released, feverish video for “ball’s gonna keep on rollin” is set at a bowling alley and features an epic battle between rivals and an incredibly awkward and self-aware performance before we see that the entire visual is a chloroform induced dream. “The sequel to my first timer anthology series takes place in the smoky lanes of that bowling alley you used to go to years ago!” Brown says in press notes. “A made for TV, Rocky-esque sports battle of the millennium, starring corruption, redemption, Denise and introducing Pizzagirl like you’ve never seen her before! See you in there x!”

The video’s director Tom Chetwode-Barton adds “For this video Pizzagirl had loads of really strong references ranging from The Big Lebowski to Twin Peaks, so we took this and really ran with it – we wanted to create something camp, psychedelic and sort of nightmarish using tropes from all our favourite 80’s films, with a bit of slapstick thrown in for good measure.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tei Shi and Blood Orange Team Up on a Shimmering and Slow Burning 80s Synth Funk-Inspired Ballad

With the release of her critically applauded full-length debut, Crawl Space, the Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, electronic music artist and electronic music producer Valerie Teicher, a.k.a Tei Shi quickly established her sound — slow-burning and shimmering, ethereal pop.

Since the release of her debut, Teicher has been rather busy — she’s collaborated with Blood Orange and Diddy on the viral hit song “Hope,” which has amassed over 10 million stream and appears in the accompanying video along with Diddy, A$AP Rocky, Tyler the Creator and Empress Of. And early this year, she joined Blood Orange in a performance of the song at this year’s Coachella Festival. She’s also been busy working on her highly-anticipated and long-awaited sophomore album La Linda, which is slated for a November 15, 2019 release through Downtown Records.

After spending several years in New York, Teicher relocated to Los Angeles last year, and as a result she quickly shifted course on her path as an artist. “I felt like I was closing a chapter in my life that was tied up in a lot of negativity, and reconnecting with open space and my own creativity in a way that I hadn’t in a very long time,” she says. “I wanted this whole project to reflect the feeling of stepping into another world that’s almost surreal or fantastical in its beauty.”

The album’s material reflects that change in artistic path with the album thematically and tone-wise is a purposeful departure. While her full-length debut was centered around emotional claustrophobia and confusion, the material off La Linda was written in the yard outside of her Elysian Park home — a sun-drenched space with roes bushes and berry patches, a herb garden and apple tree. Unsurprisingly, the album, which is Spanish for “the beautiful” also finds Teicher connecting to her Latin roots and cultural identity, with the acclaimed singer/songwriter writing and singing lyrics in her native Spanish. “Moving to L.A. made me feel much more connected to my Latin roots and my cultural identity, in a way that feels really loving,” says Tei Shi, who grew up between Colombia and Vancouver.

While creating La Linda, Teicher took on the role one executive producer and assembled an all-star team of producers that included Blood Orange, who has also worked with Sky Ferreira, Solange Knowles and FKA Twigs; Stint, who has worked with Santigold, HEALTH and Gallant; TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek; Noah Breakfast, who has worked with Christine and the Queens, Carly Rae Jepsen and Ty Dolla $ign, among a list of others. For Teicher, working with such an eclectic array of musicians and producers helped to shake her free from creative stagnation. “Part of the motivation to move to L.A. was wanting to be a part of a community of people who were excited to collaborate,” Teicher says in press notes. “I felt like I’d gotten to the point where I wasn’t learning as much or picking up new things, so I wanted to work with lots of different people and take in as much as I could from their processes.”

Sonically, the album was also influenced by a disparate array of artists including German choreographer Pina Bausch and acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. “With Kurosawa, I was so inspired by how each frame is so well-composed that it almost looks like a painting, and how he used these very simple things like rain or a gust of wind to create emotion,” the acclaimed Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter explains in press notes. Interestingly, she also found nature inspiring the album’s material as well. I think I took nature for granted for a long time, but making this album I was so drawn to the mountains and trees and water—I realized how much nature is another form of art,” Teicher says. ““For me this album is about letting go of the past and moving willingly into the future,” Teicher continues. “I hope it can give people a glimpse of something beautiful, and help them look out into the world in a more loving and intuitive way.”

La Linda’s latest single is the slow-burning, 80s synth soul-inspired, Noah Breakfast-produced single “Even If It Hurts.” Continuing Teicher’s ongoing collaboration with acclaimed synth pop artist and producer Blood Orange, the track is centered around thumping 808-like beats, shimmering and arpeggiated synths and Teicher’s and Hynes plaintive vocals trading verses on love — particularly how pain in some way or another is always part of love.  And while being a soulful synthesis of Teicher’s and Hynes work, the song also manages to sound as though it were drew from the likes of Cherelle’s “Saturday Love” and Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit”

“I made this song with two of my closest collaborators — Dev Hynes (Blood Orange) and Noah Breakfast,” Teicher shares in press notes. ” It came together in pieces between LA and New York but sprouted from the lyrics Dev and I kept on singing – ‘even if it hurts…I just don’t mind’. The concept is really the realization and acceptance that pain is a natural consequence of love. It’s a duet about the ways in which we make ourselves vulnerable to those we love, sometimes at a high cost. The video was directed by Cara Stricker and with an incredible and almost exclusively female creative crew. It features a multitude of amazing designers like Collina Strada, Vaquera, Christopher John Rogers, Mugler, Maryam Nassir Zadeh . I wanted to capture the romantic and melancholic elements of the song but put them in a world that feels removed from the every day, its own little odd paradise where Dev and I existed parallel to one another but never really together.”

The video’s director Cara Stricker adds, “I wanted to explore the iconography of love in art history through a modern yet romantic lens. Creating stillness and emotive movement to reflect the physical or emotional space in love… vulnerability, numbing immersion, knowing the truth, becoming closer, fighting for it, letting them in…even if it hurts. It’s a conversation between opposing perspectives in a relationship.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Influenced by the likes of The Neighbourhood, LANY, The 1975 and John Mayer, the emerging Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada alt pop artist BENJII has an effortlessly cool take on pop that features moody electronics, shimmering guitars, atmospheric synths and ethereal vocals.

The Vancouver-based pop artist’s latest single, the slickly produced “I Won’t Die For You” is centered around layers of arpeggiated synths, thumping beats, a soaring hook and BENJII’s plaintive and ethereal vocals recalls St. Lucia, Stevie Nicks‘ “Stand Back,” and others, complete with a rousing hook — and while being a hook-driven banger, the track comes a rather dark place. “I Won’t Die For You” takes place in the clouded mind of someone going through the heartbreaking motions of addition and depression,” BENJII explains in press notes. “Though I’ve never found myself enveloped in this sort of darkness, I’ve witnessed so many beautiful people I love struggle in silence. It’s left me feeling broken and burning.”

“This song began as an outlet for me to cope with my feelings surrounding the existence of these things in my life, but now it’s yours to relate to whether you personally face these struggles or have someone you love who does,” the up-and-coming Canadian artist adds. 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this year, I wrote about Alekos “Kosie” Sryopoulous, an up-and-coming Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer, who has collaborated with the likes of Anderson .Paak, Mac Miller, JMSN, The Midnight, DUX, Stan Taylor, Vulfpeck, Cory Wong, DJ Williams, Tiffany Gouche, Sensae, Desi Valentine, Raquel Rodriguez, Ruslan Sirota, Madelyn Grant and others as a live and studio session player. In fact, the Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer was recently featured on Anderson .Paak’s “King James.”

Interestingly, as a producer and solo artist, Sryopoulous has begun to receive attention for a take on future funk that incorporates synths, woodwind and a mix of live and sampled drums that’s largely influenced by his deep and abiding love of jazz, funk, hip-hop and electronic music. Now, as you may recall “Struck Gold” was a lush and soulful track centered around arpeggiated synths, warm blasts of saxophone Amber Navran’s easygoing yet sultry vocals. While being one part Teddy Riley-era New Jack Swing and one part 80s synth R&B, the song finds Syropolous and and Navran balancing between a loving homage to two-step inducing soul and contemporary pop.

Sryopoulous’ latest single, the swooning “Heavy Waters” is a lush and soulful track, bursting with several different musical ideas that’s centered around shimmering and arpeggiated synths, thumping beats, Whitney Myer‘s sultry vocals. As a result the song manages to sound as though it seamlessly draws from 90s pop, hip-hop-tinged R&B before ending with a tropical, yacht rock-like coda.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Up-and-coming Oslo, Norway-based indie pop act Hollywood is comprised of a trio of accomplished solo artists and friends — Billie Van, Jonas Alaska and Mikhael Paskalev.  And while each individual member act has seen a fair share of success in their native Norway, they’ve managed to contribute to each other’s recorded output. Their newest collaboration together find the trio further blurring the boundaries between each other’s individual work — and discovering a bolder, more playful approach to their songwriting.

The trio’s self-produced full-length debut Close to You was released today, and the album which was written and recorded over a two year period is reportedly finding the trio’s sound morphing and twisting between several different styles of songwriting and production in a cohesive way — while being generally inspired by 80s and 90s pop. “Parachute,” Close to You‘s latest single is a slow-burning and atmospheric bit of synth pop featuring twinkling keys, achingly tender vocals expressing longing and desire with an aching vulnerability, a soaring hook and a swaggering Timbaland-inspired bridge. Interestingly, the trio mesh slick production, forward-thinking and ambitious songwriting with a heartbreaking earnestness that ensures that the material isn’t purely seen as homage to its influences.

 

 

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Julien Chang Releases a Shimmering and Nostalgic Synth Funk-Driven Single

Over the past couple of moths, I’ve written a bit about the rapidly rising, 19-year-old Baltimore-born multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, producer and current university student Julien Chang (pronounced Chong). Chang surprised his peers when he quietly began releasing original music during his senior year in high school. Initially only thought of just as a trombone player, the Baltimore-born, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer’s earliest material found him playing multi-instruments while meshing pop-leaning melodicism, psych rock and jazz fusion-leaning experimentation and improvisation with a sophistication and self-assuredness that belied his relative youth. 

Now as you may recall, those early releases caught the attention of Transgressive Records, the label home of SOPHIE, Let’s Eat Grandma and JOVM mainstay Neon Indian, and the label will be releasing Chang’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Jules on October 11, 2019. So far I’ve written about the album’s first two singles — “Of The Past,” a sleek, early 80s-like synth funk-based track centered around dexterous musicianship and pop melodicisim and the slow-burning, Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles-like “Butterflies from Monaco.” Interestingly, the album’s third and latest single “Memory Loss” is centered by syncopated blips and bloops, a sinuous bass line, shimmering synths and Chang’s plaintive falsetto and a yearning for an unreachable and halcyon-tinged past. And while  seemingly influenced by 80s synth funk, the song continues a run of incredibly self-assured singles featuring some dazzling musicianship and big hooks. 

 “A worsening memory is something I’ve always been worried about,” Chang explains. “The song was made with a kind of structural rigidity in mind, and about memory’s natural lack of it when having trouble putting faces to names, for example. It’s easy to be frustrated by that feeling, but being left with a sudden emotional reaction sparked by some stimulus for an unclear reason can be as lovely as it is disorienting.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Toronto-based electronic act Holy Fuck — Brian Borcherdt, Graham Walsh, Matt McQuaid and Matt Schultz — have developed a long-held reputation for playing by their own rules, frequently using miscellaneous instruments and non-instruments including a 35mm film synchronizer, toy keyboards and toy phaser guns to achieve electronic-sounding effects without the use of laptops, programmed backing tracks, splicing and so on. And perhaps more important, the act has never been overly concerned about chasing the limelight or any genre-based trend.
“Luxe” is the first batch of new material from the acclaimed Canadian electronic act since the release of 2017’s Bird Brains EP and interestingly, the single was born out of the quartet’s desire to revisit old and trusted methods of creating new material — primarily by experimenting live on the stage. Centered around a pulsating, minimal synth loop, shimmering and arpeggiated synths, thumping kick drum, the expansive song, which clocks in at a little over six minutes and bears a bit of a resemblance to Tour de France-era Kraftwerk can trace its origins back to a spontaneous encore jam at Luxembourg, Belgium. As the story goes, once they had the early elements of the track worked on in the studio, they sent it to to their good friend and casual musical mentor Kieran Hebden, best known as Four Tet, who picked the early version of “Luxe” as a standout. The Canadian quartet then invited Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor to contribute vocals. Taylor not only jumped at the opportunity but went to Jack White‘s Third Man Studio in Nashville to record his vocals on White’s 1947 Voice-O-Graph.

“Among more literal translations, ‘Luxe’ is the short form of Luxembourg – the city in which the nexus of the song was created,” the members of Holy Fuck explain in an extensive statement. “On this particular night, during soundcheck, we had a pulsing minimal synth loop we’d been tinkering around with. (We were listening to lots of TRAX Records stuff on that tour.) We decided that if the crowd demanded an encore we’d go for it. ‘Luxe’ was the result. Or – as it was then called on the live recorded MP3 – ‘Luxembourg Encore’. Once home from tour we took all the live demos back to the drawing board. We shared everything with our friend Kieran Hedben aka Four Tet. His always-intuitive advice was that he heard a great club track in his ‘very favorite thing here’: ‘Luxembourg Encore'”.

The next moment of discovery came when Graham suggested the band scrap Brian’s vocals and give it to Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip. When we presented Alexis with the concept our reference notes to him, based around Brian’s temporary vocals, were ‘like an old sample you’d dig up off an old folk record… and approached more like a classic house track’. He responded, ‘We could try to record the vocal in a Voice O Graph booth (an obsolete 1940s coin operated phonograph booth) if we can access one…’. As far as we’re aware, there are only two in the world – one in Liverpool (that apparently doesn’t work anymore) and the other at Jack White’s Third Man studio in Nashville. And that is where Alexis sang ‘I’d like to scrap all of this and start over again.’ Fittingly, it was New Year’s Eve.”
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their debut single “Visions of You,” feat. Electric Youth, the up-and-coming Stockholm and Los Angeles-based electronic production and electronic music artist duo ROOM8 — Ezra Reich and Nic Johns — quickly established a reputation for crafting a sound that draws from electro pop, electronic dance music and film soundtracks. Building upon a growing profile, the duo produced, wrote and/or cowrote a series of attention-grabbing singles including Electric Youth‘s “Without You” which was praised by NPR, as well as “No Hard Feelings,” feat. King Deco and “This Place Again,” feat. Polina, which received praise form Neon Gold, Huffington Post, Noisey, Blackbook, Flaunt and elsewhere. “Better Than Music,” a collaboration with acclaimed British electro pop artist Little Boots premiered on Billboard.

Now, as you may recall, this year has been an incredibly busy and productive year for the duo: they produced the score for the forthcoming motion picture Cuck and their latest album Transduction is slated for an October 11, 2019 release. Earlier this year, I wrote about the atmospheric and slow-burning “Only You.” Transduction‘s latest single is the shimmering and nostalgic “Jasmine Nights.” Centered around pulsating mini-moog basslines, shimmering synths and Jesika Miller’s delicate vocals and a soaring hook, the uptempo song manages to be cinematic while nodding at Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back” — but at its core is an expression of devotion to a loved one in there time of need.

“‘Jasmine Night,’ was written at a time when a family member was battling a serious illness. Sometimes in Los Angeles, while you sit out at night, there is an incredible scent of jasmine that drifts through the air and canyons,” the duo explains.