Synthpop
Track/Video: Algerian psych-rock legends Les Abranis release ‘Id Ed Was’ to trail their ‘Amazigh Freedom Rock 1973 – 1983’ compilation.
Sometimes retrospective albums seem destined to just come and go but not this one. ‘Amazigh Freedom Rock 1973 – 1983’ by Les Abranis, available via Bongo Joe from 28th April, promises to be a compilation that makes a mark, setting the crate diggers out there scrabbling and looking for more. This is an album that …
Track: Buscabulla cover the classic ‘Cantares’ with their sultry synth pop brilliance
Now here’s a winter warmer – Ultra-hip onetime Brooklyn based, Puerto Rican twosome Buscabulla have sneaked out (via Ribbon Music) this cover of the classic ‘Cantares’ to keep us in touch. Originally recorded by El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, the Buscabulla partners, Luis Alfredo Del Valle and Raquel Berrios, bathe the song in their …
Track: Drew Smith – ‘Whose News’ feat. Isla Craig: the Toronto scene brings us another gem of blissful, ambient synthpop-triphop
BESIDES his other bow-strings playing in Toronto power-poppers Bunny and the heart-hookin’ bubblegum fun of The Bicycles, Toronto’s Drew Smith also fashions a lovely ambient synthpop under his birth name: dreamy, fun, blissful, and very much of an effect with Montreal’s Afternoon Bike Ride. It’s sorta candyfloss brittle and ice-melt pure and futuristic and just …
Track: Sugarstone twist the rave into a darkwave nightmare before Christmas on ‘Pink Duct Tape’
MANCUNIAN new wave ravers Sugarstone have tucked away the dayglo, hands-in-the-air synth thang just for now as they embrace the aesthetics of the darkest month; and with the winter solstice nearly here, they’ve taken a swerve into goth-pop drama with a final single for ’21, “Pink Duct Tape”. The song keeps that rave squelch and …
Track: Senior Citizen x Tim Walker share the electro ode ‘The Foreign’
FREDRICTON, New Brunswick musician Bob Deveau, who you’ll find jaunting out and about in synthy surroundings as Senior Citizen away from the drum stool he usually occupies with bands like The Olympic Symphonium, Grand Theft Bus and Force Fields, is primed to release an album with sometime bandmate Tim Walker at the beginning of next month for …
See: Bitch stands up to be counted on the technicolour torch song, ‘Easy Target’
QUEER icon Bitch doesn’t ever take fools lightly, and you should so know and respect that, even if she has a way with couching that message in technicolour synth melodies to die for. We cool with that? Let’s move on. Here’s the joyous thing: her next album, the 11-track trip into Bitchcraft, sees her launching …
Track: London’s St Jasper offers the morning mournfulness of ‘Dial Tone’- he’s a burgeoning synth talent
JAMIE JOHNSON is only two singles into his career as St Jasper, and that’s if we include “Dial Tone”, the song he’s unveiling today – but my, hasn’t he got maturity and talent in a full flush? This new track is so considered; spacious, atmospheric, spectral. It has a gravitas you wouldn’t immediately associate with …
Track: Wrap yourself up warm this autumn with the regal indie-synthpop of Endearments’ ‘Empress’
THE LEAVES are coming down in droves now, so wrapping y’self up against the incipient chill with the Anglophile dreampop stylings of Brooklyn’s Endearments is our self-care tip to keep the darkening year at bay. With an EP, Father Of Wands, due on November 5th, and which four-tracker is happily hunting out next to Brotherhood-era …
Track: Xeno + Oaklander drop new single and video for “Infinite Sadness” – New album ‘Vi/deo’ out 22 October via Dais Records
New York dark wave duo Xeno & Oaklander have announced their impending full-length release, Vi/deo, due out on 22 October via Dais Records. The album promises to further distil the group’s iconic noir synth-pop and is inspired by ideas of synaesthesia, scent, star worship, and obsolescent technologies. Duo Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride conceived the …