The Shoes (aka Guillaume and Benjamin) are a French duo who make fluffy post 4am dance music, the likes of which have not been since the Beloved were riding high in the charts.
They have earned wide respect for their remix and production skills, and in turn called on various names on their debut album Crack My Bones (March 2011). The likes of Gonzales, Esser, The Cock’n Bull Kid, Primary One and Wave Machines can all be found adding keys, vocals and percussion to the well-rounded long player.
Los Angeles-based electro-pop duo Capital Cities isn’t afraid to let the Southern California sunshine seep into their music. The band has steadily been building a loyal following in their hometown and abroad with their catchy tunes.
In 2008, core members Ryan Merchant and Sebu Simonian met by chance through Craigslist and formed a composing team. After writing hooks and jingles for numerous high-profile ad campaigns, they realized their musical chemistry was destined to create something more personal. In 2010, Capital Cities was officially born.
Their self-titled debut EP has been released this month featuring single Safe and Sound. The record is mastered by Mike Marsh (Phoenix, Empire of The Sun, Royksopp).
Trust is a synth band from Toronto, Ontario. Born out of desperation in the brutal Canadian winter of 2009, Robert Alfons and Maya Postepski (also a member of Austra) began writing songs about nostalgia, lust, and erotomania.
On debut single, Candy Walls, they keep that dark, “dirty” energy in place by combining layered synthesizers, live and programmed drums, and processed vocals with a deep sense of spacious, catchy melody. It's dark, electronic, sexual and nostalgic without being retro.
"Mixing 60s production with dream-pop shimmer, are these wafty British etherealists heralding a new golden age of indie?" (Source: Guardian)
Still Corners is a dream pop group which formed in 2008 in London, England. Built on the siren-like vocals of Tessa Murray and atmospheric songs of Greg Hughes, they create a wash of Lynch-esque inspired love songs.
The in 2008 self-released EP titled Remember Pepper? quickly gained momentum with the indie blogoshere and paved the way to their first string of live shows with Leon Dufficy on guitar and Luke Jarvis on bass. By 2010 Still Corners had garnered wide critical success with a string of singles.
The band recently signed to the legendary Seattle label Sub Pop. Cuckoo is the first single, with a full length to follow later in October 2011.
New Orleans (Dark Band To Watch) Kindest Lines is made up of vocalist and keyboardist Brittany Terry, guitarist Jack Champagne, and keyboardist and drum programmer Justin Blaire Vial.
The trio are influenced by a wide variety of genres including minimal synth, dream pop, post-punk, 60's girl groups and Italian horror movie sountracks, using monophonic synths and heavily modulated guitars drenched in echo.
Destructive Paths To Live Happily is the second single from their debut album album Covered in Dust (released on June 15).
Hooverphonic is a Belgian rock/pop group formed in 1995. Though initially placed in the trip-hop genre, they quickly expanded their sound to the point where they could no longer be classified so easily. The band originally called themselves Hoover, but had to change it after discovering other groups were already using the name and to avoid any legal issues with a vacuum cleaner company.
The band achieved international recognition through the inclusion of the track 2Wicky (from A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular) on the soundtrack to Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1996 film Stealing Beauty (Io Ballo da Sola).
On their latest album, The Night Before (released in November 2010), the Belgian trio have come up with a totally new sound that features string dominated 60s pop. Joined by new singer Noémi Wolfs, the band has made a promising new start. One Two Three is their latest single.
Pnau formed in Sydney by Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes. The two met at secondary school and began performing together in the mid-1990s, initially playing acid house and trance music.
In 1999, the duo released their debut album Sambanova . It turned out to be a surprise success when it won Best Dance Release at the ARIA Music Awards. A week later, however, the album was pulled from record stores for using uncleared samples.
In subsequent years Pnau went on to make many live appearances at music festivals. However their second album Again, was considered to be a failure and a disappointment among fans and critics alike
The two reunited in 2007 and started to lay down an entire album. They sent a work-in-progress track to long-time friend Luke Steele, who sent back the track with his own vocals. The song became known as With You Forever and the finalized album was released under the self-titled name Pnau. The album received critical acclaim and gained unexpected favorable attention from Elton John, declaring it to be the greatest record he'd heard in ten years.
Inspired by their track With You Forever, Pnau started collaborating with Luke Steele. Side-project Empire of the Sun made its debut on October 4, 2008 with Walking on a Dream. Littlemore and Steele took the roles of bandmates, while Mayes assumed the role of producer. The project achieved international success.
Early 2009 Littlemore left Empire of the Sun to begin work on the fourth Pnau album along with Elton John. The album, entitled Soft Universe, is expected on July 2011 featuring the new single Solid Ground.
Indie rockers We Are Animal hail from North Wales and cater in buzzing guitars and pummelled drums. Together they trek off into the Welsh wilds to walk, contemplate and put together the music and melodies that make up the band’s sound. Using an old-school 8-track, they’ve been recording their songs the same day they write them in old quarries and abandoned buildings.
We Are Animal have leapt to widespread recognition in the time it takes many to book a rehearsal. Since the start in December 2009, Owain Ginsberg, Dion and Cynyr Hamer, Sion Edwards and Liam Simpson have accumulated accolades from the likes of the BBC and NME, as well as releasing two singles and debut album Idolise.
New single Luminous Lights is released on June 5th.
ANR (previously known as Awesome New Republic) is an indie dance-rock duo from Miami. Founded in 2004, the duo is comprised of multi-instrumentalists John Hancock and Brian Robertson, who began working together as students at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.
Citing influences that range from Prince and Parliament-Funkadelic to Giorgio Moroder and Talking Heads, Hancock and Robertson initially recorded a pair of homemade albums, Witness Now the Birth of an Awesome New Republic (2004) and Courageous! (2005), the highlights of which were later compiled for release on the full-length commercial album debut ANR So Far (2005).
ANR So Far garnered generally positive reviews, including write-ups in mainstream indie publications. A few years later -- following a period during which Hancock released a solo album, Part Mongolian (2007) -- ANR re-emerged on a new indie label, with Post Crunk and Hard as Hell (2008) and Rational Geographic (2009).
In March the group released their latest album Stay Kids . The album is about not letting the act of growing up shame all childlike instincts out of you. Let yourself still be surprised; still wonder, and still try. Don’t take yourself too seriously, because it’s the playfulness that keeps you sane.
Friendly Fires is an English dance punk band from St Albans, England. They consist of Ed MacFarlane, Edd Gibson and Jack Savidge. Their self-titled debut album was released on 1 September 2008 and was announced as one of the shortlisted twelve for the 2009 Mercury Prize.
Friendly Fires met at St Albans School. At age 14, the members formed their first band, a post-hardcore outfit called First Day Back which existed until they began university. During this time lead singer Ed Macfarlane released his own music (under his own name). Upon leaving university they formed a new band inspired by dance music, "lush shoegaze melodies" and classic pop songwriting. The name Friendly Fires originates from the opening track of the Section 25 LP Always Now. The band consider German techno label Kompakt, Carl Craig and Prince to be their greatest influences.
The band’s second album, Pala, was released on 16 May 2011. The title is a reference to the doomed utopia of English writer Aldous Huxley's novel Island. It is the account of Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist who is shipwrecked on the fictional island of Pala, where parrots whisper uplifting messages to the islanders.
The first single from the album is Live Those Days Tonight.
Memory Tapes is the recording alias of New Jersey-based Dayve Hawk, former frontman of Philadelphia-based Hail Social. After initially releasing material under the names Memory Cassette and Weird Tapes, his first LP, Seek Magic was released in September 2009.
Memory Tapes was initially associated with the Chillwave music genre but is now seen more as a producer in his own right. Debut album Seek Magic used a lot of dance rhythms and sounds and had touchstones such as New Order and Cocteau Twins. Hawk played everything on his record and used such unusual sounds as a bicycle pump on the track Bicycle and the sound of sneakers on a basketball court on Green Knight.
His second album Player Piano is due for release on July 4th. He is quoted as saying it will be "psychedelic girl group music".
According to their bio, Israeli band Modern Tapes formed in 2010 in a bomb shelter on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. They played and recorded underground for almost a year under pretty claustrophobic conditions using equipment left behind by a past generation to make music.
It's either that or Modern Tapes don't want you to know where they're from. Their sound is a play on that from a generation ago, tweaked and adjusted to be new and fresh. It’s a sound that blends a post punk efficacy with an influence of dark 80s new wave pop.
Debut single Caroline is taken from their self-titled debut EP.
Housse de Racket, originally a tennis racket cover, is also a french duo full of synths, guitar and drums tricks. They said after the release of their first album Forty Love that this name was made due to the idea that they wanted to “racketter la house” which literally means to threaten house music.
After the success with their singles Oh Yeah! and Synthétiseur in 2009, they recently signed with the Parisian label Kistuné and are preparing a new album named Alésia. For this new record, to be released on August 22nd, they worked with French producer Philippe Zdar (Cassius, Phoenix, The Rapture) on eleven songs, with a wide range of influences from Morricone to Carpenter, from Sparks to Bowie, walking in the steps of their elders Air and Phoenix.
Chateau is the first extract from their 2nd album and featured on the new Kitsuné compilation Kitsuné Parisien.
Filip Nikolic and Jeffrey Paradise are the masterminds of Poolside. Filip is a Danish producer now living in LA who plays bass in Ima Robot, Jeff is a party promoter in San Francisco and used to be in the hardwave band the Calculators with Luke and Vito from the Rapture. They met in San Francisco in 2003 when Filip was on tour with Junior Senior and Jeff was playing as a DJ at their afterparty.
The duo started their musical project in their pool house turned recording studio, hence the name Poolside. Embedded in these pleasant surroundings they captured the sound of a perfect afternoon, communicated as "day time disco."
Poolside’s debut single Do You Believe? was charted by Aeroplane while Dazed & Confused praised the song for its “pop-tinged disco", and NME lauded its “supremely casual decadence.” Poolside is currently working on their debut album.
City and Colour is the recording alias for Juno Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Dallas Green, who is also the guitarist and vocalist of the post-hardcore band Alexisonfire. He plays melodic acoustic and folk music and is often accompanied by a rotating number of Canadian indie rock musicians, such as Daniel Romano and Spencer Burton of Attack in Black.
The name City and Colour comes from his own name: Dallas (a city), and Green (a colour). His reasoning for the name was that he felt queasy "putting the album out under the name Dallas Green".
Already renowned across Canada thanks to the success of his previous two full length albums, 2005’s Sometimes and 2008’s Bring Me Your Love, Green is set to propel his profile to a new plateau with the June 2011 release of his third album, Little Hell.
Wolf Gang, led by frontman Max McElligott, are one of those blog bands that seem to have been around for ages yet are only just about to release their debut album.
The 23-year-old singer, was the curious creator of singles Dancing with the devil and Lions in cages. Supports with Florence And The Machine, Miike Snow and Metric have cemented his status as one to most definitely watch and he's now joined by a full line-up of three permanent live members.
Wolf Gang's debut album Suego Faults was written and recorded solely by McEligott, and produced by Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev, MGMT, Flaming Lips). It is set for release on 27th June 2011. The second single from the album, The King And All Of His Men, will be released shortly before the album on 13th June.
