Browsing Tag electronic
I Wear* Experiment – Almere
I Wear* Experiment are an electro-pop trio from Tallinn, Estonia, consisting of Johanna Eenma, Hando Jaksi, and Mikk Simson. They felt the punch and aggressiveness in their genre has gone missing over time and decided to bring that back. This resulted in a sound that leans towards experimentation and cinematic soundscapes. The band cites Chvrches’ edgy big banger beats and Florence & The Machine’s graceful vocals among their influences.
Almere is I Wear* Experiment’s new single. An intriguing title. Not only because it’s named after the Dutch city of Almere (I presume)(*), but also because the title isn’t mentioned in the song’s lyrics at all. Nevertheless it’s a great synth-pop song!
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(*) After posting the above blog, I Wear* Experiment sent me this explanation:
“Thank you for the good words. Why the song is called Almere – We had just finished our tour in Asia, started the European leg of the album tour and had some free days in between the concerts. Our manager lives in Almere and offered us to stay at his place for a few days. So, coming from weeks of heavy scheduled touring in places where many people don’t speak any English and there are always little difficulties here and there, the few days off were like a spa treatment for us. All we had to do was to eat, sleep & see the local sights.
It was also the first time after a long period when I could sit behind a table and create some music which is much more enjoyable than trying to do it mid-flight somewhere over China. So, sitting behind our manager’s kitchen table, the song Almere was created (I named all the new song ideas with the name of the city we currently were).
The first time we had the chance to try out the song was on big festival in Vietnam named Monsoon Music Festival and it seemed to work well for the 10.000 people there. And when choosing songs for the new release, Almere was one of the first favourites of us all.
The song itself is pretty dark & gloomy and that actually was not the emotion we got from the time we spent in Almere but in a way, at least for us, the contrast works.”
Thanks for making this clear guys!
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
Werner’s Weekly (week 47)
Last week a great diversity of new music saw the light. There were very good releases in every thinkable genre. After applying heavy criteria, I added the likes of Chvrches, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Hozier, The Kooks, Rita Ora, and The Vaccines to my Carte Blanche Music playlist on Spotify, alongside a host of emerging artists you probably haven’t heard of before. And Jennifer Lopez as well. Listen to her new single Limitless without prejudice and you’ll hear it’s a really good song.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Below, you can find my ‘best of the best’ selection Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters. Via the links you can access my original recommendations and you can listen to all six of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player in the sidebar. Here you go:
- Jonas Brøg feat. Laura Mathilde – I Think Of You I Cry (Wildcard this week)
- Jade Bird – Love Has All Been Done Before (Wildcard last week)
- 1010 Benja SL – Ultimaybe
- Audio Adam – Emma Watson
- Hollydays – Minuit (La Baie Noire)
- Moscow Apartment – Orange
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
Hollydays – Minuit (La Baie Noire)
Hollydays are Elise Preys and Sébastien Delage, a pop duo from Paris. Seven years ago, they came together in high school. At first, they were playing covers, but in 2012, they started writing their own songs as Hollydays. Pop songs, that is, by its original meaning, being ‘popular’. The band love melodies that everyone can sing, all together. Their musical vision: a good melody can make the difference.
After releasing a single and three EPs over the years, Hollydays have finally put out their debut album Hollywood Bizarre. Four of their old songs are on it, next to nine new ones. I’m particularly fond of Minuit (La Baie Noire). A Vive La Fête kind of electronic pop song with great instrumentation and catchy vocals. Frencher than French.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
Georgia – Started Out
One of the first recommendations I wrote, in January 2017, was for Georgia’s single Feel It. Since then, the daughter of Leftfield’s Neil Barnes has been working on new music, with Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips, for instance. Although there is no album in sight yet, she does give us a new single.
Started Out is an upbeat and euphoric track. It has a throwback feel, caused by electronic claps, squelchy bass lines and dreamy, misty-eyed vocals. “I used a 909 drum machine, an SH-101 synth… Everything you hear on the recording is analogue,” she says, “But I also wanted it to be poppy. As well as being nostalgic, I wanted stuff to be quite modern, because otherwise it’s just a cheap copy. I wanted to add my flare.”
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
Eckhardt & The House – Funeral
For those who grew up in the 1980s (like me), the current eighties revival must be music to their ears. Thanks to the use of vintage instruments and sounds, many contemporary songs have something instantly recognizable.
Take Eckhardt & The House, for instance, who’s If She Cannot Talk and Put Me In A Cape I recommended here before. They just released their twelfth single Funeral and I can’t help but hearing a mash-up of Falco’s Der Kommissar and Tom Tom Club’s Wordy Rappinghood in it. Which were brilliant and revolutionary songs, by the way.
Funeral is another slickly produced funk pop tune. At the same time however, lyrics like “Let’s have a funeral for all the sad news, let’s bury it all” and “We read the papers, read the facts, they bomb the desert, we pay tax” show social engagement (and even cynicism) as well.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
Apre – Backstreet
Charlie Brown and Jules Konieczny are two songwriters, producers and multi-instrumentalists from London, who form alternative electro-pop Apre. They first met at the Chess Club, where they were allowed to use the back room to start making songs and rehearsing their creations live.
Hot on the heels of two EPs (The Movement Of Time and Drum Machines Killed Music) they released in only a few months’ time, they just shared their new single Backstreet. Apparently, the two aren’t thinking of slowing down any time soon.
Starting off with vocals over a simple piano melody, the listener is immediately drawn into the song. The smoothly flowing chorus, which is sung by Brown and Konieczny together, could have been part of a song by British band Jungle.
Apre’s breakthrough can’t be far away!
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
Only Yours – Everlasting
Only Yours are a Toronto-based four-piece, that make electronic pop music, combining dreamy elements with high energy parts. Led by acclaimed songwriter Lowell Sostomi, the band released a few singles and an EP in 2016 and 2017. Now, they’re ready to unleash their debut album Overrun, which is set to come out in 2019. Put together with the help of a dream team, it was produced by Joe Chiccarelli (The Shins, The White Stripes, Morrissey), engineered by Leon Taheny (Arcade Fire) and mastered by Emily Lazar (Beck, Haim, Coldplay, Brandon Flowers).
Following the album’s first single Doubts, Only Yours just shared their new single Everlasting. Sostomi: “Like gripping sand, the tighter your clasp, the faster it falls. When you intuitively feel something slipping away, you can’t help but cling tighter to it. I wanted to convey a desperate energy in Everlasting, a vibe that feels smooth and calm on the surface, but eventually festers and builds up into a chaos.”
The track features a sax performance by Destroyer’s Joseph Shabason, which helps to accentuate exactly that.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
Werner’s Weekly (week 43)
‘Old’ heroes like Claw Boys Claw, Def Leppard, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Kim Wilde, Kylie Minogue, Macy Gray, Richard Ashcroft and Weezer never die, even though you hardly hear them on the radio anymore. Giving them the credits they deserve, I added their new singles to the Carte Blanche Music playlist last week.
However, most of this list consists of younger, mostly emerging artists, like Amber Arcades, Angèle, Boy Azooga, Fil Bo Riva and Oh Pep! The playlist is updated constantly, so if you follow it, I’ll keep you updated about great new music, the moment it comes out (and often even earlier 😉).
The best of them all can be found in Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters. This week’s edition is below, including links to more information about each track. All for of them are in the Werner’s Weekly player in the sidebar, for your listening pleasure. Enjoy!
- Harts – Shake Ya Pants (Wildcard this week)
- Janelle Monáe – Americans (Wildcard last week)
- Anteros – Ordinary Girl
- Fyfe & Iskra Strings – Gold
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
Fyfe & Iskra Strings – Gold
Fyfe is 27-year-old singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Paul Dixon, and Iskra Strings is violinist James Underwood’s group of string players, who enjoy making music together regardless of genre. Earlier this year, the two combined forces on the Fyfe & Iskra Strings EP 1.
Ahead of a second EP of original material, expected later this year, they just released a new collaborative single: Gold. Effortlessly incorporating elements of the electronic and classical worlds, it’s a pop song with a silken edge.
Fyfe says about the song: “Gold was conceived whilst thinking about the idea that flaws are beautiful too. I’d heard about the Japanese technique of repairing pottery called “kingsugi”, where gold is applied in the repair on the cracks. This not only restores but often elevates the beauty, creating something even more precious and most importantly unique. Gold applies this to a relationship.”
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
Radikal Rat feat. Kes Kross – Friends With Benefits
If 80’s (influenced) music is your thing, you should listen to this. Radikal Rat is performed, produced and mixed by Sweden-based Lukas Nathanson and John Hårleman. Combining pop, electro, R&B and more, they create a world that is both modern and nostalgic.
Though much of their work is instrumental, Radikal Rat have worked on several collaborations with other artists. Their new single Friends With Benefits features LA artist Kes Kross. His R&B tinged vocals turn the track into 80’s nostalgia for the post-genre generation.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a cd club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Charts.
