Browsing Tag electronic
Self Esteem – Girl Crush
Far too often, when an ‘indie’ artist decides to throw in a pinch of ‘pop’, they are looked down upon, even by their own fans. As if music by independent minds can’t sound poppy, or as if pop and indie are two extremes of a musical spectrum. If that’s your thought exactly, don’t read on. If you’re less narrow-minded, allow me to introduce you to Self Esteem.
Self Esteem is the latest musical project of Rebecca Lucy Taylor, who used to be in the band Slow Club. Girl Crush is the new single off her solo debut album Compliments Please. An ambitious song that includes strings and a flute amidst poppy beats. Lyrically, the track is a reaction to the term itself. Taylor explains: “It should just be known as a crush. This isn’t a ground-breaking gender and sexuality statement, it’s just common sense. Women aren’t a fun new cool thing for straight women to try. (…) It’s a difficult thing to talk about but it’s something I can make a banging pop song about.”
Commercial, but uncompromising.
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Werner’s Weekly (week 14)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Maggie Lindemann – Friends Go (Wildcard this week)
- Shanguy – Toukassé (Wildcard last week)
- Kakkmaddafakka – Sin
- Model Depose – Damage Control
- Neo Minor – Run
- Vant – Propaganda Machine
- Vendredi Sur Mer – La Nuit
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Angèle, Perry Farrell, Rammstein, and many more.
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Model Depose – Damage Control
Nicknaming Model Depose ‘Model Depeche’ is understandable, but too easy. But you’re not to blame… until now. For the Dutch electronic pop band re-invented themselves with a new sound, which is more guitar-driven. Call it indie, rock or alternative pop, but I like it!
Damage Control is Model Depose’s new single. “When an influential person or loved one is on a collision course, the best you can do is keep dancing, sing along and make the best of it”, according to the band.
Not only is Damage Control the new single, it’s also the title track off their second album. Model Depose promise ‘a full-fledged piece of music in which everything fits together like a puzzle, where grit and a soothing atmosphere always find balance through raw beats, dynamic vocals and subdued synthesizer melodies’. The long-player will be out in September. Until then, the band release a new single and video each month.
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Werner’s Weekly (week 13)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Shanguy – Toukassé (Wildcard this week)
- Sam Fender – Hypersonic Missiles (Wildcard last week)
- Hot Like Sushi – Go Anywhere
- Jonas Brøg – All Across The Sky
- Nasty Cherry – Win
- Pi Ja Ma – I Oh I
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Broken Social Scene, Panic! At The Disco, Rat Boy, Roosevelt, Tame Impala, Two Door Cinema Club, and many more.
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 12):
Shanguy – Toukassé
I’m a fan of Shanguy. It’s their fresh take on electronic pop, which incorporates both funky and jazzy elements, that I’m attracted to. Both their singles La Louze and King Of The Jungle were Carte Blanche Music Wildcards last year.
Until recently, Shanguy was an all-male affair, created in 2017 by Italian DJ NRD1, including French singer-songwriter Eon Melka and Italian singer-songwriter Frank-O. In September 2018, they were joined by Italian singer Shady Cherkaoui-Sørensen. Hers is the female voice you can hear on the band’s new single Toukassé (the title is a corruption of ‘tout casser’, which is French for ‘break everything’). Luckily, the other ingredients remained the same, making this their third great track – and their third Carte Blanche Music Wildcard – in a row!
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
S.O.S – Firebrick
Originally born in Malta, 24-year-old Anglo-Maltese singer, songwriter and producer Sophie DeBattista followed her British roots and moved to the UK at the age of 18. Most days, she’s busking with her acoustic guitar on the London Underground. It was here she was spotted by The Mayor of London Culture Chief, who offered her a 3 year scholarship at the ICMP music faculty.
An important part of her studies was the creation of her artist brand S.O.S and the creation of her debut EP Edges Of The Mind. This EP contains the four tracks Sophie released over the past three years, and her new single Firebrick.
She explains about the song, which she wrote and co-produced herself: “Firebrick was inspired by a young woman who I’ve known for many years. The song tells the story of how she hasn’t had the best experiences when it comes to the men in her life. Although she’s been cursed with this bad luck, the silver lining in the narrative is that no matter how bad it’s been and no matter how many men have tried to control or deflate her, she comes back fighting each time.”
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Werner’s Weekly (week 11)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Indigo – Distant Lullaby (Wildcard this week)
- Sundara Karma – Little Smart Houses (Wildcard last week)
- Alphabeat – Shadows
- Hatchie – Without A Blush
- SWMRS – Lose Lose Lose
- The Lighthouse – Tel Aviv
- The Pale White – Medicine
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: The Black Keys, Cage The Elephant, George Ezra, Sam Fender, The Kooks, and many more.
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
The Lighthouse – Tel Aviv
Last November, Belgian band The Lighthouse scored a Carte Blanche Music Wildcard with their single Catch Fire. Now, three months on, they drop another dose of instant happiness.
Tel Aviv is telling the classic ‘the grass is greener on the other side of the fence’-story, where a woman is obsessed by an ad for Tel Aviv and desperately wants to go there to escape her everyday life. Not realizing that there’s more going on in the region than palm-tree beaches. The lyrics are written from both the man’s and the woman’s point of view, so the song takes you along on her energetic, uplifting dream-holiday and his incomprehension of her sudden urges.
Ahead of their upcoming debut album, which is expected in September, The Lighthouse will slowly drop some new tracks. Tel Aviv is the second, and already makes curious for the third!
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Hezen – Bring Your Alibi
London-based singer-songwriter and producer Sara Hezen grew up outside of Paris. With Caribbean, Tamil, and Jewish blood running through her veins, her family history is coloured with narratives of displacement, resistance, and resilience. This heritage, as well as artists like Björk, Massive Attack, Sia, James Blake, and Lana Del Rey, were of big influence on her song-writing. Hezen produces is dark electronic pop that fuses experimentalism with a canny ear for epic and infectious hooks.
Her new single Bring Your Alibi was inspired by the #MeToo campaign. Hezen says it had a profound effect on her. “It felt like an incredible shift – I remember feeling so much admiration for the people who found the courage to tell their story. I was inspired to channel that resilience and courage – it’s like a feminist retelling of David vs. Goliath.”
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Werner’s Weekly (week 9)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Vendredi Sur Mer – Chewing-Gum (Wildcard this week)
- Stats – The Family Business (Wildcard last week)
- Badflower – Promise Me
- Barrie – Clovers
- Dombresky – Soul Sacrifice
- PLYA – Adenaline
- Two Year Vacation – I Forgot Your Name (But I Like You)
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Alex Lahey, My Baby, Johnny Marr, Weezer, and many more.
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 Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
