So this pair were going for a sound along the lines of “what a Prince and Max Martin collaboration could have been”. Well we can confirm ‘Dirty Laundry’ is a lot of fun. Vocalist Julia recalls Debbie Gibson at times and the track has some funky edges including some subtle horns and an almost yachtpop/80sUS TV theme feel to some of the synths in the third quarter of the song.
Here’s another promising Aussie for you. Azure Ryder’s new EP ‘Running With The Wolves’ contains some very hazy, sunny, ladies of the canyon type tunes and we are rather taken with ‘Dizzy’. Azure’s vocal is effortlessly powerful yet tender also. One to watch in 2020.
We have had Rogue VHS’ ‘Pale Blue’ on repeated plays this past few weeks. We weren’t ready to move on from that one when ‘Jupiter’ was released into the world last week. It’s dreamy but crisply produced synthwave which transports you to a galaxy far, far away (like, er, Jupiter I guess!). Beautiful stuff.
It’s hard not to be enraptured by Ane Brun’s beautiful voice. Her ‘It All Starts With One’ record is a T&D fave. New single ‘Trust’ is also a stunner and the video captures moments where her fans heard the track for the first time and connected at a special online listening party – what a lovely thing to do.
Some top notch synthwave for you this Monday evening courtesy of All The Damn Vampires and Michelle Bensimon. We missed this one on release last year but the new video caught our eye and we are pleased to share the track with you. An album is on the way very soon – aptly named “Synth City”.
‘I Left You’ is the 2nd track from Julia-Sophie’s forthcoming ‘Y’ EP. On her Soundcloud page, in her bio (of sorts), she is described as an electronic artist – and then next to that it says “songs vs machines”. We love that, and it sums up ‘I Left You’ quite brilliantly. Not gonna lie, we wish some of the spoken word segments from the start of the video made it onto the track.
A 2020 update on Deee-Lite’s cult classic ‘Picnic In The Summetime’ (right down to the band logo) has arrived via the absolutely breathtaking new track from strongboi, which is the side project of Alice Phoebe Lou. This just shot straight to the top of our intended listening for when we finally get some holiday sunlounger poolside time later in the year.
We are a bit smitten with Georgia’s new 5 track EP, having fallen head over heels for previous single ‘Same Things’. We keep hitting the repeat button on the smooth and gently funky disco of ‘Made For Loving’ which is getting added to our Dares Does Disco playlist right now – it sounds like an instant classic to us.
We have been delving into the Nordik Sonar EP ‘Good Love Bad Love’ this weekend, and after sharing the very Eurovisionny (not a word, we know) ‘Le Party’ we also wanted to give a mention to ‘In the Dream Of Neverending Love’ which has sci-fi dark synth verses but a soaring Sound of Arrows/Lovers of Valdaro-esque chorus.
One of the only positives to take from our present lock down is the way in which artists are trying to lift our spirits and connect with fans in varying ways. Some of our faves have started doing live shows from living rooms, kitchens etc and tomorrow night (Monday 30 March) T&D hall of famer Grace Lightman will be going live at 8.30pm (UK time) on her Instagram and Facebook. We can only hope she plays ‘Faultless’ which no word of a lie is one of the best songs from the past 5 years. If this floats your boat then see also ‘Silver Eater’ – Grace’s album which had a top 3 finish in our albums of the year for 2019 column.
Teases and Dares 