Tag: Kid Moxie (Page 6 of 9)

LOST IN STARS Interview

3 August 2017 / electricityclub

LOST IN STARS is an electronic music project from downtown Los Angeles.

Led by British born musician Dylan Willoughby, the floating ensemble also includes Darren Burgos, Alysa Lobo, Jon McCormick and Elena Charbila aka KID MOXIE; the latter described Willoughby’s production mind as one that had “a lot of that synth mentality”.

Having released two singles and then an EP ‘Once You Were Fire’ in 2015, a self-titled debut long player from LOST IN STARS emerged earlier this year. With style and sophistication as well as more radical influences such as dubstep and rave, the album was received warmly by critics and electronic pop audiences alike.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK chatted to Dylan Willoughby and several of his willing conspirators about the LOST IN STARS concept.

The ‘Lost In Stars’ album has been a long time coming, how has the journey been for you?

Dylan: Journey is a good word for it. In a galaxy and time far, far away, in the place from which DEVO sprung, I was a teenager who loved the synth music I had heard during my summer stays with my family in London. I would bring back sheet music for all the songs and learn them, much to the chagrin of my classical piano teacher.

I was not one of the kids with an Emulator II in the bedroom; I had a humble Casiotone but a good imagination. At the end of high school, my pals Jon McCormick, Paul Lyren and I got together and recorded some original music. I rented some real synths (Yamaha DX-7 and Roland D-50), programmed the sounds, Jon wrote lyrics and sang, and Paul programmed the drum machine (a Casio RZ-1), added some sounds from his Casio CZ-101, and produced the music on a Fostex X-15 4-track cassette recorder. One of the songs was called ‘Growing Circles.’ That was 1989.

Flash forward to Los Angeles, July 2012: DJ Travis Holcombe plays ‘Growing Circles’ on KCRW and inspires me to start making synth music again. At that point, I had returned to classical piano training with a great piano teacher from Juilliard, Young Yoo. I then met Darren Burgos by taking his Electronic Music Production class, which introduced me to a whole new world with regard to composing, mixing and mastering.

A bit later, I met Alysa Lobo, who shared my love of synthpop, and then Elena Charbila who was already established as a singer and praised on ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, which is how I discovered her! So it was a confluence of all these lucky meetings and the great privilege of being played on KCRW. A team had formed, which included me, Darren, Alysa and Elena.

How did THE LOST IN STARS material start coming together?

Dylan: Our first song was ‘Flown,’ which I composed with Darren and Alysa. The song was straight-up synthpop, so it felt like I was continuing on from my past. We recorded in Studio A of Village Studios, a converted Masonic temple haunted by ghosts and huge hits. When Darren finished mixing the song, I knew we had something special.

I had also started to get into dubstep. My friend Sanjay had recommended BURIAL, and I was blown away by it. It turned out that Elena also loved BURIAL. So that was how ‘Once You Were Fire’ and ‘Elephant & Castle’ were born. As I was learning about dubstep and the Hyperdub artists in particular, I read about the untimely passing of The Spaceape, who was a poet and musician, and who was close to my age. So I wrote ‘Once You Were Fire’ for him, confronting my own mortality. ’Elephant & Castle’ I wrote in memory of my father, incorporating spoken word from my uncle and glitched poems. Elena’s singing on these two tracks was ethereal, otherworldly, transporting. She gave true tribute.

The next song was ‘Disappear,’ which Darren, Alysa and I composed. I wanted to branch out a bit from the straight synthpop of ‘Flown’ and we tried to mix a number of different genres, including synth pop, dubstep and 50s vocals. It was the first song whose lyrics I wrote ‘on the spot’, a strange love song lamenting a love that could have been. That was our debut EP, which formed the foundation of the album.

I got a lot of encouragement to continue: Earmilk premiered the EP, the songs continued to get airplay on KCRW and charted on college radio stations, DJ Rusty Egan picked ‘Once You Were Fire’ as one of his favorites of the year, and my friend Bert Ryan, a new wave connoisseur, said it was his favorite music of the year. I like to fool myself that I only care about composing as an act in itself, but without the encouragement I wouldn’t have made this album.

You faced adversity on several occasions?

Dylan: Throughout this whole period, I was battling catastrophic illness, which nearly literally killed me several times, so I couldn’t go as fast as I would have liked. Alysa too was severely injured in an accident and trying to recover. But we all pressed on, and the next batch of songs came to fruition, starting with ‘Light (Triumph & Disaster),’ which I wrote with Darren and Alysa as a companion to ‘Disappear.’

We’d all had our share of triumph and disaster. I wanted Darren to do a lead vocal, and so we wrote the song ‘Sky’ (which I’ll talk about later) based on some rough sketches I had put down with the bass line and strings. A friend of mine who was the screenwriter of ‘Monsters, Inc’ had sadly passed away at that time, so ‘There Were Stairs Here’ was a short song honoring him.

’Secret Language’ had many different versions, from Italo-disco to dubstep, but it really came into its own when Darren added the synth arpeggiation at the beginning of the song, which I joked sounded like a possessed COREY HART, and we created a synth out of a vocal sample.

We ended with the recording of two covers, BAUHAUS’ ‘All We Ever Wanted Was Everything’ and THE BEE GEES’ ‘Holiday.’ On this second batch of songs, I also wanted to incorporate some acoustic and electric guitar, and a very talented guitarist named Gaku Murata did some fine work. Darren then donated his excellent ‘Take It All’ (inspired by a devastating US election result), and I felt we had reached completion.

So you see, it was a journey, and making the music saved my life. I could have given up so many times and just given in to the weakness, the darkness, the pain, the illness, but the music pulled me through, as did Darren, Elena and Alysa.

When did you discover synthesizers?

Dylan: You will laugh at me for this answer. I lived in Toronto when I was younger, and my first instrument was the organ.

This was the time of shopping malls and old men with mustaches going nuts on those souped-up organs with all the multi-colored levers. I guess they were their own kind of rock star. As cheesy as they seemed at the time, those organs revealed that you could play the keyboard and manipulate the sounds.

I moved to the US and started taking classical piano. We didn’t have enough money for a real piano, so we went to the local music shop for a keyboard. When we walked over to the keyboard section, the salesman was engrossed in playing a STYX riff on a Korg Mono/Poly. It was a beautiful looking and cool sounding synth, and I think at that moment I decided that the synth would be my instrument. Soon after that, I was in London staying with my grandmother, and new wave was sweeping the UK. I saw FREEEZ play ‘IOU’ on Top of the Pops, with one of the singers rocking out on a Roland SH-101 ‘syntaur’ strapped around his shoulder, and that sealed the deal.

How did you decide this was the musical path you wanted to take?

Dylan: The synth appealed to me on many levels. It was a cool combination of piano and technology, and it wasn’t just about playing keyboard but about designing cool sounds. So there was that mad professor element. The synth had also moved from the backstage to the front — here were people standing behind keyboards with weird hairdos and outfits, as opposed to long-haired dudes wailing on guitars like SPINAL TAP. You could be a pop star and a keyboard player! New wave was tight and sharp, and there was an aura that was sophisticated and urbane.

What was your first synth and what was it like to use?

Dylan: At the music shop mentioned, the salesman convinced my parents to buy me a Casiotone CT1000P and hold off on the dangerous synths until I learned the piano. I played on that keyboard literally hours a day, imagining that I was Alan Wilder on the Roland Jupiter 8.

The first real synths I got my hands on were the Roland D-50 and the Yamaha DX-7. I remember the Roland D-50 having a pretty clean, crisp sound, and that one of the presets had been used by Phil Collins. The DX-7 was a ‘frequency modulation’ synth and it took me a little time to get my head around it. But the outcome was pretty cool.

On ‘Growing Circles,’ for example, I was able to get a bass line that didn’t sound overly digital, and some decent pad sounds for the higher frequencies. I didn’t have the money to buy these synths, so I would compose the songs on the Casiotone, and then rent the real synths for short periods of time for our actual recordings. I also didn’t know about sequencing, and couldn’t afford a sequencer anyway, so I would play all the parts out by hand in one take. I suppose that’s where the classical training helped.

In college, a friend of mine Ko Matsuo had an Ensoniq ESQ-1 synthesizer. I used to wake the poor guy up really early on Saturday mornings to use it, and he would teach me sequencing and sound design, and give me input on song structure. I wrote a lot of songs on his synthesizer, and woke him up a lot of times! Eventually, I bought my own Ensoniq VFX-SD, which was a great synth for multi-tracking and sequencing, but my songs sounded a bit muddled. I then got a hold of a beautiful Roland Juno 106, which is a simple synth, but has pretty great analog sound and this incredible Chorus effect. After that, software was getting better and better, and I gravitated towards soft-synths.

What equipment and software were you using for the album?

Dylan: On the ‘Lost in Stars’ album we stayed ‘in the box.’ Darren and I used Logic Pro X for recording and mixing, and Darren also mastered in Logic. Both of us relied on a lot of great synth plugins, including iZotope Iris 2, Native Instruments Massive, FM8, and Battery, u-he Diva, ACE and Bazille, Xfer’s Serum, Cataract’s glitchy synths, Rob Papen’s Blue II, Roland System 1 plug-outs, D16’s luSH-101, Dune 2, Sylenth1, Spire, Kick 2, Omnisphere, and the Arturia Jupiter-8.

In mixing, Darren and I used a lot of the SoundToys, Fab Filter, Eventide, Celemony, Antares, SugarBytes, Waves, and Universal Audio plugins.

For songs like ‘Elephant & Castle’, SugarBytes’ Effectrix played a key role.

For drums, we heavily edited and chopped audio samples and used a number of drum machines, including Logic’s own Drum Machine Designer.

We recorded vocals at Village Studios using a Neumann U-67 microphone, in my studio using an sE Electronics 4400a and various AKG mics, piped into a Universal Audio Apollo or through a Focusrite pre-amp. For microphones, we also used the Apogee Mic, and the Rode K2. We processed the vocals with Valhalla reverbs, UAD Neve 1073 and 88RS preamps, Waves, Logic and FabFilter compressors, and certain plugins like SonicCharge’s Bitspeek.

I wrote and recorded the short song ‘There Were Stairs Here’ on my iPhone using Moog’s Animoog app, and sent the audio file to Logic, adding a few sound effects later. The real guitars were played by Gaku, and then processed using Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig and some of his own pedals.

The album is swathed in dubstep influences, what fascinates you about the form?

Dylan: Blame my friends Sanjay and Elena! When I think dubstep, I really think BURIAL. I love BBURIAL because the music casts a lot of shadows. You are always moving between light and darkness, and on the journey of the song, you find respite in particular silences. The beats skip and quiver, more like a tell-tale heart than the insistent pounding dictated by a DJ. Things are far away, muffled. Singing emerges from the distance, as if from a forgotten memory. The message is scratched and scraped, the imperfect slowly reveals its beauty. Burial reminds me of this TS Eliot line: “So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

‘Disappear’ featuring the voice of Alysa Lobo is one of the highlights of the album, what was its genesis?

Dylan: First, thank you very much for that. That was our first song to reach No1 on a college radio chart. For me, it was a watershed moment because I wanted to mix dubstep and synthpop, and have a unique vocal as well.

The song started out with a strange sequence from Rob Papen’s synth Blue II, a sample from a horror movie, some vocal stabs, and a pretty strong dubstep beat.

I think Blue II really inspired the whole song. Darren and Alysa composed the melody. Alysa was listening to Dionne Warwick at the time. So the song’s vocals feel to me almost from a different era, yet are sung over a dubstep beat with a lot of synths. For some reason, I think of the wonderful SHIRELLES when I hear Alysa sing. Darren was instrumental in making all these differing genres work together.

It was one of the few songs where I wrote the lyrics mostly on the spot, while Alysa was recording with us. It’s a strange love song — about the possibility of a love that never was but could have been. Gone are the days that never were! A certain person set my heart on fire, but the stars were crossed…

Alysa: At the time, I was studying and taking a sight reading course and found myself creating three part harmonies to everything that I was listening to. The girl group sound really came organically. I enjoyed how Darren and Dylan engineered the voices to sound like they were almost caught in a radio transition from another station crossed with a song from another time.

‘Sky’ has a bit of a NEW ORDER vibe doesn’t it?

Dylan: That is very perceptive, wow! The song started out as a homage to ‘Your Silent Face’ and ‘Love Vigilantes.’ The first thing I wrote was the arpeggiated bass line using u-he Diva and mimicking a Juno 106. I then added some soaring strings that were also NEW ORDER inspired. Gaku’s guitar was also in the vein of ‘Love Vigilantes.’ Darren composed the vocal melody, and his singing really made the song in my opinion.

Darren: I wanted to mix the feel of synth pop vocals like NEW ORDER, PET SHOP BOYS and DEPECHE MODE with a more soulful tone. I think the last great combination of this was Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke in YAZOO and wanted to carry on that feel in a new way.

Elena Charbila aka KID MOXIE contributes on a number of tracks, in particular two covers of songs originally by BAUHAUS and THE BEE GEES? What’s the story behind these recordings?

Dylan: Elena really supported the dubstep direction, and she saw something in my rough versions of ‘Once You Were Fire’ and ‘Elephant & Castle’ that I was unsure about. I love the vocals she sang on those songs, and we had so much fun recording them.

The BAUHAUS cover idea came to me when I happened to listen to ‘All We Ever Wanted Was Everything’ on Spotify – I had not heard that particular song before, only the vampire, gothic songs that came later. When I heard it, I knew Elena could bring something out in that song, a voice of longing, a voice of time gone past. Darren, Elena and I worked very quickly on that song, and we kept it minimal. Elena sang her heart out, and then played the bass part, which we processed to recall JOY DIVISION and YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS. Gaku added a guitar that we wanted to sound a bit like THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN.

When we finished recording, Elena proposed ‘Holiday,’ another song I had never heard of. It was an early tune by THE BEE GEES that KID MOXIE used to end their live shows with. I thought it would be a good way to end the album.

How did you come to be working with KID MOXIE on her ‘Perfect Shadow’ EP?

Dylan: By the time WestOne commissioned ‘Perfect Shadow’, Darren, Elena and I had worked together quite a bit, including on her album ‘1888’, the ‘Lost In Stars’ songs and the remix of ERASURE’s ’Sacred’ for Mute and Undo Records. We worked great as a team.

So Elena trusted both Darren and I from a production and co-writing standpoint. We were all really in sync, and Elena could tell that we understood her vision for the new work

So how does the creative dynamic between you differ when it is a LOST IN STARS track as opposed to a KID MOXIE one?

Dylan: LOST IN STARS is ostensibly my project, with the heavy involvement of Darren Burgos. I consider it a collaborative effort, and LOST IN STARS would not exist but for the stars: Darren, Elena and Alysa. KID MOXIE is Elena’s project and is ultimately her vision, that cinematic pop that is not afraid to go to dark places. When Darren and I work on KID MOXIE music, it is a great collaboration but our contributions are intended to fit into the KID MOXIE world.

Are you planning any further collaborations with Elena Charbila?

Dylan: Yes, I hope that Elena will always be involved somehow. I definitely would like Elena to sing on some of the songs I’m writing that are inspired by the artist Ren Hang’s ‘depression diary’. I think her voice will capture the beauty and the sadness.

How do you think that electronic pop is seen within the LA environment you are based and where do you see it generally heading?

Dylan: I think electronic pop has been an important part of the LA music scene for quite some time, and didn’t totally die out when grunge came along. The kind of fandom that you see in the DEPECHE MODE ‘101’ documentary from the 1988 Rose Bowl concert has not really diminished.

I think that electronic pop has sparked interest in a younger generation who have been introduced to it anew with the resurgence of 80s music. It’s not even just hipster-ironic to enjoy 80s music again – younger listeners actually like the music without condescension.

A lot of the great music venues in town feature electronic acts, from the Hollywood Bowl and The Greek Theatre to the Wiltern, the Regent, the Echo, and the Troubadour, to name a few. Alpha Pup Records and the Low End Theory concerts have also enabled electronic artists to flourish, including musicians like FLYING LOTUS, THUNDERCAT, THE GASLAMPKILLER, ASTRONAUTICA, DAEDELUS and TOKIMONSTA. Musicians who are masters of modular synths, like Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, are also gaining a good deal of attention. Radio stations including KCRW and dublab have been big supporters of all kinds of electronic music.

Where it’s heading? Hopefully not rows of people each wearing their own Virtual Reality headpieces and accidentally hitting each other.

The thing I love about electronic pop is that it makes you dance. And dancing is joy. And dancing with other people takes place in the real.

I think that electronic music will keep broadening in appeal and will not be limited to niches. I think it will continue to become more legitimate as a genre and as an influence on other genres.

What’s next for LOST IN STARS?

Dylan: Health permitting, I will try to write a sequence of songs inspired by the artist Ren Hang, whose journal I discovered in Guernica Magazine, translated by Amanda Lee Koe. The journal entries are almost unbearably sad and gut-wrenching, but also beautiful, well-observed, insightful and poignant.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to LOST IN STARS

‘Lost In Stars’ is released by Dark Sky Covenant Records and available via https://lostinstars.bandcamp.com/album/lost-in-stars

https://www.lostinstars.space/

https://www.facebook.com/LostInStarsMusic/

https://twitter.com/LostinStarsBand

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
3rd August 2017

LOST IN STARS Lost In Stars

16 March 2017 / electricityclub

Dylan Willoughby is the LA based producer, poet and composer behind the LOST IN STARS project.

Having debuted in 2015 with the ‘Once You Were Fire’ EP, which was regularly charted in the US on various independent radio stations, Willoughby was hailed as “essential new music”.

The London born boy, whose love of electronic genre flourished in England, dabbled with various bands while growing up, having been classically trained to play the piano.

His break from sounds involved creative writing and poetry, but his innate musicality took precedence and a wonderful mixture of synth pop and dubstep-type concoctions have been delivered since.

These days, many producers choose to work with talented vocalists; it’s a trait heavily popular with big names like John Fryer or DELERIUM. Willoughby also chose his preferred voices, which he found in Elena Charbila aka KID MOXIE and Alysa Lobo.

Charbila said to TEC after the release of her ‘Perfect Shadow’ EP: “Dylan Willoughby from LOST IN STARS and my other producer Darren Burgos, those two guys have a lot of that synth mentality and were instrumental in getting that production value you’d get from an electronic record”.

The ‘Lost In Stars’ album features the man himself on synths and drums, Darren Burgos in charge of vocals, backing vocals, drums and synths, KID MOXIE also on vocals and bass guitar, Alysa Lobo on vocals and Gaku Murata with his guitars.

‘Once You Were Fire’ consisted of all four tracks now appearing on the album, with its title number being an elegy to HYPERDUB’s poet and MC, The Spaceape, who was a key player in the discographies of artists like KODE9, BURIAL and MARTYN before his untimely demise.

With beautiful vocals by KID MOXIE over heavily punctuated synth and an urgent melody, this feel continues on ‘Elephant and Castle’, which reminisces about Willoughby London childhood and his late father.

Another track from the EP which has found itself on the album is ‘Flown’ performed by Alysa Lobo. It’s a perfect synthpop dance tune, just like the Lobo vocalled ‘Disappear’. ‘Light’ combines dance and dubstep-like sequences and ‘Sky’ invites with a warm male vocal, slowing the tempo down first, just to flourish into a slice of gentle German rave, with added guitar and drum elements.

A version of the stark BAUHAUS favourite ‘All We Ever Wanted Was Everything’ from ‘The Sky’s Gone Out’ hauntingly invites in with an airy ethereal vocal from KID MOXIE, while ‘Take It All’ is a perfect pop love song.

The long player closes with a cover of THE BEE GEES ‘Holiday’; a more subdued, delicate melody and a perfect way to close the opus, it’s another serene vocal from KID MOXIE.

LOST IN STARS may not have millions behind them, or may not be up there with the big names, but this music ticks all the right boxes for a fan of synthpop.

KID MOXIE’s tracks are as always, done in her very style and ooze sophistication, which adds to the overall experience. This is an excellent effort from Dylan Willoughby.

‘Lost In Stars’ is released by Dark Sky Covenant Records as a CD and download, available via https://lostinstars.bandcamp.com/album/lost-in-stars

https://www.lostinstars.space/

https://www.facebook.com/LostInStarsMusic/

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
16th March 2017

A Short Conversation with KID MOXIE

14 January 2017 / electricityclub

Photo by Efi Gousi

KID MOXIE, the musical vehicle of Elena Charbila has been making further crossover strides with her 2016 EP ‘Perfect Shadow’.

Comprising of six songs and an appendix of remixes including one of the lead track ‘Dirty Air’ by MARSHEAUX. This was used by lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret in an enticing Black Friday viral video. Remixes aside, this six song sequence of exquisite euphony with tunes such as ‘4am’ and ‘Still High’ is undoubtedly KID MOXIE’s best body of work to date. Elena Charbila kindly chatted about all the latest happenings in the world of KID MOXIE…

The ‘Perfect Shadow’ EP appears to have gained traction and attracted new listeners to KID MOXIE, why do you think that is?

Although it’s done in the same Cinematic Pop vein as ‘1888’ and not a big transition in sound, some of the remixers like MARSHEAUX and TAREQ plus the involvement of THE GASLAMP KILLER who’d just released his EP, have opened new avenues to other audiences. I did a track ‘Pathetic Dreams’ with THE GASLAMP KILLER for his album, so there was traction from that in the States.

You seem most comfortable in collaboration whether it’s with THE GASLAMP KILLER, LOST IN STARS or THE SOUL LESS PARTY? How would you describe you creative dynamic with these artists?

If it’s a remix, there’s a lot of freedom, I like to see what people do with the track and where they take it to. I don’t want to confine them to any kind of space. So if MARSHEAUX take a track, I trust them completely to deliver something killer and obviously, I’m not going to tell them what to do with it.

But I also trust the people that I co-write songs with. But it’s a very different dynamic with everybody. THE GASLAMP KILLER brings a very ethnic feel with a little more grime and acoustic sounds to the mix as he’s a big fan of horns and strings like I am; so he brings out that side of me.

Now with Dylan Willoughby from LOST IN STARS and my other producer Darren Burgos, those two guys have a lot of that synth mentality and were instrumental in getting that production value you’d get from an electronic record. I like to join forces because everybody brings out a different element of me into the music.

I’d like to think it has an arc and that every song doesn’t sound like a previous one. There’s a song called ‘Girl Without A Secret’ that was inspired by doing an electronic version of what ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ might sound like. ‘Still High’ is a big unabashedly romantic synth love song. What I love about the 80s is the fact that there was a lot of emotion punctuated with big synths and snares, they weren’t afraid of it.

The hipster culture is afraid to show too much emotion now, so everything is now really cool, cerebral things instead of obvious things like “YOU DIDN’T CALL ME!” and “I MISS YOU!” – the thing is, love is cheesy and love is simple, longing for something is universally geeky I think and it doesn’t come in a hipster package. So with ‘Still High’, I thought, “let’s not be afraid of emotion here and let’s make it really big”. I myself am afraid of emotion of my own fear of sounding cheesy.

Then there’s tracks like ‘Dirty Air’ that was a song about a big city and a girl being isolated in her room and looking out. Every song comes from an image in my head or a scene that I’m playing out, a feeling rather than a sound. So there’s very different sounding songs on the EP; ‘Perfect Shadow’ is very different from ‘Still High’, one is very instrumental while one is very synthy. So that’s why I like to cover my music under the Cinematic Pop umbrella.

Photo by Efi Gousi

Looking back, while the ‘1888’ album was a major leap forward artistically, the songs on ‘Perfect Shadow’ appear to be more mature?

Thank you, that’s great to know. You like to believe that the older you get, the more layered as an experience it becomes. It’s good to know that this sounds more multi-layered and more complete than before.

It’s more focussed than before…

Actually, that’s the best word to describe it… It feels more focussed. I’ve done KID MOXIE for about nine years; you keep trying things and seeing what works so that you can listen back and say “Hey! I actually like this”. But most of the first couple of release, I don’t… maybe of only 10% has value to me now. I think you mature into what you really want to put out there and who you want to work with. Again, collaborating with people that are going to understand you and bring out the best in you, it really shows in the final product.

Which songs have been your own favourites and why?

I have a soft spot for ‘Still High’, for me it was a venture into not being afraid to sing about simple, heartfelt emotions and punctuating them with big synth and snares. But it’s not a lot of people’s favourite which I’m surprised about, although people seem to really love ‘Dirty Air’.

The visual presentation for the ‘Perfect Shadow’ EP with the videos appears to have been an important consideration?

I always for my music, it’s better to have a visual piece than singing it live, because that’s what’s been driving it in the first place, an image or an atmosphere in my head. It serves the music better to have it coupled with something than fits the mood and generates the feeling that I originally wanted.

The ‘Dirty Air’ video led the release and was a very important aspect of the whole EP because you set the tone with a certain story. In that one, there’s a girl in downtown LA and we don’t know if she’s human or what, she’s collecting people in jars… there’s a certain symbolism and I think anybody can make it to be what they want it to be, but for me it’s about falling in love and collecting pieces of people through life, like how you devour them and get devoured by them.

And that can be very dangerous as you can get lost in a back mass, but it’s also pretty playful in that love can be dangerous. I always think that pretty much everything I do has a duality to it as pretty playful but also dangerous, it’s never too sweet and never too sombre.

Your music does possess an erotic tension…

I think sex and love is something that has always been a big concern in me, something that’s has affected decisions in my life, for better or worse! You can’t deny that love and attraction guide things that we do in life, Freud used to say that it’s the core thing that guides everything we do! I’m not sure about that but for myself, it’s a very big part of my life and that I give value to, it’s something that’s very important. I’ve always tried to express it through the atmosphere that my music creates, but maybe as you grow older, you mature into your sexuality, you become more comfortable with a lot more aspects of yourself and it gets reflected in what you create.

So the use of the MARSHEAUX remix of ‘Dirty Air’ by Victoria’s Secret for a viral ad was quite apt?

Yes, my label and publisher West One were approached. They were given a few tracks and they went for the MARSHEAUX remix of ‘Dirty Air’.

What’s happening with the ‘Twin Peaks’ reboot? Is your version of ‘The Mysteries of Love’ in it and have you got a part?

I’m not sure why people were sure that was happening, I think that was more wishful thinking because honestly, everything was so hush-hush about ‘Twin Peaks’ that I wouldn’t have even known at that stage if I was going to get involved or not. Obviously I would have loved to, I’m not. I’m still trying to get involved in the music side but I’m not acting in it, which is what I really wanted to do! *laughs*

What’s next for you?

As far as music is concerned, I’m going to do something which I’ve not ventured into before, which is a full soundtrack of a whole movie by myself. So I am going to work on a soundtrack to a Greek film which is in keeping with the style of the music that I already do, so a little bit of a ‘Stranger Things’ / ‘Drive’ feel. It’s a great movie and cast, there’s a Japanese actress in it and it’s a really cool project, I’m really excited to be doing it. I’m also going to be acting one of the key parts in it.

I’m also working with a DJ Luxxury who is more Balearic, he’s been touring with Giorgio Moroder.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to KID MOXIE

‘Perfect Shadow’ is released on CD by Amour Records, available via https://kidmoxie.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/kidmoxie

https://twitter.com/KIDMOXIEMUSIC

https://www.instagram.com/elena.charbila/

https://soundcloud.com/kidmoxie

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Efi Gousi Photography
16th January 2017

2016 END OF YEAR REVIEW

17 December 2016 / electricityclub

tec2016review-mopho

What In the World…

2016 will forever be remembered as the year when a significant number of cultural icons and popular musical figures left us; David Bowie, Prince, Isao Tomita, Pete Burns, Colin Verncombe, Keith Emerson, Don Buchla and Leonard Cohen were just some of the names who sadly departed.

But despite sadness that loomed, the year did produce some good music, particularly in the second half of the year.

GARY NUMAN launched an ambitious Pledge Music campaign and released some excellent collaborations with JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS, JEAN-MICHEL JARRE and TITÁN. But with his retrospective tour of material from his three most popular albums taking up much of his year, his new crowdfunded album did not meet its planned October release deadline.

Meanwhile Jean-Michel Jarre had an excess of material and issued the second volume of his ‘Electronica’ project which also featured YELLO and PET SHOP BOYS, plus a third instalment to his classic opus ‘Oxygène’.

YELLO and PET SHOP BOYS also released new albums to a positive reception, proving again that partnerships featuring personnel over the age of 60 can still create music that is fresh and relevant.

Incidentally, one of YELLO’s young vocalists FIFI RONG continued to maintain her artistic profile with successful campaigns for her releases ‘Forbidden Desires’ and ‘Alone’.

2016 saw two concept albums emerge in ‘The Ship’ from Brian Eno, a solemn art piece with poignant anti-war messages and ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’, a very personal musical statement by Hannah Peel on the traumas of dementia. It was a busy year for Miss Peel with her also contributing her voice to BEYOND THE WIZARDS SLEEVE and JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS, as well as showcasing her own Mary Casio side project.

WRANGLER released a new album ‘White Glue’ which exuded a less rigid format compared to its predecessor ‘LA Spark’ and collaborated with Johm Grant at the Rough Trade 40 live celebrations, while the prolific Neil Arthur issued another new BLANCMANGE album in ‘Commuter 23’ while also launching a new side project NEAR FUTURE with BERNHOLZ.

The Manchester veteran Eric Random issued ‘Words Made Flesh’, the second album of his recent return to the music while Rusty Egan finally presented ‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’ which despite its title, was actually a collection of classic styled synthpop. After many years of trials and tribulations for the co-founder of VISAGE, the long player featuring Midge Ure, Tony Hadley and Chris Payne who co-wrote ‘Fade to Grey’ exceeded expectations.

Space travel and synths were just made to go together, so JØTA and VANGELIS conceived projects covering The Cold War space race and the more recent Rosetta probe respectively. Meanwhile, WHITE LIES again showed they are as synthy as they are guitary on their ‘Friends’ album, and even started to sound like A-HA!

Fellow blog Cold War Night Life released ‘Heresy: A Tribute to RATIONAL YOUTH’ which featured PSYCHE and MACHINISTA as well as the Canadian trailblazers themselves. Meanwhile Ireland staked its claim as a new territory for synthpop talent; CIRCUIT3 ‘siliconchipsuperstar’ and EMBRACE THE CRISIS ‘Black Heart’ were good examples of what was on offer from the Emerald Isle.

Over in the UK, VILE ELECTRODES, SPRAY and ANALOG ANGEL all released new albums. There were long awaited long players too from SHELTER and SINESTAR, but these suffered when compared to respective acts from Sweden, Johan Baeckström and PRESENCE OF MIND.

So again, Sweden still proved it was special with SILENT WAVE exhibiting degrees of potential. But it was REIN in particular who was causing a stir within the ranks of EBM, while the country’s best kept secret KITE toured North America and Asia. However, neither of these two latter artists figured in the line-up of Gothenburg’s Electronic Summer 2016 festival.

The Nordic region saw the welcome return of VILLA NAH with the album ‘Ultima’ after a five year absence, while TRENTEMØLLER made the case again as to why he is still the perfect producer for DEPECHE MODE with his new long player ‘Fixion’. However, Norwegian acts APOPTYGMA BERZERK and ELECTRO SPECTRE ensured the Swedes, Finns and Danes did not have it all their own way.

Greece was still the word with LIEBE, KID MOXIE and MARSHEAUX all presenting brand new releases, while Sarah P. maintained her profile with a series of inventive promo videos highlighting the ongoing issues of equality for women within the music industry. Embracing the same issue on the other side of the Atlantic, I AM SNOW ANGEL immersed herself in setting up the FEMALE FREQUENCY collective while also releasing her own music.

2016 was a good year for female acts with EMIKA, KALEIDA, ANI GLASS, THE HEARING, KITE BASE, HOLOGRAM TEEN among those making a positive impression. There was also ‘SVIIB’, the final album from SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS and the emergence of CHRISTINE & THE QUEENS, while LADYHAWKE remembered what a good album sounded like with ‘Wild Things’.

Over in LA, NIGHT CLUB developed on the promise of their EP trilogy and got a bit heavier on their debut long player ‘Requiem For Romance’, ending up sounding not unlike Britney fronting NINE INCH NAILS in the process! After gestation periods of nearly six years, both EKKOES and THE MYSTIC UNDERGROUND finally released their debut albums.

Meanwhile the instrumental front, Texan couple HYPERBUBBLE provided some ‘Music To Color By’, Brussels duo METROLAND touchingly paid tribute to their late friend Louis Zachert with ‘Things Will Never Sound The Same Again’ and ULRICH SCHNAUSS went ‘No Further Ahead Than Today’. And MOBY offered a gift to profound relaxation with his free ‘Long Ambients 1: Calm. Sleep.’ download package.

PERTURBATOR’s ‘The Uncanny Valley’ became a flag bearer for the synth wave movement, along with the acclaimed soundtrack by SURVIVE members Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein for the absorbing Netflix drama ‘Stranger Things’. Less well-received though was ‘2Square’ by Vince Clarke & Paul Hartnoll with its banal experiments in electro swing. This was a supposed new dance sub-genre that in reality was just computerised jazz… nice! But one artist who did manage to pull off fusing synthpop and jazz successfully was DISQO VOLANTE.

New material from veterans MESH, AESTHETIC PERFECTION, ASSEMBLAGE 23, DE/VISION, IAMX, COVENANT and ROTERSAND kept the black clad European audiences happy, while Mari Kattman and BLACK NEEDLE NOISE added some trip-hop and rock edges respectively to their already dark templates. Expressing slightly less intensity were two surprise packages in Germany’s DAS BLAUE PALAIS with ‘Welt Am Draht’ and Canada’s DELERIUM with ‘Mythologie’.

But totally unexpected was ‘Silver City Ride’, a full length electro album from Marc Almond in collaboration with STARCLUSTER featuring his most synth laden body of work since SOFT CELL. The biggest surprise of 2016 was ‘Fly’ the soundtrack souvenir to ‘Eddie The Eagle’, the light hearted biopic of the bespectacled Olympic ski jumper; featuring new material by members of FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, SOFT CELL, SPANDAU BALLET, ULTRAVOX, ERASURE and OMD in collaboration with TAKE THAT’s Gary Barlow, this looked like a terrible idea on paper. But it was brilliantly executed and the resultant album was a largely enjoyable collection of retro flavoured pop.

Electronic acts actually got to headline the Glastonbury Festival in 2016, albeit on The Other Stage as opposed the main event; NEW ORDER and CHVRCHES wowed the crowds when they shared the bill on the Saturday night. There were rumours that KRAFTWERK and DEPECHE MODE might feature in 2017 but this was not to be, although both acts sent social media into overdrive when they announced major tours.

Among those accorded career spanning multi-disc boxed sets were ERASURE, MARC ALMOND, DEAD OR ALIVE and THE HUMAN LEAGUE. Somehow though, SIMPLE MINDS managed to milk a six disc variant of ‘New Gold Dream’ in the third of their classic album deluxe box editions; it was an amazing feat seeing as only ten songs were completed during the original sessions! The collection boasted no less than twelve takes of the aptly titled ‘Promised You A Miracle’; but the latest incarnation of the Glaswegians combo’ first big hit with KT TUNSTALL for their ‘Acoustic’ album proved to be one version too many.

Much better value for the money for the discerning music fan were the four ASSOCIATES double CD reissues, supervised by Alan Rankine and Michael Dempsey. Based around their first three albums and a ‘Very Best Of’ compilation, each additionally featured a plethora of rare and previously unreleased songs; they were a fitting tribute to the late Billy MacKenzie.

Nostalgia was very much a part of 2016, with HEAVEN 17, OMD and PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT all touring popular albums. And following the success in recent years of retro festivals such as ‘Rewind’ and the strangely named ‘Let’s Rock’, classic synthpop finally found itself part of the holiday camp circuit.

Part of the Butlins Music Weekender series, ‘Electric Dreams’ featuring OMD, HEAVEN 17, BLANCMANGE and Marc Almond almost went badly off-piste with the addition of GO WEST and THE ZOMBIES (!?!) to the programme. But the organisers pulled an unexpected surprise and booked modern synth acts like MARSHEAUX and AVEC SANS to support the bill.

Hardened retro festival goers are notorious for not embracing new music, but this ethos has to be welcomed and could provide an interesting new model for the future of event based entertainment. However, based on photographic evidence, the presence of inflatable pink flamingos and coloured wigs indicated the crowd atmosphere might have been no different to any of the usual nostalgia outings, but with a roof and central heating added!

Elsewhere, the second ELECTRI-CITY CONFERENCE in Düsseldorf boasted yet another impressive line-up that read like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of electronic music with JOHN FOXX, DANIEL MILLER and MARK REEDER among those taking part in talks. One of the highlights of the weekend came with Mr Foxx chatting about working with the legendary Conny Plank.

And while MARSHEAUX, KID KASIO and RODNEY CROMWELL in Norwich was not in the same league, it was a fine showcase for the best in independent synthpop.

Both events proved again that the best electronic music events are those actually curated by electronic music enthusiasts, something that is not the case with several other events.

In all, 2016 was not a vintage year for electronic pop. If there was a lesson this year, it’s been to cherish and appreciate great life’s moments where possible, especially with the number of music figures that have been lost in the last 12 months.

Things cannot go on forever sadly…

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK Contributor Listings 2016

PAUL BODDY

Best Album: PERTURBATOR The Uncanny Valley
Best Song: SOULWAX Transient Program for Drums & Machinery
Best Gig: JEAN-MICHEL JARRE at London O2 Arena
Best Video: BATTLE TAPES featuring PARTY NAILS Solid Gold
Most Promising New Act: VOX LOW

IAN FERGUSON

Best Album: VILE ELECTRODES In The Shadows Of Monuments
Best Song: ASSEMBLAGE 23 Barren
Best Gig: ASSEMBLAGE 23 at Denver Oriental Theatre
Best Video: I AM SNOW ANGEL Losing Face
Most Promising New Act: VOX LOW

SIMON HELM

Best Album: ERIC RANDOM Words Made Flesh
Best Song: RATIONAL YOUTH This Side Of The Border
Best Gig: Troika! featuring KITE BASE, HANNAH PEEL + I SPEAK MACHINE at Shacklewell Arms
Best Video: I AM SNOW ANGEL Losing Face
Most Promising New Act: ZANIAS

CHI MING LAI

Best Album: VILLA NAH Ultima
Best Song: VILE ELECTRODES The Vanished Past
Best Gig: JEAN-MICHEL JARRE at London O2 Arena
Best Video: BEYOND THE WIZARD’S SLEEVE Diagram Girl
Most Promising New Act: ANI GLASS

STEPHEN ROPER

Best Album: MARSHEAUX Ath.Lon
Best Song: RODNEY CROMWELL Baby Robot
Best Gig: GARY NUMAN at Norwich UEA
Best Video: MARSHEAUX Like A Movie
Most Promising New Act: DISQO VOLANTE

MONIKA IZABELA TRIGWELL

Best Album: APOPTYGMA BERZERK Exit Popularity Contest
Best Song: KID KASIO Full Moon Blue
Best Gig: SPEAK & SPELL at Islington Academy
Best Video: BLACK NEEDLE NOISE featuring JENNIE VEE Heaven
Most Promising New Act: JOHAN BAECKSTRÖM

Text by Chi Ming Lai
17th December 2016

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s 30 SONGS OF 2016

8 December 2016 / electricityclub

Overall, 2016 was not a vintage year…

But there were plenty of quality songs on offer throughout the year and a number were significantly outstanding.

Rounding down to a final 30 songs is always difficult and among the acts in the initial shortlist were ADAM IS A GIRL, DELERIUM, EMIKA, KALEIDA, LADYHAWKE, METROLAND, PRESENCE OF MIND, REIN, FIFI RONG, SPRAY, WHITE LIES and the now disbanded ANALOG ANGEL.

After much deliberation and with a restriction of one song per artist moniker, here are ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s 30 Songs of 2016 in alphabetical order…

APOPTYGMA BERZERK Rhein Klang

Futurepop veteran Stephan Groth certainly put his head on the line releasing an instrumental Sci-Fi concept album as an APOPTYGMA BERZERK long player. But with influences like KRAFTWERK, TANGERINE DREAM and Jean-Michel Jarre, ‘Exit Popularity Contest’ was an artistic success. Full of Groth’s electronic lifeblood, ‘Rhein Klang’ was a wonderful oscillating slice of synth motorik in tribute to NEU!

Available on the album ‘Exit Popularity Contest’ via Hard: Drive

http://www.theapboffice.com/

JOHAN BAECKSTROM Like Before

Johan Baeckström first gained recognition as part of DAILY PLANET with vocalist Jarmo Ollila. His first album ‘Like Before’ drew favourable comparisons to Vince Clarke. A competent vocalist himself, the long player’s title song instantly recalled the glory days of ERASURE with its precise, yet emotive synthpop with a message to “swim the oceans like before”.

Available on the album ‘Like Before’ via Progress Productions

https://www.facebook.com/bstrommusic/

BEYOND THE WIZARD’S SLEEVE Diagram Girl

BEYOND THE WIZARDS SLEEVE’s ‘Diagram Girl’ was the work of Erol Alkan and Richard Norris, formally of THE GRID. Featuring the unisex vocals of Hannah Peel, a deeper pitch shift provided a psychedelic out-of-this-world feel which bizarrely fitted in alongside the songstress’ dreamily breathy tones. Meanwhile the pulsing electronic soundtrack had surreal echoes of OMD.

Available on the album ‘The Soft Bounce’ via Phantasy Sound

https://www.facebook.com/beyondthewizardssleeve/

BLACK NEEDLE NOISE featuring KENDRA FROST Warning Sign

It can be tricky keeping up with the prolific studio legend John Fryer. His BLACK NEEDLE NOISE project employed a flexible lead vocal policy and focussed on just single songs. Magically breathy, ‘Warning Sign’ employed the soaring vocals of Kendra Frost from KITE BASE against a spacious backdrop of synths, beats and guitars for a brooding sonic amalgam.

Available as a download single via https://blackneedlenoise.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/BlackNeedleNoise/

https://www.facebook.com/kitebasemusic/

CIRCUIT3 Hundred Hands

With a mighty Linn Drum engine room that would make Martyn Ware proud and some rugged lead synth, ‘Hundred Hands’ was the best track on CIRCUIT3’s debut album. The work of Dublin-based Peter Fitzpatrick, he even dropped in hints of KRAFTWERK’s ‘Showroom Dummies’. The parent album ‘siliconchipsuperstar’ was classic styled synthpop made by someone weaned on classic synthpop.

Available on the album ‘siliconchipsuperstar’ via https://circuit3.bandcamp.com/

http://www.circuit3.com/

RUSTY EGAN PRESENTS Thank You

The elegiac ‘Thank You’ utilised some ‘Endless Endless’ vocodered stylings over layers of sweeping synthetic strings and a gentle metronomic pulse. A list of Rusty Egan’s musical heroes, this tone poem was a touching acknowledgement of electronic music’s marvellous history. A simple yet highly effective idea, the beauty is in its realisation. Appropriately, it ends with a touchingly poignant “VISAGE… thank you”.

Available on the album ‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’ via Black Mosaic from
http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/rusty-egan-welcome-to-the-dancefloor

http://rustyegan.net/

JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS A Man & A Woman

‘A Man & A Woman’ was a surprise in that it was less rigid than previous JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS recordings. Featuring some enchanting whispers from the seemingly ubiquitous Hannah Peel, it was an interesting departure that even featured some subtle acoustic guitar flourishes. Foxx’s work is still under-appreciated so ‘21st Century: A Man, A Woman And A City’ provided a chance to catch up.

Available on the album ’21st Century: A Man, A Woman And A City’ via Metamatic Records

http://www.metamatic.com/

ANI GLASS Y Ddawns

Welsh songstress Ani Glass served her apprenticeship with girl groups GENIE QUEEN and THE PIPETTES and worked with Andy McCluskey and Martin Rushent respectively along the way. ‘Y Ddawns’ (‘The Dance’) was a wonderfully exhilarating pop art adventure. Swathed in synths and driven by a metronomic beat, it was a declaration of hope, deeply voiced in the verse with a gorgeous soaring resonance in the chorus, about “finding solace and meaning in music, dance, art and culture”.

‘Y Ddawns’ is available as a download single from https://aniglass.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/aniglasscymru/

THE HEARING Kabeldon

Helsinki-based Ringa Manner has been making crystalline sine waves as THE HEARING. Her second album ‘Adrian’ boasted the sub-eight minute epic ‘Kabeldon’. A outstanding electronic work with an affinity to Norwegian songstress Susanne Sundfør, there were also bows to DAVID BOWIE’s ‘I’m Deranged’ when the mad cascading piano kicked in alongside the frantic drum ‘n’ bass and steadily building cacophony of noise. Then, when it appeared all over, the song mutated into an eloquent Nordic dubstep ballad!

Available on the album ‘Adrian’ via Solina Records

https://www.facebook.com/Ringasofi/

I AM SNOW ANGEL Losing Face

The project of Julie Kathryn, the haunting tension of ‘Losing Face’ accentuates a variety of electronic and organic colours. A muted chop’ n’ chuck provides the percussive backbone while an eerie soundscape is steadily configured as Kathryn succumbs to lust. “You’re different when you’re on top of me… how I hate the state I’m in” she paradoxically reflects, as bubbling detuned synth swirls and acoustic guitar penetrate the foreboding atmosphere in the vein of ‘Felt Mountain’ era GOLDFRAPP.

Available on the EP ‘Desert’ via I Am Snow Angel

http://iamsnowangel.com/

JEAN-MICHEL JARRE & CYNDI LAUPER Swipe To The Right

After decades of composing lengthy synth symphonies, there must have been times when the French maestro must have just wanted to do a four minute pop tune. This Jean-Michel Jarre managed in a quirky collaboration with Cyndi Lauper. No stranger to electronic forms, particularly with her under rated ‘Bring Ya To The Brink’ album of 2007, ‘Swipe To The Right’ had big bass riffs galore for a great poptastic exploration, while reflecting on the use of Tinder in modern relationships.

Available on the album ‘Electronica 2: The Heart Of Noise’ via Columbia / Sony Music

http://jeanmicheljarre.com/

http://www.cyndilauper.com/

KID MOXIE Still High

KID MOXIE is Elena Charbila, the Greek born singer and actress who likes to make music with friends. Working best in collaboration, her well-received album ‘1888’ showed she had blossomed and displayed an inventive maturity following the gutter pop of her early releases. From her best body of work yet in ‘Perfect Shadow’, the seductive ‘Still High’ was gloriously cinematic synthpop with a touch of maiden iciness that affirmed this artistic progression.

Available on the mini-album ‘Perfect Shadow’ is via West One Music Group

http://www.facebook.com/kidmoxie

LIEBE The Box

One-time label mates of MARSHEAUX, LIEBE are the electro disco duo comprising of George Begas and Dimos Zachariadis who could be considered the Greek PET SHOP BOYS. Sitting on that difficult bridge between pastiche and post-modern, their romantic disco friendly sound mines Europop while adding the vocal drawl of Jarvis Cocker. The magnificent Jean-Michel Jarre goes Italo disco of ’The Box’ was the highlight of their wonderfully escapist pop album ‘Revolution Of Love’.

Available on the album ‘Revolution Of Love’ via Emerald & Doreen Recordings

http://www.liebe.gr

MARSHEAUX Burning

Recorded in London and Athens, a new approach saw MARSHEAUX’s trademark wispiness blended in with a subtle tone of aggression. The opening song on ‘Ath.Lon’, the album title of which was derived from the cities of Athens and London, ‘Burning’ was a harsh but sexy slice of synth expressionism. While clearly referencing darker electronica forms with its hypnotising percussive motif, it crucially maintained the essence of a good tune.

Available on the album ‘Ath.Lon’ via Undo Records

http://www.marsheaux.com/

MESH The Fixer

With their new album ‘Looking Skyward’, MESH alleviated any fears that they might not be able to sustain the artistic momentum seeded by 2013’s ‘Automation Baby’. Despite the lyrically negative nature of ‘The Fixer’, a driving bass triplet attached to a solid four-to-the-floor beat and an anthemic topline shed a light of optimism amongst the gloom. MESH have firmly carved their own niche and any disillusioned DEPECHE MODE fans should consider joining the fold immediately…

Available on the album ‘Looking Skyward’ via Dependent Records

http://www.mesh.co.uk/

METROLAND Man / Machine

In August 2015, METROLAND’s sound engineer and close friend Louis Zachert, aka Passenger L, passed away. The Brussels based duo recorded ‘Things Will Never Sound The Same Again’, a musical eulogy created from scratch as their way of paying homage to their fellow passenger. The uplifting ’Music / Machine’ with its Jarre-esque melodies started as a METROLAND remix of MUSICOCOON, a project involving Louis and his friend Philippe Malemprée. Kindly donated, its presence is in honour of Louis as the last piece of music he ever worked on.

Available on the album on the album ‘Things Will Never Sound The Same Again’ via Alfa Matrix

http://www.metrolandmusic.com/

NIGHT CLUB Pray

Buoyed by the acclaim of their EP trilogy and their power as a live act, NIGHT CLUB experimented with a more aggressive synth rock disco sound for their debut long player ‘Requiem For Romance’. Playing around with a range of unsettling vocal pitch shifts and religious imagery for the sinister overtones of ‘Pray’, Emily Kavanaugh and Mark Brooks have more than substantiated their position as one of North America’s best independent electronic pop duos.

Available on the album ‘Requiem For Romance’ via Gato Blanco from http://nightclubband.com/album/requiem-for-romance

http://nightclubband.com/

HANNAH PEEL All That Matters

It’s been a busy year for Hannah Peel; layered with staccato voice samples and uplifting bursts of symphonic strings, the driving arpeggio laden ‘All That Matters’ was her calling card, not just as her most synthpop offering yet but also as a mantra to live in the moment. The opening track of her second album ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’, her very personal musical journey themed around memory and the effects of dementia was a startling artistic triumph.

Available on the album ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’ My Own Pleasure

http://www.hannahpeel.com

PET SHOP BOYS The Dictator Decides

Never mind their age, PET SHOP BOYS are still ‘The Pop Kids’ and ‘Twenty-something’ ones at that. But on the moodier ‘The Dictator Decides’, there comes one of those politically laced introspective numbers in the vein of ‘My October Symphony’ and ‘Don Juan’ that Tennant and Lowe always do so well. As Tennant deadpans “if you get rid of me, we can all be free”, the song provides an amusing surreal narrative of a tyrannical politician bored of his outright power and wanting to live a normal life.

Available on the album ‘Super’ via x2

http://www.petshopboys.co.uk/

PSYCHE Ring The Bells

From the Cold War Night Life curated ‘Heresy: A Tribute To Rational Youth’, one of the highlights from the collection is PSYCHE’s take on ‘Ring The Bells’ from appropriately, RATIONAL YOUTH’s ‘Cold War Night Life’ debut. The clattering 808 beat and elegantly haunting sweeps combined with Darrin Huss’ mournful vocal provide an atmospheric reworking that betters the original and reflects the decades long kinship between RATIONAL YOUTH and PSYCHE.

Available on the album ‘Heresy: A Tribute To Rational Youth’ (V/A) via Cold War Night Life from http://www.stormingthebase.com/various-heresy-a-tribute-to-rational-youth-3lp-vinyl-2cd/

http://www.psyche-hq.de/

SARAH P. I’d Go

Greek electropop goddess Sarah P. started her music career as the frontwoman of KEEP SHELLY IN ATHENS. With ‘I’d Go’ she said: “Most of the people do not get that this song is not as happy as it sounds at a first listen”. In her own words she confesses: “I’m a childish woman and nobody can stop me from being one” and adds “If there’s anything I stand for with all my heart is the ‘Go be you’ motto!” – her full length debut long player ‘Who Am I?’ is eagerly awaited.

Available on the mini-album ‘Free’ via EraseRestart

http://sarahpofficial.com/

SILENT WAVE War

Enigmatic Gothenburg electronic trio SILENT WAVE possess the hauntronica hallmarks of fellow Swedes THE KNIFE. ‘War’ is a reminder of how that sibling duo once combined tunes with their experimentation. With a suitably dark Nordic vibe, it could easily have come off ‘Silent Shout’ and while the template is undoubtedly derivative, ‘War’ is extremely well executed.

Available on the download single ‘War’ via Silence Records

https://www.facebook.com/silentwaveofficial/

STARCLUSTER & MARC ALMOND To Have & Have Not

With his career spanning 10 CD box set ‘Trials Of Eyeliner: Anthology 1979-2016’, the last thing anyone expected from Marc Almond this year was an electronic pop album. Almond first recorded with Anglo German production duo STARCLUSTER in 2008. A great cover version, ‘To Have & Have Not’ was originally recorded by RONNY and retains the stern manner of the former Parisian model, while giving this slice of modern Weimar Cabaret a new lease of life.

Available on the album ‘Silver City Ride’ via Closing the Circle / Private Records

http://www.marcalmond.co.uk/

TINY MAGNETIC PETS Not Giving In

An appearance at the 2015 ELECTRI_CITY_CONFERENCE in Düsseldorf reinforced TINY MAGNETIC PETS’ reputation as an intriguing live act by winning over figures such as Rusty Egan and Andy McCluskey. The soulful ‘Not Giving In’ makes the most of Paula Gilmer’s enticingly wispy voice. With detuned pulses contrasting the digital chimes and staccato voice samples, an unusual stuttering reggae inflected beat enhances the atmosphere.

Available on the EP ‘The NATO Alphabet’ via https://tinymagneticpets.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Tiny-Magnetic-Pets-69597715797/

TRAIN TO SPAIN Believe In Love

Highly exuberant and featuring a poptastic four chord progression, ‘Believe In Love’ was TRAIN TO SPAIN’s first recording to feature producer Lars Netzel aka NOT LARS as a full-time member. It developed on the promise of songs like ‘Passion’ from their debut album ‘What it’s All About’ released in 2015 and significantly gave more space within Jonas Rasmusson’s classic synthpop framework for lead singer Helena Wigeborn to exude her charm in. But it seems TRAIN TO SPAIN are back to a duo again…

Available on the download single ‘Believe In Love’ via Subculture Records

http://www.traintospain.se/

TRENTEMØLLER River In Me

‘River In Me’ was an unusual Trentemøller recording in that Jehnny Beth from SAVAGES actually came to his home studio in Copenhagen to lay down her vocals. The end result possessed a Gothic intensity, yet was vibrant and melodic with Beth’s Siouxsie-like tones complimenting the hybrid synth laced soundscape. While some complained that ‘River In Me’ was not as dark as the Dane’s previous work, it was his most immediate offering yet with a fine balance of accessibility and mood.

Available on the album ‘Fixion’ via In My Room

http://www.anderstrentemoller.com/

VILE ELECTRODES The Vanished Past

It’s the avant pop approach reminiscent of early OMD that sets VILE ELECTRODES apart from and makes them so captivating. ‘The Vanished Past’ is a potent successor to the drama of ‘Deep Red’, complete with a mighty drum cacophony à la OMD’s ‘Navigation’. Bleak and wonderful, “not everything is as it seems” as a forlorn stranger joins in. As the seven minute adventure unfolds like a lost OMD epic, that stranger begins to sound like a certain George Andrew McCluskey!

Available on the album ‘In The Shadows Of Monuments’ via http://vileelectrodes.bigcartel.com/

http://www.vileelectrodes.com/

VILLA NAH Stranger

From their superb second album ‘Ultima’, ‘Stranger’ was a brilliant return for VILLA NAH after a five year absence. Front man Juho Paalosmaa said: “‘Stranger’ is a play on words; how somebody you’ve known can turn stranger over the span of time… and end up as a complete stranger in the process. I don’t think it’s a track I would’ve written as a 20 year old. It requires some years of age and experience to really understand how time can change people, including yourself.”

Available on the album ‘Ultima’ via Solina Records

https://www.facebook.com/villanah/

WRANGLER Stupid

If CABARET VOLTAIRE had hijacked Compass Point Studios in The Bahamas while TALKING HEADS were recording ‘Speaking In Tongues’, the end result might have ended up sounding a bit like this. ‘Stupid’ sees Stephen Mallinder in warped falsetto mode over a hypnotic sequence of menacing synths from Benge and Phil Winter. The track’s rhythmic heart creates an almost robotic, yet electro-funk feel for one of the undoubted highlights on WRANGLER‘s ‘White Glue’ album.

Available on the album ‘White Glue’ via MemeTune

https://www.facebook.com/mallinderbengewinter/

YELLO Electrified II

Despite 37 years of making music together, the distinctive sound of YELLO remains intriguing and distinctly European and the new album ‘Toy’ delighted fans. On the superb ‘Electrified II’ (the original version appeared on Boris Blank’s boxed set of the same name), Dieter Meier has his mind blown by the velvet voice of Malia. As she exclaims “Life’s a bitch and I’m no witch”, this could be Shirley Bassey indulging in some seductive energetic electro-cabaret.