Synthpop
See: Dave Keuning – ‘Time And Fury’: an alt.synth floor-filler for your personal boogie nirvana
THE KILLERS’ founding member and guitarist Dave Keuning has released another taster of his June solo album, A Mild Case Of Everything, with the video for the anthemically synthy “Time & Fury”. You can’t deny Dave has a way with a tune, his writing at the heart of The Killers’ incredible success down the years. …
See: LIP TALK – ‘More’: our craving, craven world captured in psychedelic synth pop
SARAH K PEDINOTTI is the living, breathing Brooklyn-based human behind the glam-psych-pop stylings of LIP TALK, who’s just dropped the video for the glitteringly trippy “More” – and we’ve got it here for you. “More” concerns just that; the craving, the craven, the wish to hold and consume; be more excited, more satiated, love more …
News: Erasure to release ‘The Neon Remixed’ to end July – watch the lyric video for a new track, ‘Secrets’; British and European dates announced for the autumn
STRIDING across the synthpop world for 36 years now in a career absolutely without parallel, Vince Clarke and Andy Bell are back with a remixes take on last year’s album, The Neon; and they’ve also announced a string of dates across the UK and Europe for the autumn. Double whammy! The Neon Remixed collects together …
Track: Lizzie Loveless – ‘Loveless’: former TEEN sister embraces a cleaner, dreamy synthpop aesthetic
BROOKLYN’s three-sister indie rock band TEEN were much loved by those in the know, and rightfully so, with slow-burn, atmospheric altpop numbers such as “Raggedy Andy” to offer the world. It was with sadness that that same cognoscenti received the news that sisters Lizzie, Katherine and Kristina Lieberson were calling it a day after two …
Album Review: Otooto – smooth Danish jazz grooves with ‘This Love is For You’
When it comes to top-notch conservatoires where fusing classical training into jazz intersect, Denmark, and I would venture the Netherlands, hold a strong reputation for supporting that kind of nuanced and classical sound. The debut album of a very young and talented Danish quartet quintet, Otooto, led by trumpeter Jonas Due and saxophonist Oilly Wallace …
See: Sugarstone – ‘Angel Boy’: Mancunian new wave of new ravers break out the synth colours
Y’KNOW one thing that’s missing from our lives – I know, I know, a zillion things, right, but: technicolour. Really eye-poppingly bright colour, cerise and sunset yellow and tangerine and electric blue, glowing, searing – and I mean in a sonic form, too. It’s gotta be a good thing, then, that Manchester’s new wave of …
Track: Kalbells – ‘Diagram Of Me Sleeping’: languid synth’n’sax pop to wrap up in the covers to
YOU WANT dreaminess? Kalbells, the collaborative synthpop-cum-artpop project of Kalmia Traver, Angelica Bess, Sarah Pedinotti, and Zoë Brecher, has just dropped a dear little nugget of Eighties-inflected pillowtalk bliss, “Diagram Of Me Sleeping”; yet another reason to get yourself booked aboard the first flight out on their album Max Heart, which is coming out on …
Album Review: The Ghost of Helags unveil the shimmering and impressingly beautiful album ‘We Came From the Stars’
Here at Backseat Mafia HQ we have been following synth pop duo The Ghost of Helags for a while – covering a series of extraordinary beautiful dreamy singles and even capturing a live session of single ‘Chemistry’. The Berlin-based Swedish duo have collected all the singles together and added more tracks to release an exquisite …
See: The video for Telex’s ‘Dear Prudence’: Beatles cover unearthed for the forthcoming Mute compilation
BELGIAN synth visionaries-cum-pranksters Telex have dropped a video for their previously unreleased, recently discovered take on “Dear Prudence” – you can watch it below. Their take – treated with just a little more harmonic reverence than their British charting, brilliantly robotic “Rock Around The Clock” – came to light when surviving members Dan Lacksman and …
TRACK: Douglas – ‘Cigarettes’: euphoric, blurry synthpop futurism
AMY DOUGLAS WHITE is a Los Angelino by adoption, by way of Madrid, where she was raised the child of American parents. She’s got form in the music biz, serving for three years behind the keyboard in LA’s suitably trippy West Indian Girl and contributing background vocals to M83’s seminal single, “Midnight City”. She’s stepped …