Tag: Rhythm Is A Dancer

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.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born and raised in Paris, the currently Los Angeles-based keyboardist, singer/songwriter and electronic music artist Morgane Lhote has had quite an impressive musical career, which includes stints in several different locales throughout the years. When Lhote was 20, she moved to London where she spent 12 — and during that period in the UK, between 1995-2001, Lhote was a member of Stereolab contributing on several of the band’s most beloved and critically applauded efforts, including Dots and Loops and Emperor Tomato Ketchup.  From 2002-2004, Lhote was a member of The Projects and she followed that project with a Garden, a side project featuring members of Simian Mobile Disco, before she started her own solo recording project, Hologram Teen.

Citing an incredibly diverse array of influences including MF DOOM, Francois De Roubaix, The GZA, Judee Sill, ABBA, John Carpenter, Goblin, Gene Clark, E.L.O., Harpers Bizarre, King Tubby, Michel Legrand, Hot Chip, Supertramp, Luke Vibert, Martha and the Muffins, Soft Machine, Suzanne Ciani, Greg Kurstin and Chic, Lhote has described her latest project, Hologram Teen as “electronic music that’s playful and groovy (mostly influenced by disco and Italian horror soundtracks) with loads of diverse samples. This is a soundtrack to a movie where John Carpenter and Boris Karloff hang out at Studio 54 with German zombies dancing to ‘Thriller’ in the background.” She’s also jokingly described her sound as being “. . . like Fabio Frizzi meets Grandmaster Flash.”

Small, renowned label Deep Distance Records, a sister imprint of The Great Pop Supplement Records released Lhote’s most recent 7 inch “Post-Apocalyptecakes”/”Tracksuit Minotaur” earlier this month. “Tracksuit Minotaur” pairs layers of glimmering, undulating synths reminiscent of Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk‘s “Trans Europe Express” and John Carpenter soundtracks, skittering and stuttering drum programming, ominously swirling electronics and horror movie samples to craft a song that’s tense, danceable and sweepingly cinematic — while evoking dancing your cares away in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world. “Post-Apocalypteacakes,” featuring Buddy Cop pairs a sinuous bass line reminiscent of Chic, skittering drum programming, layers of undulating synths and horror movie samples and industrial clang and clatter to craft a song that sounds equally inspired by Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk,  LCD Soundsystem‘s 45:33, and Snap!‘s “Rhythm Is A Dancer.”

Lhote specializes in what may arguably be some of the most unique electronic music I’ve heard in some time — it’s relentlessly difficult to pigeonhole into any particular subgenre and it meshes different genres and periods in an effortless and seamless fashion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Tale Of Us is a Berlin-based production and electronic music artist duo comprised of Carmine Conte and Matteo Milleri. And over the course of the past five years, the duo of Conte and Milleri have developed an internationally recognized reputation for material that possesses an exacting precision (they’ve been known to discard hundreds of tracks in their search for the perfect beat, the perfect sound) and for techno that’s deeply emotive.

“North Star,” the the first single off their double A side “North Star”/”Silent Space” consists of layers of shimmering and undulating synths, tweeter and woofer rocking low end, skittering percussion to craft a song that’s reminiscent of both Snap!‘s “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and Octo Octa‘s “Please Don’t Leave” in the sense that all three songs are atmospheric yet carefully composed club bangers in which, notes are never wasted.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Zola Jesus and Dean Hurley Team Up on a Techno Reworking of John Carpenter’s “Night”

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Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

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Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Miami, FL-based musician, producer and electronic music artist Albert Ovadia writes and records under the moniker of Red Traces. And if you’re familiar with this site over the past few months, you may have come across a […]