It’s a fair old bonanza of sparkly new pop nuggets we present to you this long weekend. In the mix we have two artists who know their way around a Teases and Dares blog post with two others making their debut on our pages.
Holiday Sidewinder’s ‘The Last Resort’ is just over a week old and maintains a grasp on it’s position as album of the year contender at the end of quarter one. No skips and a whole heap of fun are what’s in store for you when you hit play on this. We’ve cherry picked ‘Venus Beach’ for you as it’s the one we vote to be next single. Also Holiday just announced a headline gig in London in June (yes we have our ticket already – get yours in the Dice app pronto) and she’s confirmed she’s going to play the new album in full in order – our peak summer gig experience in the making wethinks.
We found a boptastic 2 track single release (gotta love an old school Side A/Side B single) from Elise LeGrow thanks to a post on socials from producer Mason who has worked on both of these perfect pop confections. Side A ‘Powder Blue’ is a disco house banger which positively barrels along at a rate of knots. Meanwhile the B Side ‘Illumination’ is a Gaga-esque electro firecracker. We’ve got this pair of tracks on repeat. Sidenote, there’s further pop pedigree here with ‘Illumination’ being a co-write with Dragonette’s Martina Sorbara.
We were thrilled to learn that one of our all time favourite Norwegian pop princesses, Ms Maya Vik, is back on the scene and with a new album ‘Hustlebot’ coming out in June. To launch the album campaign Maya has shared the dreamiest Janet Jackson channelling (and referencing) slo-jam in the shape of ‘Me, Myself and I’. It’s five minutes of swoonsome luxury synths, gorgeous whispery vocals and a sax break befitting of a classic 80s pop/soul compilation like ‘Nite Flite’.
We close with the first release by Taeha on NewRetroWave. Formerly of K-pop girl group Berrygood, Taeha has released a cinnamon sweet City Pop pearl in ‘Dive In Love’. It’s a bilingual banger and whilst retro at times in production style every now and then there’s a bleep or sound of a more contemporary nature making this a proper quality listening experience. The melody is musical catnip.
The Blusher gals are simply not messing about in 2024. They’re already responsible for our most played pop tune of the year so far with the monsterously enormous ‘Rave Angel’. Hot on the heels of that one comes the equally bangertastic ‘Accelerator’. The synths are spicier than ever and we’re not exaggerating when we tell you that this is the best thing Confidence Man and Girls Aloud have never done. The hooks, the beats, the sheer ear wormyness of it all – Blusher just can’t miss right now. We were in full on kitchen disco mode at 8.30am this morning when this one dropped and its grip on us is relentless (we’re on listen circa number 15 already).
The only UK Blusher date we know of for summer ’24 is at Latitude festival but here’s hoping more live shennanigans are to come. As we’ve mentioned before, we’ve seen the ladies twice on stage already and both times they popped off – with their presence and confidence growing from one show to the next. At Teases & Dares, Blusher are unrivalled for pop perfection right now – make yourself a fan immediately or we can’t be friends!
Fresh from her first ever remix duty (for Ricky Wilde & NINA’s ‘Living In Sin’ as part of their ‘Remixed Hearts’ collection) Brigitte Bardini continues her own musical reinvention with her latest release. ‘Petals’ picks up nicely from previous single ‘Fantasy Love’ and lures us further into the dead of night in an unidentified neon-lit metropolis. If sinister lullabies for insomniacs are a thing then Brigitte may be creating a genre of her own right here.
Built on the classic nursery rhyme mantra of “he loves me, he loves me not” the minimal production both spooks and soothes as it builds – by the close you’re entranced. Brigitte’s vocal switches between a low whispered murmur and the sweetness of her higher range – in itself the contrast between shadows and light the track offers up. Late 90s trip hop might just be the inspiration for this one – with Sneaker Pimps’ ‘6 Underground’ a worthy comparison to this stunning new single from an artist who has increasingly got us under her spell.
Having nabbed the prestigious album of the year slot with her collaborative album with Ricky Wilde, NINA returns in super fast fashion – this time in a meeting of musical hearts and minds with Radio Wolf. We caught up with the pair to find out about their new single ‘My Dark’ which is out today as well as reflecting on ‘Scala Hearts’ and what’s in store for the rest of 2024.
NINA and Radio Wolf thank you for joining us here at Teases and Dares to talk about your new collaboration. NINA we’ll start with you – it’s been quite a six months or so with the release of ‘Scala Hearts’ with Ricky Wilde including the recent remix album. How would you sum up that experience and what have been the highlights of the ‘Scala Hearts’ project?
NINA: Scala Hearts has been a wonderful chapter in my life. I adore Ricky and I cherish the times we shared making our music video, shooting the album cover and the music we’ve made. I’d sum up my experience as being very heart-felt and inspiriting. Highlights? Working through the process with one of my musical heroes: the recording, vocal harmonising, and creative camaraderie. Ricky is a sensitive artist like me and very giving. We worked so well together and we had a lot of fun. I’m so glad that we were able to be so devoted to the album in 2023 and share it with the world with the remix album as the finale. Radio Wolf’s remix of ‘Causeway’was a great conclusion that leads into our new duo project sublimely.
It feels like no accident that the Radio Wolf remix of ‘Causeway’ was last on the tracklist for ‘Remixed Hearts’ leading us into your new project. Tell us about the first single ‘My Dark’ – how did you create it and how would you describe the sound?
NINA: Radio Wolf and I have actually been developing our music since 2020, sketching out an album’s worth of songs during our first month of collaborating. We worked hard and fast. However, we really wanted to create a sound that was new and different for us and knew it would take time to develop, so in the midst of other collaborations and independent projects, we kept finessing the sound, strengthening the final production of every song. Our show in Berlin with Johnny Jewel, as well as other shows in Berlin, Halle and Hamburg, gave us the opportunity to perform songs from the album and also motivated us to release two of the songs from it as back-to-back singles. The first, ‘My Dark’, originated from a gut feeling to write a song romanticising the dark, even cruel desire to unleash an unforgiving spirit on a lover. We wanted to lyrically and musically express the mystery of this kind of role playing and to break free with ruthless honesty—all with a devil-may-care attitude. Lyrics and sound came together simultaneously. Radio Wolf’s initial down-and-dirty instrumental helped me get into that dark, sensual zone.
Radio Wolf: I laid down a throbbing dance beat, fleshy synth riffs and kind of nasty, uncanny guitar SFX which was all designed to inspire NINA to get into character and become a bit of a bad girl—ice cold yet highly sensual and almost menacing with her vocal delivery. We deliberately put our lyrics together really fast in order to maintain the mood and we admittedly had a lot of fun playing in the dark, so to speak. Diving into a pretty intense headspace might not sound like much fun but as it came from a mutual feeling of restlessness and wanting to unleash, it was cathartic. I love the way that NINA embraced her shadow and became the femme-fatale the song needed her to be. Then it’s all about finessing and mixing the vocals into the rest to create an overall sonic atmosphere that expresses the song’s dark romantic theme. I’d describe the sound with words like: dark, heavy, cruel, ignite, fire—words from the lyrics in the song.
You’re both residing in Berlin these days – in what way does that city specifically influence the music you’ve been creating?
NINA: Well, Berlin is my home and I love it. We’re both starting to really enjoy the city now but when we began the process of collaborating musically, not only were we separated by long-distance but we were in the middle of the pandemic! Radio Wolf was in Northern Ireland while I was on my own in Berlin. The uncertainty of when we could get together again felt like a curse. When he finally arrived in Berlin it was great! We picked up where we left off immediately and the creative sparks began to fly. I feel at home and free creating songs here. Berlin grounds me. Interestingly, living in the familiar zone helps me create the unfamiliar.
Radio Wolf: When COVID restrictions kept us at home in Berlin, we immersed ourselves in our music—the city’s wonderful art scene would just have to wait. In our frustration, we created a musical escape, all of our songs expressing a thirst for adventure and evoking transcendence. The experience triggered a creative bang as we imagined our own otherworldly realm. Now that we can explore this beautiful modern city together, which is resonant with cutting-edge, experimental electronic music, we can soak up the creative spirit. Then there’s also what you bring to Berlin in your mind. Artists like Bowie, Iggy, U2, and many other international musicians have visited or lived here at one time to soak up the psychic quality of the city. It’s a beguiling place with shadows of noir and a romantic past that lingers imaginatively. New ideas keep coming….
The new songs have a live feel to them – tell us what we can expect from a NINA and Radio Wolf gig and about your tour plans for the year (including a rather excellent support slot and festival we hear!)
NINA: Yes, we’re opening for US Synthpop band Cannons this March, having bookings in Europe and the UK. Also two synth festivals in the UK this summer: Hotline Bristol and SynthpopMania Festival, London. It’s exciting because performing live comes very naturally to us. We let it all out: passion, darkness, romance, intensity and playfulness. We’re both at home on the stage. Let’s face it, you live or die by an audience’s reaction to your performance and based on the recent shows we did in Berlin, Halle and Hamburg, the response has been warmly exuberant – we love to get them dancing. Naturally we’ll be performing our new songs from the upcoming album, including ‘My Dark’ and ‘Bluesbreaker’.
Radio Wolf: Our music definitely has a live feel. That’s because it includes organic forms. Electric guitar for instance always expresses a live, earthy immediacy. There’s a lot of Rock ’n’ Roll and Blues in my background. We both share a love for these older forms and we love blending them with modern synth oriented electronic music in sometimes unexpected ways. It’s a simple setup on stage with NINA on vocals, me on guitar and we share the synths. We tend to perform in physically intimate proximity but it’s very energetic and wild—the music inspires a spirited spontaneity. Audiences can expect to hear our new songs and experience some bold surprises. We like to get them moving!
This is very exciting – Teases & Dares will see you in London and Bristol! Next week your single ‘Bluesbreaker’ is released. We love the 1-2 punch of these two singles and how much they contrast. How would you describe the vibe of this one?
NINA: ‘Bluesbreaker’, like all of our music, is a sonic hybrid. So, for this one, we’re mixing Rock, Blues, Pop, Electronic and experimental SFX. It’s a more raunchy track with lots of upbeat energy and a badass riff. It’s a sexy one to turn up the heat, shake things up, and turn you loose when you need to break free from those cold dark blues.
Radio Wolf: We gave it a kind of supernatural space-rock feel, driven by atmospheric reverbs, edgy guitar riffs and NINA’s fiery yet dreamy voice. I even played blues harmonica blowing wild at the end. It’s a Jukebox heritage kind of song—has echoes of where the music today comes from. Yet there are moments which are more experimental and unpredictable, leaning into soundtrack sound design territory. We mix it all up. Actually ‘Bluesbreaker’ is very emblematic of our genre-fusion ethos in general.
What can we expect next -tell us about the plans for the album?
NINA: Our album is in the final stages! Recording is complete, we just need to finesse mixing and then get to mastering. We’ve added to it over time and there are so many songs to get through and narrow down. We may need to release it as a double album or maybe even as two separate LPs.
Radio Wolf: We see the album as a sophisticated fusion of modern electronic music with older, more organic styles. We imagine it as a jukebox spirit dimension bursting through the ether, creating a wondrous retro-futuristic sonic boom. This concept is something that we really want to expand upon, so even after this album, we have more music that we want to create from this headspace.
Thanks for chatting with us – we can’t wait to see you live and hear the rest of the music you’ve been working on.
‘My Dark’ is out now (8 March) with ‘Bluesbreaker’ following on 15 March.
It’s 4x the poptastic fun on this quick and dirty round up of the best new tunes.
We’re kicking things off with our new fave Aussie band Dizzy Days. ‘Something About It’ is a hookly slice of indie disco landing somewhere amidst Haim, Blusher (confirmed T&D Hall of Famers already!) and Last Dinner Party. There’s even a bit of Dua in the lead vocal from Aisling. The rest of the band – EJ, Bridgette and Mikaela – sure do their bit as well to making this a delicious discoey delight with the feel of a tight live band as well as having slick production values.
We’re long time fans of both Flight Facilities and Owl Eyes and the latter’s ‘You And I’ appears to have influenced their new collaboration, this being ‘Trouble’. Further inspiration appears to have come from Spiller, Modjo and ATB. It seems FF are intent on putting some joviality into dance music in 2024 and we’re here for it (especially if Owl Eyes is involved some more). ‘Trouble’ feels like it could be the first Ibiza anthem of the summer. The sun IS coming up.
We edge closer to the release of Ricki-Lee’s ‘On My Own’ album with the latest single to drop. It’s a full out thundering and power popping take on ‘I Was Made For Loving You’. If you enjoyed Claire Richards’ ‘Euphoria’ album last year then Ricki-Lee’s belting vocal on this Kiss cover will have you running for the nearest dancefloor/kitchen disco (we’ve visited the latter to this song several times today already!).
Megan Vice is no stranger to T&D and we’re pretty sure we’ve shouted out Valiant Vermin in the past as well. This iconic pop pairing have delivered a bubblegummy pop confection on the upbeat and synthy ‘Never Gonna Get With Me’. This one can’t help but raise a smile such is the charm of the playground like chantable melody line. Gorge vocals from these two as well. Pure pop perfection – short but oh so sweet.
We’re just back from a rather marvellous trip to New York (our first visit and we’re smitten) and have soooo much music to catch up on from the last week or two. Most importantly we have to speak about the return of Ms Nikka Costa. She’s responsible for two of the most played albums in our collection (‘Everybody Got Their Something’ and ‘cantneverdidnothin’) so you can imagine how pumped we’ve been for new Nikka material.
‘Dirty Disco’ is EVERYTHING we want from a new Nikka era. So many artists have attempted disco recently, with varying degrees of success, but Nikka is just so right for it – like born to do it. Her disco brand is funked to the max with some major early 80s Prince squelchy synths happening as well as little vocal nods to St Vincent perhaps on the BVs. The production is taut, sparse and funkin’ fantastic. If this is what we can expect from an album then we have a record of the year contender on the way. There aren’t too many artists left on our gig bucket list but Nikka is right at the top – hoping we get a UK date or two in the near future. The pure class on display right here is something you just can’t manufacture – she quite simply smashes it. Welcome back queen Costa.
Teases and Dares 