Jack Deezl

MF Parm & EuniQ DJ

DirtyDave

Nomster

Night Kids

The slow, electronic pace of Peaking Lights “Tiger Eyes” matches with the video’s slow-moving, sensual clips that hold a distinct throwback feel due to hazy camera filters and Technicolor movie sets. Both the music and video stand alone on their own but together they prove a hypnotizing combination.

By: Stephanie Glass

Airbird: Part of The Game

Airbird out of good ‘ol Brooklyn continues the trend of tribal beats mixed with synths and faded out vocals. Providing a unique electro cover of The Beach Boy’s Surfer Girl, Airbird transfers the feeling of a face full of sunshine as you lay on a warm, sandy beach with his lilting echoing vocals and dancey beats. A track to defiantly pull out when those mid-winter blues hit. Part of The Game provides a heavy pounding drumbeat mixed with a more rock jazz keyboard and a deep tenor creeps in. Defiantly a track to put on when feeling a bit down and contemplative.

Jonathan Phillips aka Mount Pleasant has periodically released tracks this year one by one. The choppy percussive nature of these tracks flow between rapid rhythms that stumble across synthetic bass grooves. Futuristic broken beats Similar to Los Angeles street bass virtusos’  Samiyam, Free The Robots, and Tokimonsta will keep you on your feet, showing signs of a more ambient minimal kind of 2 step garage, similar to the hyperdub natives Burial & Zomby. These very solid, legit recording’s create anticipation for their upcoming release “Aztecs“, which will be out soon.

The fast beat and danceable nature of this odd video elevate what the nature of art is. Is it participatory? Are we active by just bopping happily to the beat? What is our role as art appreciators? Post-postmodernists? This is still a wonderful, perplexing watch over and over again.

By: Sarah MacDonald

Demdike Stare is the archived madness of Sean Canty, a man obsessed with “everything from obscure Nordic Doom to Antolyan funk”, brought under the menacing techno regimen of Miles Whittaker, long-time associate of Manchester’s excellent Modern Love Records. Having secured the label of the rainy city’s finest occult obscurantist dread-merchants, Demdike Stare recently put out whopping three disc EP collection Tryptych - a palimpsest of ancient chants, bells, modulated distress calls, distorted chatter, cultish drone and tectonic bass that, before being filtered through a smog of static, is fired off foghorn-like into blackness. While Whittaker underpins Tryptych with muted techno flourishes, Canty consults every tool in his arsenal in an effort to unsettle and disconcert, short of reaching out to actually strangle you with his nimbly probing hands. This is organised horror.

Medio Mutante is a group that creates what could be described as primitive electronic music. Though the descriptor may sound problematic, it isn’t intended to be negative. In fact, the trio from Austin, Texas prove once again that a few synthesizers, a drum machine and some robotic vocalizations is a simple combination that can go far in producing fun, danceable music in the school of Gary Numan and early Depeche Mode.

The track ‘Watussi” by Harmonia is a supreme soundscape, truly beautiful and harmonic. Other tracks on  Harmonias s/t 1974 release  explore the  potential for experimental madness. Harmonia is a ambient wonderland that truly takes you somewhere nice, its truly serene. The dissonance gathered in the noisescapes are like that of sigur ros, explosions in the sky, and maybe even tycho. the tracks have a simplicity that reminds me of avril 14th by aphex twin.

This new wave of Proto Industrial Electronic groups popping up is creating a swelling exciting in my loins. now that im done with that, Agent side grinder is a Suicide Esque group tinged with joy divisions gloom. These tracks are soaked in the melancholy guitar hooks that made acts like echo & the bunnymen, kept up with a quick pop drum beat these songs makes them into infectious numbers. Unusually Enough i cannot help but have Tom Waits come to mind when i hear this mans vocals, the power and depth in his bellowing contrasts against spacey far out synth leads.

The Breaks and Slippery 80s dance that seaps through Games, Music is full fledge electronica with silk new wave production. These tracks are as catchy and playlist worthy as they are lost in time, a sound caught between the abstract beat groups of Baths, Daedelus, And Tokimonsta but still holding down the chill wave front. Synthetic textures more than likely created via analog synth capture the enviroment of the vocal arrangements in these songs. Alot of the awesome retro techniques of the presentation remind me of CFCF, and Kavinsky. Games is an act is not to be written off, truly mergin the Toro Y Moi & Neon Indian Fans With the Brainfeeder, Beat Scene fan base. Please make time in your day to listen to some of their tracks, legit production & arrangement. it takes real originality to stand out in a genre, and these guys bend the expectations of multiple genres.

Houses-Reds

According to their website, Chicago based Houses created their beautifully comforting album All Night not in the coldness of a midwestern winter, but in the warmth of the Pacific Island sun and it shows through the albums’ warm sounds. Houses is the project of one man, (with some help from his girlfriend on Soak it Up) and his creativity put Houses on par with the best artists coming out of the current ambient scene (hedging my bets that 2011 is the year ambient takes center stage).

VALERNA

We’ve just rung in the New Year and we’re here to present the emerging electro acts to watch in 2011.  2010 was a great year in music and these acts have made the electronic music scene stand up and take notice.  In the US, Los Angeles still has the reigns when it comes to propelling the electronic and indie music scene forward and our first act is no exception.

British duo autoKratz have released their “Opposite of Love“ video, from a single due January 24th, 2011, off their second album, the upcoming “Self Help for Beginners” (March 2011).  The pair have also announced the launch of their own label “Bad Life“ which will be home to their music.  So far the two have gotten enthusiastic reviews for their upcoming single “Opposite of Love” which has a more commercial dance feel than their previous work.

Vermont based tooth ache. knows electro downer pop to the hilt. Atmospheric beats? Yep. Beautifully haunting soprano vocals? Check. Songs referencing Greek myths involving Wood Nymphs? But, of course. tooth ache. is the brainchild of one gifted lady, Alexandria Hall who mixes a kaleidoscope of sounds ranging from childlike spunk to club sexy. It’s refreshing to see a solo project headed by a female, although Hall’s sound transcends gender due to its ethereal quality. Different beats emanate from organ based synths and drum machines that wonderfully mix with Halls’ layered and echoing singing. The combination of intrinsic instrumentals and indistinct  vocals creates a mood which recalls ancient time and space. (Think Gang Gang Dance but a bit less feral and more dreamy).

Samps new 12″ pictured above

CAGED ANIMALS – Warped Souls

CAGED ANIMALS -Hazy Girls

One part hushed reverence, one part synth arpeggio masterclass, three parts unstoppable techno juggernaut, Yaaard’s “Unfocus” sounds like a church organ stuffed with neon lights. On a Persian rug. It’s a fluorescent sermon of a song, suitable for late night drives or meditative cups of tea. Think a cross between early, laptop collage era Metronomy (who, incidentally, also hails from England’s south coast) and the more virtuosic, introspective moog moments of LCD Soundsystem. When not sharing stages with the likes of Rozi Plain and Black Pepper, Yaaard finds time to run his very own record label, Reckno, which is where you can find his EP, Odem.