Angel Ez is a Chicago-based indie singer/songwriter and producer, who currently creates music inspired by his own life experiences and emotions and anything else that may come at the moment. He recently finished a batch of material that’s slated for release at the end of this month — and the project will include his latest single, “When I’m With You,” a hook-driven slick pop song centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rattling beats and Ez’s plaintive vocals. Sonically, the track is a slick yet soulful synthesis of 80s synth pop and contemporary indie electro pop paired with lived-in lyrics.
Tag: mp3s
Deriving her stage name from the Idlewood district of San Andreas in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Eleanor Idlewood is an emerging, 23 year-old, Bordeaux-based electronic music producer and artist, who can trace the origins of her music career to when she was 14: Idlewood explains that her best friend received music programming software and they shared the software with her. Ever since then she’s been making her own original music, inspired by the sounds of the 80s and 90s — including Depeche Mode, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Human League, Kraftwerk, Vangelis, Pet Shop Boys, Madonna, Jean-Michel Jarre, Moby, Telepopmusik, Testu Inoue, Stephane Pompougnac, William Orbit and a lengthy list of others. (Unsurprisingly, the emerging French electronic music artist and producer proudly admits that she’s obsessed with the 80s: she owns some vintage synthesizers from the 80s and owns vintage dresses, boots and other items from the 80s that she regularly wears.)
After releasing a handful of singles that found the young, emerging, French electronic music producer and artist experimenting with darkwave and New Wave, Idlewood released her full-length debut, last year’s Little Secrets, which featured the brooding, John Carpenter soundtrack-like “Not Your Fault.” Building upon the attention she received with Little Secrets, Idlewood will be releasing its follow-up, Little Secrets: Remixes and Fantasies. Little Secrets: Remixes and Fantasies‘ first single “Akito’s Madness” is a decidedly Tour de France-era Kraftwerk-inspired single, centered around a hypnotic, motorik groove, shimmering synth arpeggios and thumping beats.
“Kraftwerk is a major influence for this electronica track,” Idlewild says. “Made with some sequencer, vocalic for the vocal, Korg MS-20, Volca Modular and other sound design.”
Steven Bamidele is a Brighton, UK-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, has been developing and honing his sound and approach for the better part of the past decade, beginning his career performing as Mirror Signal between 2013 and 2017. In 2017, he decided to drop the moniker, to write and record with his real given name and his Nigerian mother’s maiden name. But regardless of what he called himself, the Brighton-based singer/songwriter has focused on crafting emotionally-driven music that meshes elements of soul and pop.
Bamidele relocated to Brighton back in 2018 and over the following year, he played as many shows as humanly possible, earning a foothold in both Brighton and London. With the COVID-19 pandemic putting live music at an indefinite pause, the Brighton-based artist has been busy producing music for other artists in home studio, as well as working on new, original music — including his debut EP, which is slated for release later this year through Park The Van. (I should mention that Bamidele is the first non-rock signee to the label, as well.)
In the meantime, Bamidele’s latest single “What Happens Afterwards,” features Dave Bryce on an expansive, slow-burning, neo-soul-inspired track centered around twinkling Rhodes, shimmering synths, a sinuous two-step-inducing strutting groove, Bamidele’s achingly tender falsetto. Interestingly, the song is a heady mix of longing, wishful thinking, regret and a desire to move forward that captures how complicated and confusing love and lust can be.
Impériuex is a mysterious Turkish-Bulgarian, Berlin-based electronic music artist and producer, who developed and honed a sound influenced by both his Turkish roots and by the Sofia underground electronic music scene.
Last year, the mysterious and emerging Bulgarian-born, Berlin-based began working on his latest EP Modus Operandi in Bulgaria and continued working on the EP as he relocated to Berlin. As Impérieux explains in press notes, his relocation and adjustment to life in Berlin was a melancholic time: dealing with the prerequisite culture shock and new language would be challenging for most people — before a pandemic that has changed just about everything. Partially inspired by his feelings of isolation and alienation, and Murukami’s novels, Modus Operandi‘s material is dark, brooding, surreal and at times simplistic.
The EP’s latest single “Terra Incognito” is a percussive and sensual bit of deep house, centered around shimmering hi-hats, glitchy synths, enormous brass and a propulsive, motorik groove that will recall Between Two Selves-era Octo Octa — but while possessing a gentle urgency that will make you move your body.
New Audio: Switzerland’s Etienne Machine Releases a Brooding and Uneasy Single
Lausanne, Switzerland-based trip hop act Etienne Machine is a fairly mysterious, emerging indie act. Their latest single “RIFT (Erased Your Face)” is a brooding and hypnotic, Portishead-like take on trip hop centered around twinkling Rhodes, skittering beats, wobbling synths and electronics, shimmering guitars and ethereal vocals.
The song evokes the claustrophobia and unease of a relationship on the brink, full of the complicated and bitter emotions, the contradictory push and pull, the longing and regret that often accompanies relationships.
New Audio: Emerging Producer PIB Releases an Infectious and Summery Banger
PIB is a French-born electronic music producer and artist, who splits his time between Ibiza and Barcelona. Passionate about creating positive and hopeful music that makes a difference, the emerging French-born, Spanish-based producer and artist’s work is deeply inspired by the beauty of his adoptive homeland.
The French-born, Spanish-based producer’s self-assured, debut single “Es Vedrá Energy” derives its title from an uninhabited, rocky island, just off the southwestern coast of Ibiza. The song is an aptly sun-drenched and upbeat banger, featuring shimmering synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rock beats, sultry female vocals, tribal drumming and a rousingly anthemic hook that’s perfect to shout drunkenly along to while in the club.
Interestingly, 50% of all of streaming revenue will be donated to animal charities, like Pet Alert.
New Audio: Bay Area-based Producer Nick Andre Teams Up with Lil B, ZIon I, and Casual on a Banger
Nick Andre is a San Francisco-based producer, who co-founded Bay Area-based indie label Slept on Records with his friend Myron & E’s Eric a.k.a. E da Boss and The Pendletons as an outlet to release music they were making with friends on their own terms. The label released a series of 12″and 7″ records featuring Gift of Gab, Lyrics Born, Bicaso and others. And although all of the label’s founders went on to sign with different labels for their own original work — E signed with Stones Throw Records and Andre did a record with MUSH — they managed to continue the label’s primary mission.
Over the years, Andre has been rather busy as an in-demand producer, collaborating with the aforementioned Gift of Gab and Bicaso, Lateef the Truth Speaker, Zion I, Lil B, Casual, Hanni El Khatib, Rob Sonic, Deuce Eclipse and others — and several instrumental projects. The San Francisco-based producer and label head co-wrote the score for the feature film Chasing Valentine and he has had his music appear on the Showtime’s The CHI, Netflix’s EASY and Freeform Networks’ Grownish. Additionally, Andre has composed music for national TV ad campaigns for Reebook, Nike, Adidas, Mini Cooper, ESPN’s X Games, Levi’s, HUF x Playboy, Thrasher Magazine and DC Snowboarding.
Andre’s latest single “Life Is Awesome” sees the San Francisco-based producer collaborating with longtime collaborators and Bay Area hip-hop legends Lil B, Causal and Zion I. Centered around a warm and soulful production featuring skittering boom bap beats, looping and wobbling Rhodes that’s roomy enough for each emcee to spit swaggering and self-assured bars full of dexterous wordplay and witty punchlines. Simply put, it’s a warm reminder of straightforward hip-hop featuring dope emcees spitting bars and pushing themselves in friendly rivalry over slick yet soulful production.
“I love Casual and the squad. Thanks Nick for putting this legendary track together,” Lil B. Nick Andre says, Really happy I was able to get these three Bay Area legends all on one track. Lil B set if off by sending me a dope verse and chorus And Zion I and Casual killed it as they always do.” “In terms of Bay Area Hip Hop . . . we are spanning decades and styles by clicking up with Lil B, Casual, and Nick Andre on the beats,” Zion I adds. “You wouldn’t expect to hear Lil B on a song with me…but that’s the beauty of this song.”
New Audio: Two from Acclaimed Belgian Post Punk Act Whispering Sons
Initially started in 2013 as a hobby for its then Leuven, Belgium-based founding members Kobe Linjen (guitar), Sander Hermans (synths), Lander Paesan (bass) and Sander Pelsmaekers (drums), the rising Brussels-based post punk act Whispering Sons have evolved a great deal. As the story goes, in search of a singer they recruited Fenne Kuppens, who at that point had been uploading covers of bands like Slowdive to Soundcloud. Already fostering deep ambition, she rigorously prepared. “I’d always wanted to sing in a band, but I never had friends who made music, they weren’t in my surroundings,” Kuppens recalls in press notes. “They were talking about this post-punk thing that I’d never heard of before, so I had to read into it. I could see myself in it, I felt the music.”
Leuven is a quiet, European university town and its mainstream-leaning music scene didn’t connect with Kuppens. But after a year studying abroad in Prague, where she immersed herself in the city’s DIY scene, Kuppens was galvanized — and inspired. “I made friends there who did things with their lives! There was a guy who had a DIY record label and who made music, all from his bedroom. I thought, if they can do this, why can’t we at least try?” Kuppens recalls. As soon as she returned, she relocated to Brussels. The remaining members of the band — Linjin, Hermans, Pelsmaekers and Paesan — later joined her. And immediately, the band quickly began honing their live show and sound.
Inspired by Xiu Xiu and Chinawoman, Kuppens distinctive, low register vocal style emerged early. “I started to feel more comfortable on stage, to express myself more rather than just singing a song,” she says. “I started feeling the music more, identifying more with the sounds and what I was doing.” Kuppens stage presence became known for being transfixing and trancelike, defined by compulsive and movements. “People have said it looks like I’m fighting my demons onstage, I guess there’s some truth in that,” she says.
During the summer of 2015, the band went into the studio to record material. “Fenne was really pushing us saying ‘We have to go for it, not just make another demo,” Whispering Sons’ Kobe Linjen recalls in press notes. The result was their goth-inspired debut EP, 2015’s Endless Party EP. Just a few months after its initial release through Wool-E-Tapes, the Brussels-based post-punk act won Humo’s Rock Rally, one of Belgium’s most prestigious music competitions. With the increased attention and accolades came bigger shows, bigger tours across Europe and larger crowds. “People started to expect things from us. We had to adapt quickly,” Linjen adds.
With the demands of a growing profile, the band began setting new, more ambitions targets for themselves. While writing new material for the increasingly longer sets their increased status required, they began to grow tired of the limits of post-punk and eagerly sought ways to push past them as much as possible. “We wanted to evolve, we wanted to attract larger audiences and not just play in one scene,” Kobe continues.
The Belgian post-punk quintet released two 7 inches, 2016’s “Performance”/”Strange Identities” and 2017’s “White Noise” — while going through a lineup change: the band’s friend Tuur Vanderborne replaced Paesan on bass. The band’s Micha Volders and Bert Vliegen-produced 2018 full-length debut Image was released through Cleopatra Records here in the States and Smile Records throughout the rest of the world. Recorded over a ten day period at Waimes, Belgium’s GAM Studios, Image found the band crafting a dark, brooding blend of experimental and frenetic post-punk that expressed the alienation, loneliness and anxiety that each individual member felt when they relocated to Brussels, Belgium’s largest city.
Image garnered praise from music press across the globe — and it amassed millions of streams across digital service providers. Before pandemic-related quarantines, lockdowns and restrictions, the Brussels-based post punk quintet was establishing themselves for a ferocious, must-see live show while sharing stages with the likes of The Murder Capital, Patti Smith, The Soft Moon, Croatian Armor and Editors. “We were very happy with Image, and at that point it was the best thing we could have made,” Fenne Kuppens says. “But from the moment we finished it we started to look at it in a critical way. ‘This is something we should do again. This is something we don’t like.’ So very quickly we found the direction we wanted to go in for the next album.”
Last summer, the members of Whispering Sons retreated to the Ardennes to work on new material. And in those writing sessions, the band took what they believed were the strongest part of their earliest work and refined them even further, with a focus on their greatest strength — sheer, unpretentious intensity. “We tried to create an album that’s more direct and more dynamic. More in your face,” Kuppens says.
Interestingly, Kuppens can trace the origins of the lyrics for the band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Several Others from one sentence she’d scribbled in a notebook “Always be someone else instead of yourself.” “It’s terrible advice,” Kuppens says in press notes. “But it resonated with me and my personal ambitions.” She stared writing about her uncompromising perfectionism that although was partly responsible for the band’s initial success, was becoming stifling and overwhelming. “I was at a stage where it was becoming unhealthy. You always think things have to be better, that you can always do more.”
Recently, the band released two companion singles “Satantango” and “Surgery” off the forthcoming single. Both tracks see the band ambitiously pushing the ferocious and dirvintensity that helped win them international attention to the limits — while somehow delicately balancing fragility and vulnerability. Centered around anxious and propulsive instrumentation, both songs evokes unease of someone hopelessly trapped in stasis, possibly of their own making — and the slow-burning, creeping unease of someone struggling with their own role with their misery. Hell is often other people; but hell can be your own mind, too.
Along with the record, which is slated for a June 18, 2021 release through [PIAS] Recordings, the band will be releasing each single with a corresponding live session to be compiled and released as a live film.
New Audio: Rising Brooklyn-based Artist Quelle Rox Releases a Slow-burning and Shimmering Single
Raquelle, a.k.a. Rocky is a rising Brooklyn-based Latinx singer/songwriter and producer. After graduating from my alma mater, NYU, the rising Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, delved into production with her solo recording project Quelle Rox, which finds Raquelle striving to open doors for female Latinx producers, while specializing in a sound that she has dubbed “soundtracks catered to dreamy, nostalgic memories of the past with a bad bitch twist.”
Since the release of her debut single “Dream Daises” in 2018, the rising Brooklyn artist has had material featured across the blogosphere including Ladygunn, Earmilk, Notion, and HighClouds. Herr work has appeared on Spotify New Music Friday Latin, Spotify Fresh Finds, Spotify Discovery Weekly, Spotify Latinx IndieRising, H&M Global and a number of other playlists. Adding to a growing profile, Quelle Rox has opened for the likes of Homeshake — and she’s headlined at Baby’s All Right.
Continuing upon that momentum, Quelle Rox’s highly-anticipated debut EP Lilac Rush is slated for an April 23, 2021 release. The EP’s latest single “No Surprises” is a lush slow-burning Quiet Storm-inspired, lo-fi fever dream, fueled by a bittersweet mix of longing nostalgia, heartache, betrayal and anger that brings early Washed Out and Prince to mind: the track is all shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, sinuous bass lines, skittering typewriter keyboard-like beats with Quelle Rox’s achingly plaintive vocals.
“I originally wrote this song a few years ago to a ‘type beat’ I found online that I was just playing around with for fun while in my feelings,” the rising Brooklyn-based artist recalls in press notes. “I came across the track randomly in my archive during quarantine and even years later, it still resonated with me and resembled the storyline within the whole EP – a longing for what could have been and also a fuck you. So then I hit up my producer and collaborator Identite Crisis and asked if he could take the demo and turn it into its own version, since I wanted to include it on the EP. Shortly after he sent me this fire new beat and I ended up just keeping the old vocals and boom, ‘No Surprises’ was born.”
Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays Junaco — Shahanna Jaffer and Joey LaRosa — derive their name for a term that they say generally means rolling with the pace of life and enjoying the present; living and working with intention, and not just running on autopilot. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, you may recall that the band can trace its origins back to the duo having a mutual desire to make music for music’s sake and to write honest songs that meant something for them — and for listeners, as well. Interestingly enough, much like the term that inspired their name, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays have developed a rather deliberate creative approach, deciding to eschew the commonly-held attempts to placate the blogosphere’s short attention span with constant releases of varying quality.
2019’s Omar Yakar-produced EP Awry last year, an effort that featured the lovelorn “Willow,” and the 70s AM Rock meets Maazy Star-like “In Between.” Last year, the duo released a reworking of “In Between,” “In Between (Reprise) ” which was an even more ethereal and softer take on the original, while evoking the confusing sensations of change, uncertainty and progress. The duo’s latest single is their first single of 2021, “Blue Room,” continues a run of gorgeous hook driven indie rock, centered around shimmering guitars and Jaffer’s ethereal vocals. But unlike their previously released material, “Blue Room” is simultaneously a contented sigh and a sigh of frustration, evoked by the fact that home can be a place of safety, security and love, as much as it can be a place of stifling boredom.
“We were coming off a high of recording, playing, working, performing, running, running – running like the rest of the world,” the JOVM mainstays explain. “We knew we wanted our next project to be upbeat and fun and we didn’t yet sink into the reality of the shitiness quickly approaching. We were sitting on this large gray couch, overlooking the hills, beginning to write this song. The cool tones from the gloominess brought the blue into the room. Throughout all of this, a reflection – don’t forget the ground below your feet. A similar, universal feeling everyone was beginning to realize – that there are so many important things we miss when we are running. So many simple things. I think this whole record reflects on that; focusing on the beauty in the simplicity of life.”
Jindoss is a mysterious, Saint Malo, France singer/songwriter, who released their debut EP Rendez-vous late last week. The EP’s latest single “Saturday Night” quickly (and boldly) establishes the French artist’s sound: swirling and brooding shoegaze centered around shimmering, reverb-drenched guitars, plaintive wailing and boom bap-like drumming. Sonically, “Saturday Night” strikes me as a seamless synthesis of PJ Harvey-like atmospherics and A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve-like textures.
Cole Koch is an emerging Toronto-based producer. His debut single, “Lockdown NYC” was part of a batch of material originally conceived as a way to keep busy and sane during pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns. The project began to take a life of its own — to the point that it became a full-time endeavor.
Centered around scorching guitars, tweeter and woofer rattling 808s, squiggling synths and a rousingly anthemic hook, Koch’s urgent and forceful debut single manages to nod at The Pleasure Principle-era Gary Numan and John Carpenter soundtracks. Fittingly for a song that sounds as though it could be part of the soundtrack for our dystopian present, “Lockdown NYC,” is inspired by real life events: Last March, Koch was booked to play The New Colossus Festival. While the festival mostly continued as planned, with the occasional venue closure and cancelled artist, it wasn’t until he finished his set, which was coincidentally at the end of the festival, when the urgency of the moment snapped into focus. With shops, restaurants and most travel shut down, Koch and his friends found themselves in the middle of pandemic-related lockdowns without food, money or their passports.
After a handful of nights sleeping whenever they could, Koch and his friends decided that the only way they could do to get back home was to hitchhike — but with the complete lack of traffic on the roads, that was easier said than done. Eventually, the group of friends came upon a young couple heading back to Toronto. That couple snuggled them across the border under blankets and suitcases.
The new single, which was released by Kanine Records is a the beginning of a batch of material the Toronto-based producer will be releasing throughout the year. And I’m looking forward to hearing what’s next.
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New Video: Montreal’s TEKE: TEKE Releases a Frenzied Balls-to-the-Wall Ripper
Featuring a collection of accomplished, Montreal-based musicians, who have played with and alongside the likes of Pawa Up First, Patrick Wilson, Boogat, Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra and others, the rising Montreal-based Japanese psych punk septet TEKE: TEKE – Yuki Isami (flute, shinobue and keys), Hidetaka Yoneyama (guitar), Sergio Nakauchi Pelletier (guitar), Mishka Stein (bass), Etienne Lebel (trombone), Ian Lettree (drums, percussion) and Maya Kuroki (vocals, keys and percussion) — was initially founded as a loving homage (and tribute) to legendary Japanese guitarist Takeshi “Terry” Terauchi.
With the release of their debut EP 2018’s Jikaku, the rising Montreal-based septet came into their own highly unique and difficult to pigeonhole sound, a sound that features elements of Japanese Eleki surf rock, shoegaze, post-punk, psych rock, ska, Latin music and Balkan music. 2020 was a big year for the Canadian psych act. They signed to Kill Rock Stars Records, who will be releasing the band’s highly-awaited full-length debut Shirushi. The band also released two singles off the album, which is slated for a May 7, 2021 release:
“Kala Kala:” Deriving its title from a phrase that roughly translates to English as clattering, “Kala Kala” is centered around a mind-melting arrangement and song structure, Kuroki’s howling and crooning. And to my ears, the track accurately captures the band’s frenetic live energy.
“Chidori,” a cinematic yet mosh pit friendly freak out that’s one part psych rock, one part Dick Dale-like surf rock, one part Ennio Morricone soundtrack delivered with a frenetic aplomb.
“Meikyu,” Shirushi’s third and latest single, derives its title from the Japanese word for labyrinth and the song is a, no bullshit, no filler, all killer headbang centered around an expansive, mind-melting song structure that features some muscular and menacing guitar work, dramatic bursts of trombone, fluttering flute, trumping tribal drumming, and some of the wildest soloing I’ve heard in the better part of a year. Maya Kuroki’s crooning and feral howling add to the song’s balls-to-the-wall, maximalist frenzy — and it kicks major ass.
Fittingly, the Montreal-based act released a DIY yet cinematically shot video that features live footage of the band performing individually — perhaps as a result of pandemic restrictions — and gorgeous animations from the band’s Serge Nakauchi-Pelletier and Maya Kuroki. “When plans with a hired animator fell through, Maya and I decided to take things into our own hands,” Nakauchi-Pelletier says. Kuroki adds, “I’ll make some drawings or paintings and then use whatever tools we have, learn new software on the spot and ways of working as we go.’’
“Musically, we wanted a fast-paced repetitive pattern that would have a hypnotic and unnerving effect,” the band explains. Kuroki continues, “the song tells the story of a young character trying to escape the grasp of a twisted spirit that took the form of a labyrinthe-like mansion in a psychedelic atmosphere, slightly inspired by visuals from Japanese art-horror flick Hausu.”
Doubleheader is a collaborative project between Arthur Comeau, a musician and producer, who has released material as Radio Radio, Nom de Plume and under his own name — and multi-instrumentalist, producer and arranger Jean Massicotte, who has worked with Patrick Wilson, Jean Leloup, Lhasa, Arthur H, Alejandra Ribera and a lengthy list of others. Interestingly, Doubleheader finds the acclaimed musicians and producers blending a wild mix of ideas, genres and sounds, including beatmaking, DJing, hip-hop, worldbeat, pop and others — as a way of showing the world what pop music can feel and sound like in the 2020s and beyond, continuing a larger push towards a genre-less world. Importantly, the duo’s sound and approach is specifically crafted to be a reflection of the world we should be aspiring to right now — a multicultural world that celebrates diversity in all of its forms.
The Montreal-based act’s 10 song, full-length debut Slim Wall finds the duo collaborating with an equally accomplished collection of Canadian vocalists including 2020 Juno Award-winning artist Dominque Fils-Aimé, 2019 AFRIMA Award-winning artist AfrotroniX, 2020 Juno Award-winner Djely Tapa, Samito, EIDHZ, Quentin Hatfield and TEKE: TEKE’s Maya Kuroki to create material that eschews genre and language constraints in an interesting yet accessible fashion.
Late last year, I wrote about “Djanto,” which featured achingly plaintive and evocative vocals from acclaimed Malian-Canadian artist Djely Tapa artist over shimmering acoustic guitar, skittering beats, twinkling synth arpeggios and a soaring hook to create a club-banging track with elements of reggaeton and Afropop. Underneath the euphoric, club friendliness though, the song is actually centered by a thoughtful and much-needed message: we have to take care of our only home — and that taking care of nature involves protecting both animal and human life.
Slim Wall‘s latest single “Criddora,” is a strutting and laid back, sun-kissed jam centered around skittering beats, reggae-like riddims, shimmering and reverb-drenched squiggling guitar blasts paired with Samito’s achingly plaintive vocals, which to my ears, manage to evoke longing and desperate loneliness within a turn of a phrase. Because of our forced confinement and isolation, the song’s ache feels so deeply familiar to me — as it should to you.
“‘Criadora’ is a reggaeton with a deep luso blues flavour and laid back beats and guitars,” the rising Montreal-based duo explain in press notes. “The song tells the story of a tortured man in a state of near-madness searching for relief. Exploring social isolation and stereotyping, Samito offers insight into the perceived discrepancy between what is said about him and what he believes is true.”
New Audio: Montreal’s Paupiére Releases a Shimmering Synth Pop Confection
Seemingly deriving their name from the French words for skin peau and stone pierre, the rising Montreal-based indie electro pop duo Paupiére, visual artist Julia Daigle and Polipe’s and We Are Wolves’ Pierre-Luc Bégin, have firmly established a sound that meshes elements of 80s English synth pop and New Wave — i.e., The Human League, Depeche Mode and others — with French chanson through the release of 2016’s Jeunes instants EP, 2017’s full-length debut À jamais privé de réponses and 2019’s Jettatura EP. But just under the breezy pop melodies and catchy hooks, the duo’s work thematically touches upon naive, adolescent and hedonistic romanticism and a contemporary disenchantment.
Slated for a May 7, 2021 release, the duo’s sophomore album Sade Sati continues their ongoing successful collaboration with We Are Wolves’ Vincent Levesque, who produced their previously released work. Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Coeur Monarque” is an infectious and sugary sweet pop confection centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, skittering polyrhythmic beats and boy-girl harmonies. Sonically, the song is a playful, hook-driven mix of Phil Spector-era pop and Ace of Base-like synth pop — but thematically, as the duo explain the song is much darker: “‘Coeur Monarque’ is an imaginary tale about a girl, who lives her life according to her moods. Her freedom contributes to her isolation and she loses herself in it. ‘Coeur Monarque’ is a light and poppy piece, just like the protagonist of the story.