Northern Kind are Sarah Heeley and Matt Culpin, an English synthpop band who’ve worked with synth-stars such as Alan Wilder (Depeche Mode, Recoil), Kajagoogoo, and Simon Heyworth (Simple Minds, Mike Oldfield). Northern Kind’s 2nd album WIRED was my favourite release of 2009 and it has b [...more]
Archive for the ‘synthpop’ Category
Is That The Twelve Inch Mix?
Is That The Twelve Inch Mix? is a forthcoming book about the history of remix culture from author Rob Grillo (Anoraknophobia). With an exclusive introduction by Martyn Ware (Heaven 17), the book narrates the history of the twelve inch mix and of the remix evolution in the early and mid-80s. The boo [...more]
Top 20 Albums of the Decade
Here are my Top 20 favourite albums of the decade, in order of release. These are all records that I love as albums – a collection of songs that work together to create something finer than the songs alone. There were better singles over the decade, and there were albums that had many better [...more]
Top 20 Synthpop Albums of the Year: Part II
If you’d have said to me at the start of the year: “Afront, come December you will be compiling a list of your Top 20 favourite synthpop albums of the year” I would have laughed and said “What, there are going to be 20 new synthpop albums this year?” If you’d the [...more]
Top 20 Synthpop Albums of the Year: Part I
There hasn’t been a year this good for synthpop music since 1981. The 80’s revival started a couple of years ago but it hasn’t been until this year that synthpop has reached a new critical mass. Of course synthpoppers like myself have had some brilliant albums to listen to through [...more]
Four More Great New Albums on Spotify
Here are four more albums new on Spotify that I’ve been enjoying recently, all highly recommended! [...more]
September 19th, 2009 - 1:33 pm § in synthpop
Northern Kind – Glasgow Gig Review
I saw synthpop band Northern Kind in concert last night and had a blast. They’re currently on-tour supporting Kajagoogoo who have got back together with Limahl and are playing dates all around the UK. Northern Kind were wonderful, and such friendly people too. The show was at The Ferry, a flo [...more]
Labels on Spotify
Here’s an updated clickable list of my favourite record labels that have extensive catalogues on Spotify. I often find that if I like a band, I’ll probably like other bands on the same label: a list of labels like this acts as a simple recommendation service and is a quick and easy way [...more]
September 6th, 2009 - 1:51 pm § in synthpop
Oblique – Without Making Noise
Oblique are Sonja (vocals & lyrics), Gonzalez (synth & programming) and Linn (bass & synth), a Spanish synthpop band who have remixed artists such as Northern Kind and Parralox. Their track “All We Want” features on this year’s best synthpop compilation album (Electron [...more]
