Spotify release 1.0.9 continues in it’s attempt to make the product more usable. They are succeeding in adding in little niceties here and there, but at the same time have not offered anything truly innovative in a while. This release adds some aesthetic and usability features, but hasn’t put a huge dent in the list of features that the user base has been clamoring for.
This last song from Star Horse is a new site favorite, with roots deep in the Shoegaze/Dreampop category. It’s a wonderfully blissed out mellow track, with vocals that feature ethereal female vocals for the verses, layered male/female harmornies for the chorus and perfectly fuzzed out, catchy guitar riffs.
The London trio HÆLOS went and perfectly melded 90’s loungey-Triphop with late 80’s Synthpop by covering The Beloved’s The Sun Rising. Vocalist Lotti Benardout puts a whole new spin on the track, while the eerie sirens and breakbeats breathe new life.
Halou-lujah…some new music from San Francisco Synthpop duo Halou! Ryan and Rebecca Coseboom have been making music for almost 20 years now, orginally under the name Halou but also as Inivisble Ballet, R/R Coseboom and Stripmall Architecture. They have ranged from Dreampop to Synthpop to Trip Hop. The latest single, Lean Into The Gravity starts off sweetly enough, but a faintly sinister Triphop beat enters, giving the track a bit of a dark, ominous feel.
It’s becoming quite popular to cover Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without A Face” these days, and I’m quite OK with that. The Irish duo Electro Sensitive Behavior have given this track the synthpop treatment. While it sounds true to the original recording, the additional synths combined with a Lou Reed meets Peter Murphy vocal make this cover a keeper.
This is a great uptempo new wave/dreampop track which provides a modern twist on a sound harkening back to the mid-1980s. This track appears to have been around in demo form since at least 2011, and we’re very glad that they included it on their new album which came out last month. The chiming guitars evoke both the nighttime fun and the bygone ’80s, while Rände Rännäli’s sparkling vocals fit the mood perfectly.
This New York band’s post-punk / new wave song is a great contrast in light and dark, and should appeal to a wide spectrum of music fans. Starting with a jangly, memorable, and very chipper reverb’d guitar riff, the mood turns darker when the deep, slightly melancholic vocals begin, with a chorus that sounds like…
Well, now this is a surprise! Beach House, known for it’s dreamy, languid tunes apparently picked up some feedback pedals at the flea market. Their new single, Sparks, opens with some MBV-esque distortion before a squelch of guitar that wouldn’t be out of place on Smashing Pumpkins’ debut LP, Gish. When the dust settles, and…
Yesterday, 80’s icons a-Ha released the first single called ‘Under The Make-up’ off of their forthcoming album ‘Cast In Steel’. A tour is expected to accompany the new album. Singer Morten Harket’s voice is as good as ever on this melancholy track that reminds us a little of ‘Lifelines’. The synths and orchestration on this track are movie soundtrack beautiful and leave us anticipating what the rest of the album might sound like.
The track Cranekiss owes an obvious nod to Cocteau Twins but the driving beat also reminds me of Dream About Me for the now defunct Pains of Being Pure at Heart side project, The Depreciation Guild.
This is a nice retro trip, and although that is maybe becoming a cliche notion, this is NOT a look back at 80’s Synth. We are talking about the hazy, dreamy world New Wave/Goth vibe of Cocteau Twins, Bel Canto and The Cure. There are also more ethereal vocal vibes reminiscent of Julee Cruise, Tamaryn…
Our recent mix of “Do You Remember – A Modern Day John Hughes Soundtrack” has taken off like gangbusters this week. Since everyone has been enjoying this theme, we decided to take it to Spotify for you. The playlist below contains songs from the first two mix volumes (note that not all of the songs from the mixes were available on Spotify).