cheers to smooth transitions between artists in one post.

ICONA POP

you cheeky little muses.

these gals have a tendency of delivering those typically swedish synths that never fail to make me swoon. although as a rule i have a soft spot for any female swedish dj. 

NOTEWORTHY POINTS: 

1. adorable swedish chatter to warm you up

2. ribbons and swedish fashion

3. the best verse ever at 1.07. mention the space and the 90s in one frame and you just triggered a whole nother level of praise.

4. such a killer party track, like jacked up swedish dragonette. i'm dying and blasting this track out every window at the moment.

ASIDE: If you'd like to hear more about the girls, there's a wonderful Rolling Stone article (so eloquently written, definitely my style of journalism.... what i enjoy reading at least) in which they discuss Sweden in relation to their music and fashion. a particularly good read. 

(get ready for a smooth transition kids)

speaking of icona pop...

bout time 
CHIDDY BANG 
released mind your manners, and as expected the video is just as playful and childish as the track. been blasting this song way too loud in res since Breakfast came out, and here on this corner of the internet, 
we like any excuse to look at Xaph wreaking havoc with a baseball bat. 


video makes me nostalgic for warehouse videos like Alphabeat's early work. Can't go wrong with bubbly Danish pop. 
(why am i so helplessly attached to Scandinavia. just get me there already.)


now get dancing little birds!

lapalux

this is how i feel about this song:

Not a massive fan of ambient electronica but this little trick by 

LAPALUX

 is so percussive and painful that i've fallen in love.

for one thing: LIANNE LA HAVAS has the most exhaustingly beautiful voice. so wonderful it's tiring. a wicked songwriter too, check out more super cute funny tings by her here. 

but it's the little tricky ticks and knocks that Lapalux layers over her ghostly sweet soul voice that spice up this heartbroken ballad. 

a wonderful achievement. 

where have i been all my life...

hunched under a rock perhaps? how else would i have missed this London-native drum&bass master.

SUB FOCUS

a really nice balance between drum&bass and electronica, with a cute little periodic sub quiver.

yeah... in a word: balanced.

nifty video too.

for another nice part-trance-part-dubstep-part-wicked-light-show video of his try this out. 

get dancing kids. 

stars and things.

things that i like:

- stars

- swedes

the natural progression of this plot leads me here....

 

NIKI & THE DOVE

getting a comfortable annie lennox vibe with some subtle space themed electro things. 

not to mention the punchy background vocals and astronauts. 

need i ask for more? 

NAY i say NAY. oh no i've gone loopy. am i even writing words anymore? screw it just listen.
cheers.

hello little kiwi.

on this edition of acousticish live performances of electronicish tings:

let's chat about KIMBRA.

you know her from her massive collaboration with Gotye and her general Kiwi magnificence. 

and that smooth jazzy voice which will have you reaching for your shades and an amoretto. 

what masterful live composition. really impressive.
their rhythm is unreal despite a couple glitches. this is a HARD. piece. 
and besides. 
LOOK AT THOSE PANTS.
cheers sweetheart. 

i tip my hat to you miss.

yes indeed.
miss KATY B is seriously channelling the queen herself, Robyn, in this sensational acoustic version of her smooth and pumping drum n bass track, Broken Record.

i like her yellow socks.

and you gotta commend a woman who can sing such a difficult and beautiful love song over the white background noise of another festival performer.

her mini horn section is perfectly discreet. as a sax player myself, i gotta agree that damn it's hard to play that quiet. 

approved.

reminds me of a gal named ROBYN.
when she first transitioned into the fancy electro-pop-bot sound of her first independent record she kept it real by still performing her old teen pop hits. 
She masterfully transformed the 90s anthem Show Me Love into a shy, curious and twinkly acoustic number. 

what a woman.

gotta love a gal who can still sing her teen one hit wonder like she loves it. 

viva acoustelectronica.

beatz in a box

so plan b recently ploughed out a lovely cover of tinie tempah's pass out. dope.

to all those who don't see musical complexity in electronic music....

look at how many layers it takes to recreate it acoustically. 

we got a little reggae vibe, a mad faith sfx grime beat, some sassy backup singers and a drummer puttin in work. for me the highlight of his performances are always...

FAITH SFX

... his mad beat boxer who's simply the bee's knees.

saw them perform in newcastle earlier this year, and of course they played this cover right after tinie had performed--i dare say they schooled him.

and i scratched FAITH SFX's belly when he crowd surfed. 
tee hee.

while we're here beat boxing, i should probably bring up devlin's acoustic sessions with ed sheeran. this one's even got wretch 32.


i've long since been in love with wretch 32's british/dancehall/grime swag... 
just love his tone of voice.

at the end of the day, beat boxing is the acoustic drum machine. 
acoustictronica? i'm down.

and just to top things off with a beautiful piece of man, Frankmusik's hidden skills always astound me. Sometimes his music is almost too poppy, sometimes the videos to his most beautiful songs are uncomfortably perverted, and mostly he'll just break your heart.

on that note, happy christmas little animals.

if you forget how to celebrate or the scroll function on your computer is fried, i'll direct you towards a big festive pickled christmas. 

them swedes...

(i was tempted to rhyme swedes with bee's knees in the title of this post... 
there are times when i feel terribly sorry for whoever has to put up with my writing)


REBECCA & FIONA
(or... if you want to find better videos on youtube, Rebecca och Fiona. 
cheers to all of us learning pretty languages together.)


enter two fair maidens: Rebecca & Fiona, 
the prime new DJ duo hailing from Stockholm, of course. where else would you find those cheek bones and pulsing pop sounds.


their album, "I Love You, Man" only recently dropped, but you've heard them on Kaskade's new album and all around the swedish club scene. those haunting and quiet voices perfectly juxtapose their dry snares and persistent bass, with many layers of inseparable magical synths. listen a little harder and you can just make out that perfect swedish accent peeking through when they pronounce words like walk or talk. 


the album's got it all. even spank rock is on there (more swedes! whee!)
"Dance" has some dirty sub with twinkly synths and... yes those are strings! 
"Hard" is a soon-to-be dance anthem with... crap just listen to it.

  I think if ever they did anything with robyn i think i'd collapse into a swede-induced coma.

Plastic breakfast, platform creepers, pumpkin hair and turtlenecks?

I have no other words.

Cheers.

SBTRKT

there's always been an interesting thing going on with head gear in electronic music.

but i recently came across this lovely man with his own little spin on the the mask deal.

SBTRKT.

sound it out kids... 

"ssseeebtrrrreeekkkkttttt........ SUBTRACT!"

well done. 

what a boss.

i may as well let him explain himself... he claims to... 


"rather not talk about myself as a person, and let the music speak for itself. The name SBTRKT is me taking myself away from that whole process. I'm not a social person, so having to talk to DJs to make them play a record is not something I want to do. It's more about giving them a record as an anonymous person and seeing whether they like it or not. If they play it, they play it."
(shamelessly quoting his wikipedia page. wut of et punk.)

I must say it sure as hell speaks for itself. 

 

i'm just not gonna write anything more here.
afterall it is kinda perfect, like just about everything that's ever come out of london. 
bloody wanks.

 

and of course if that last one's a little too pop for you, drake did a remix down here...

 

welcome to my love affair with robyn

alright i couldn't resist.

but I need to plaster this woman on this thing I call a blog 
cause the net needs 
a little more Robyn and a little less cat videos.

 

You see kids, Robyn and I have had a long and passionate romance. 
Even before she became the electronic queen of Sweden I was listening to her teen pop records from my car seat in kindergarten. 
But more recently her sweet and simple pop voice with those punchy lyrics and bold electronic synths have brought me to my knees. 
And by recently I mean in the last 4 years.


you could say she's a goddess of sorts. 



i'll confess...
Sometimes when I study instead of listening to classical music I just put on a swedish documentary of Robyn and listen to her speak those beautiful words. 
She sounds like a little pixie riding a unicorn.



If you're down for some light music reading, her story about starting Konichiwa Records and liberating herself from the creative control of major labels is really interesting. And not just cause she's a cute little indie chick but because she had them knocking down her door to beg to distribute her electro pop sounds. 
as nice as independent labels are, they're not necessarily the answer to all your musical woes, cause who's gonna help your fancy beats reach my ears? 


essentially
childhood fame + creative control of her own label + interested major labels = 
a creatively free pop phenomenon that's still publicized to the masses. 
what a business woman. 


and then there's her music.

essentially all i can say about call your girlfriend is 

2.19 - 2.44

that seam that you try so desperately to find, where voice becomes keyboard. 

literally becomes. 
i challenge you to find it. only the Lord knows how she does it so flawlessly. 

my only explanation is she's a robot. 

I could go on about all its glory and complexity and simplicity but it's all useless banter next to those 25 seconds. 

So of course I never thought a satisfying cover of Call Your Girlfriend could exist, since it would never give me my perfect 25 seconds. 

Then Erato happened. 

leave it to the swedes to blow me off my horse once again.

thanks guys.

Tack Sverige

shameless plugging of the boy who lives in my basement.

of course.

within hours of starting this blog and 2 hours of his latest release

i'm already plugging Gabe Flaherty.

we've all been through the dubstep Adele remixes. although I love me some soft female voices thrown up against nasty ass bass that'll leave your speakers weeping, it's kinda been done.
 and kinda been beat over the head with a crowbar. 


But this. kid.
makes the illest mixes.
he'll throw you a classic house beat with just enough dubstep to ground it in the soles of your feet, then shake it up with essentially everything you'll want in a remix.  
There's variety, there's balance, it's just ill. 




Also every so often a little nostalgic chiptune pops in.
just to remind you of your Anamanaguchi days of the tenth grade... but without being overwhelming. 
cause let's be honest those were dark times.

 

i can't get over his remix of Toes. 
Of course the new LIGHTS release, Siberia has been the soundtrack to my autumn and i'm bound to like just about anything coming out of that cheeky little canadian.


this chick absolute dynamite, and he treats her well... the remix highlights her.
it's true to her style of intergalactic melody but pushes it to the max--while still complimenting her simple but powerful vocal melodies.


this kid's great.

he's in the LIGHTS remix contest and he's gonna OWN so please vote for the kid. 

VOTE VOTE VOTE 

VOTE VOTE VOTE

VOTE VOTE

VOTE

please?