Synthpop

Tweet There haven’t been too many great electronic albums so far this year, but that’s no problem: I’ve been going back to check out some releases from last year that I’d initially missed. Here’s a short selection – a late delivery – of electronica from 2011!   Asura – 360 Asura expertly mix in trance ambient and World Music elements into their sound. Sometimes I find pure ambient music [...]

Tweet In 2011 I must have listened to over 100 new electronic albums, give or take. And while I felt the quantity of good synthpop releases had fallen compared with previous years, the number of quality electronic albums in general was a joy and inspiration. Here then are my Top 20 Electronic Albums of 2011, covering synthpop, electro-industrial, psy-trance, “hauntronica” and all the synthetic sounds in between.   20. Michael [...]

Tweet Synthpop and electronic music website The Electricity Club (TEC) hosted their first ever live event at the weekend. Situated on New Oxford Street, The Bowery was the ideal venue for an extended night of English electropop. Featuring a team of TEC DJs and live performances from CURXES and VILE ELECTRODES, this was an essential event for anyone interested in new synth music. TEC writer Steve Gray kicked off the night the with first DJ [...]

Tweet An EP is a curious musical item: too short to be called an album, too long to be a single, in my pre-Spotify days I used to see them as a good way to buy “half an album” to see whether I liked a band or not. Anyway, here are four new electronic EPs I’d be happy to spend money on!   Tenek – EP2 Regular readers on this blog will know I love Tenek, whose album On The Wire featured in our Top 10 Synthpop Albums of 2010 [...]

Tweet On the outer edges of the electronic music scene lives a strange cargo of bands, geographically distant but all sharing a love of spaced-out retro electronica. Many in this expanding synth-wave have remodeled styles of early 80s sci-fi and VHS horror movie soundtracks to suit their post-Internet lives, while others re-imagine Krautrock and synthpop into new forms of music yet to be properly classified. Here are five new electronic [...]

Tweet Summoned from the depths of The Spotify Catalog using special powers, mixed into a sonical Potion of Awesome by my bare hands then cast as the finest Electro-Witch House, Haunted Pop, Dark Dubstep and Goth-Electronica – Here’s my bewitching (and slightly creepy) playlist of Hauntronica! Featuring The Weird Sisters of: Fever Ray, The Knife, Austra, Emika, Gazelle Twin, The Horn The Hunt, Zola Jesus, Labyrinth Ear, [...]

Tweet My friends at synthpop website The Electricity Club are hosting their first ever live event next month in London, featuring Vile Electrodes and Curxes - two brilliant new bands, both of whom I’ve featured on this blog before. I got in touch with TEC head honcho Chi Ming Lai and asked him to tell us a bit about “TEC001” and what to expect. Why did you decide to put on a live TEC event: doesn’t editing and writing [...]

Tweet We both heard the same beat in the beginning, but where did you go from there? Perhaps you discovered one or two favorite styles then settled back to explore similar bands. Some of my friends have stayed  hovering around one genre since the day I met them, never venturing out to try something different or perhaps checking out a track or two but then scurrying back to the familiarity of the soundtrack of their youth. I’m a [...]

Tweet Here’s my pick of the five best synthpop albums recently released on Spotify.   Depeche Mode – Remixes 2: 81-11 (Deluxe) Synthpop’s most successful act just released a new album of remixes in a variety of formats. It’ll cost you a pretty penny to collect them all, but Spotify users are blessed with not only the full 3-CD “deluxe” version (which gives us the treasured new Vince Clarke and Alan [...]

Tweet The Electricity Club is without doubt the most important website for fans of synthpop old and new. Featuring dozens of exclusive interviews with electro legends like Thomas Dolby, John Foxx, Heaven 17, New Order and OMD, TEC nevertheless doesn’t wallow in 80s nostalgia: you’ll also find reviews and features from the cream of current synthpop and electronic bands. The Electricity Club recently celebrated its first birthday, [...]