NEON BUNNY (야광토끼) – IT'S YOU (너여야) [VIDEO]

I have been spending most of today looking out of the window at the same view I pretty much always look at. It's greenish, pretty, flowery, but it's not inspiring me. And neither was anything I had heard up until now. Then I remembered that I had to check out this new Neon Bunny track. And I was cured! Cured of my malaise. Cured I say. Thanks to K-pop. Or K-indie.

Where are we now? Anyway, this is the THIRD Neon Bunny (real name Lim Yoojin) track I've heard and the third I've featured here. I discovered her at some point last year (with her song 'Oh My Prince') when I was actively exploring the Seoul music scene – and what a happy discovery! Since then, she's worked with fellow Korean producer Demicat on the song 'Singing Bird' from his Out Loud EP and, well, not much else that I know of. Until now! This song has seemingly appeared out of the blue as a purchasable single and it's called "너여야" (neoyeoya) or 'It's You'.

Like her past songs, this one follows in their footsteps with electro aplomb, fuzzy distorted saw-wave bass blasting in waves, losing its distortion outside of the catchy chorus, where Neon Bunny's gentle voice sings the hook, and where the beat bustles with doubled-up hi-hats in all its footwork flavour, snapping back and forth between cracking clap-snare combination and throttling kicks. Swept with waves of mystified chords and glistening delicate melodies, this is a song of contrasts: the sweet and softly sung vocals with their near-nostalgic pop sensibilities; the hard and driving beat drenched with harsh distorted synth. But it works wonderfully.

Hopefully, and I don't know if it's the case or not, this is taken from an upcoming album. It'd be nice to hear a full-length collection of songs from Neon Bunny. I mean, even an EP would do. But for now, the summery 'It's You' and its addictive, perfectly pop sound is just fine!

• And you can buy it for $1 (or more) over at Neon Bunny's Bandcamp page.

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DCUP MAGIC

One of the many cool things about the world is that it's always gonna be summer somewhere. Whilst we freeze and shiver here in the arctic Northern Hemisphere, our Southern counterparts enjoy hot days and warm nights, and vice versa of course. As such, it means that the music of summer never stops being produced, never dies, so there's always something to get your blood up to temperature and whisk you away to tropical shores, rosasite seas, waves breaking slowly on the reef, still lagoons, breadfruit for breakfast... long live our tropics.

Why do I speak this way? It's because of this song by Melbourne producer DCUP, 'Magic'. Just one day old right now, the song comes from a legacy of hot-blooded tracks including the very nice 'Don't Be Shy', which included a remix by Japanese purveyor of emotional and retro house, Boys Get Hurt. I was touched by the message that DCUP, aka real person Duncan MacLennan, left as a description for the song, saying its purpose was "...to not only keep you dancing through these beautiful summer nights down in Oz, but to keep our friends in the North warm on their chilling winter eve's." That's what I like to hear. A bit of togetherness. Global community spirit.

True to its name, 'Magic' is a little goûter of magic. Within seconds of the track starting an unbeatable bassline pops in with a funky bounce, soon joined with samba type piano chords, augmented with excitable bweeps and the occasional flash of synth chords. That samba rhythm in the music gives the track a hot and sweaty atmosphere, something sensually calling out with a wink in a where-will-this-lead manner in the midst of the driving slo-house, disco-evoking beat. The sample of some husky voice saying "Magic..." is a great touch, beautifully placed dynamic punctuation in this exciting sentence of music.

The mix of funk, latin and disco in 'Magic' lands in the cradle of your ears like something retroactive, a time capsule dusted off and polished with modern tools to give it a zeitgeistical familiarity whilst it shines with its own lustre: the sheen of nostalgic novelty alien past. It feels fresh, especially with those varying elements, and clearly comes from a mind that loves to create music for people to dance to.

Fun fact: DCUP collaborated with Australian band Yolanda Be Cool for 2010 hit 'We No Speak Americano'; now that Latin lilt to 'Magic' makes more sense and I love DCUP all the more for it.

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OKADADA SHIMIN POOL

A blast of summer as we head into the depths of Autumn, September engulfing us like a galaxy-sized blob of soggy days and slowly browning trees. Yep, a blast of summer. I think a blast of summer is what's needed right now. So I'm kinda glad I'm a month late for writing about this particular tune. It is by Osaka-based producer (or as they say, "DJ/Trackmaker" - I like "trackmaker", I'll use that one day) Okadada or okadada or OKADADA and it is called 'Shimin Pool'.

Which is funny, because it's kind of a pun. "Shimin pool" sounds a bit like "swimming pool" but also "shimin" in Japanese means citizen or community so it's "community pool" - hoho. In addition, it comes from a recent-ish compilation CD by netlabel Maltine Records called 市民プールサイド - or Community Poolside. Puns an' that - fun, no? Anyway it's cool and it's damn summery and I think I need to emigrate someplace warmer.

聴く〜　(Listen〜)

It begins with a rather funky selection of percussion - bongos and whatnot - which is the base of all good dance-a-thon: a few drums and you're well away, am I right? It's a lush blanket of beats that is a great warm-up to the rest of the song. Some modulating synth chords come in and lightly lead us to the house beat that accompanies us for the rest of the song. House piano chords make an appearance too, their warm timbre screaming "beach", "party", and "summer" and "summer beach party" all at once. The tempo here is also perfect. Just right for chilling or moving - you decide!

The lead string-synth on this song drip with liquid sunshine, it's like dappled light by an actual poolside or beachside as palm trees wave gently above. With an old-school twist to it - those kinds of strings just seem to have that vibe y'know? The vocals are cool too, faraway like a floating-and-melting-at-the-same-time pistachio ice cream in amongst the summery sounds. Then there's this groovy bass breakdown - yeah! - bwing boong de-ding bom bom... You know how a bass sounds anyway. Real organic sounding electric bass that taps yer bones. Nice dynamic when the vocals come back in - and a lead synth screeches in for the final part of the song. All in all: a much-needed dose of nostalgic 90s-esque funky slo-house that takes me away to a sunnier place for four minutes.

You can download the album on which 'Shimin Pool' appears, 市民プールサイド - or Community Poolside, on Maltine Records' site.

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CLUBFEET ACAPULCO & LA [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Hello hi. Apple juice is not often purchased by me but when it is purchased it is rapidly consumed. Do you also find that? But this is neither here nor there. Sorry, it's music time isn't it. Here is something new. It's called 'Acapulco & LA' and it's by a band called Clubfeet.

They are from both Australia and South Africa at the same time - I'm not sure how that works out. As in, which members of the band are from which countries I don't know, so I apologise for that. Their first album, Gold on Gold, released in 2010, caused quite a stir and they've been kinda popular ever since. Perhaps not on such a global level but certainly in their respective mother countries, sure. Oh I just looked at the press release. Yeah, I was right. They're a "critical and commercial hit" in Australia. Too right as well. They have some nice tunes.

One such is this one, which they are offering to fans and non-fans alike on their SoundCloud page - 'Acapulco & LA'. As soon as I saw the title of this one I just thought of sub-tropical party fun and, listening to it, I wasn't wrong. It's a damn party song. It sounds already like an indie-dance classic. Yep, with that intro of ambient synth roaring like distant waves, jungle noises, and a gently calming, simplistic guitar melody set to a driving beat, you know what you're getting into.

Soon there are some truly delicious sounds - hollow synth melodies and the undeniable jolly cool that comes with a xylophone exposure. Xylophone chords, as well. Truly chilling yet heartwarming on the most basic level ever. Surely the xylophone is like one of the oldest instruments. Always is like someone playing bones or something.

It's a dancefloor number that should find its way into many indie-wired clubs in the future. It just oozes that beach party sound, with the added personable appeal of knowing that a five-piece band has created the track - somehow, it just is more personable. As with this kind of music, it's emotional, too, often going with the easy heartbreak that can occur in the darkness of a club environment - lover's tiffs and rifts in relationships haunt these places like the scent of alcohol-soaked carpets itself. As such, there's emotional lyrics, such as, "You broke my heart and now I'm lost forever" and the catchy pop-hook of "I lost another beat of my heart" with the support of ahh-ing backing vocals.

Nice. Keeping that indie-disco flame alive with a nearly 90s-dance twist, 'Acapulco & LA' can be downloaded for free and comes from Clubfeet's second album, Heirs & Graces, which is out now.

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SAINT PEPSI UNHAPPY

Here is a song that I was supposed to write about like last week but Saint Pepsi (aka Ryan DeRobertis) decided to take it down soon after he'd put it up. It's called 'Unhappy' and I think must refer to end of summer. That's an assumption based both on the time of year it is currently - the end of summer - and the fact that the main hooks in his song come from an altered sample of a song called 'The Summer Ends' by an emo (yeah emo) band called American Football, who were around from 1997-2000.

And well well well. Firstly, how genuine to have sampled a song that isn't a hot pop hit, something of the moment, but something that was probably totally in Saint Pepsi's ears at some point or another in his life. That's a really nice touch. And from that you can I suppose infer that he's completely making the music that he wants to make, with no constraints, no box, no label (certainly not that of vaporwave), instead going totally on what he wants to do.

In this instance, the slow guitar arpeggios and unassuming percussion in the original become faster and get summarily glitched-out, along with vocals that are now nicely chipmunked, but not in a bad way - high vocals can of course go one of two ways, and this one has come out ok.

Alongside the magic of this sample - the strange nostalgia from a song I've never heard from a band I never knew effusing from its now-altered state - there's now chunks of smooth bass and a hip hop/I-guess-trap beat, in which much revelry seems to be had with producing joyful flourishes on the snare and hi-hat, making it a very energetic beat indeed. Some synth finds its way in there somehow, after the midsection of the song.

On the surface of things, setting a sample of an emo song to a down-south-flavoured hip hop beat is theoretical madness. Imagine that working. Well, it has, in this instance. It's worked very well. It's a multicoloured shower of candy, trap turned on its head, emo's frown turned upside down - yet in the midst of this subversion, there is emotion. Whether it's happy or sad is up to how you're hearing it, I suppose.

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GUI BORATTO TOO LATE

Here is a nice song from a man called Gui Boratto - you may have heard of him, you may have not. It doesn't particularly matter too much. Only, if you do know him you'll be quicker to pass judgement on what I'm writing I guess. I myself am new to the guy and his music so please do forgive my words if they are incorrect or whatever.

Anyway, he's fairly or should I say relatively well-known. He is from São Paulo, Brazil, and has been a regular of German label Kompakt since 2005. I'm afraid that I might have to cut the biography stuff short because I don't want people thinking that I've like, "discovered" him or anything. He's just well known. Well established. He has a new song out on Kompakt that I like and that I wanted to share with you. It is called 'Too Late'.

Labelled as techno house, it is exactly that if you concentrate on the bare bones of it - there is a minimalist style here that incorporates simplistic dynamic changes to great effect. For me, however, it's 8 minutes and 32 seconds of dance-inducing sounds that are quite easy to get lost in. One key element in this is the bassline. It is very simple and yet has a flavour of funk that cannot easily be ignored.

At 2:55 however it becomes extra fun - the bassline operating differently, a simple guitar or guitar-sounding synth lick providing an extra tang of dance. It's this section that lasts for about a minute and a half which gives it a pop hook, complete with melt-you female vocals, and that exudes a summery atmsophere. It comes back again later in the song, this time adding ambient synths that wash over like a montage of a sped-up sunset and scenes of a beach transitioning from night to day. That's essentially what these two parts of the song do: give it the versatility of being played in unassuming day locations or intense nocturnal venues. I think, anyway.

I like it. It's fun and infectious and even if you don't like your songs too long - which, actually, I thought I didn't, until I learned to open my mind to new things - you should stick 'Too Late' on in the background and see if you don't get even a toe wiggling to its fathomless groove. Besides that, it seems to depict the gradual wane of summer quite nicely. Oh and the song is from Too Late, 2-track 12" by Mr Boratto - the other song being 'We Can Go'.

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NINETOES FINDER

This is old this is old this is old. In terms of the internet anyway. A day-old song might as well be chucked in the bin for all some people care you get me. But when it was released it kind of had the oh-goodness-is-this-song-going-to-bring-the-sun-out vibe that everyone likes at the very start of summer, you know, when it's not quite summer yet. However, now that summer is actually in full swing it really fits and it's really nice.

It's a track called 'Finder' by a man called Ninetoes, from Stuttgart. Sometimes there are meanings behind names. Maybe he actually does have nine toes. Or maybe it's a mispronunciation of the Pokémon Ninetails. The song is a regular fever of calypso rhythms, percussion already frenzied by the time you push the play button. The claps sneak in, as do the deep subby kicks. There's a little taster of something to come, a looped sample of what sounds like some steel drums... and yes. It is. Your prayers are answered.

This wholly Caribbean sound is infectious. It has every bone in your body having a boogie. The melodic hook of the steel drums - which are technically labelled as steel pans from what I remember of steel pan lessons (yep, had em) but we'll leave that by the wayside - moves in an ear-pleasing wave from high to low pitch. But that's not all. More instruments pop in and the melody changes before the final third has the hi-hats clipping at the air like crazed dancers. Synchronised chopped up vocal samples begin to parade around like chanting mouths with dancing feet. You can see the party right in front of you.

And if it isn't a party, then it's just the soundtrack to a bustling holiday resort on a Caribbean island. It's a really great atmosphere, one held in place with images of palm trees and coconuts and cocktails and torches on the beach keeping everyone dancing until the sand wears their legs out and they have to lie down and look up at the unending stars. The expertise of Ninetoes in changing the groove of the song just when each particular part becomes second nature to your brain keeps everything fresh and exciting, like a free bar complete with a barman who can make every cocktail in the world.

I'm dreaming too much. But you understand now: this is a song for summer and summer is here. Celebrate! Um, oh, there's also the Finder EP with some remixes if you'd like to listen to that too (below). It's out on Kling Klong Records btw.

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ALMA ELSTE VIRTUALISM

It's always nice when someone comes back to you after you've written something nice about them. So I was really happy when Alma Elste kindly sent us over her brand new song, 'Virtualism'. A couple of months ago I'd written about a song of hers called 'Julian', an bass-assaulted drawling acoustic song - very pretty indeed. The strange thing was that barely no one had listened to the song, despite it being something that the world-at-large would have gladly enjoyed. I don't really like to make comparisons, but at a time when Lana Del Rey is like, well popular, the heartache and lone-lovers vibe of Parisienne Alma Elste is bound to appeal.

'Virtualism' however is not an acoustic number: it's electro. From the start it brims with wide, warm electro - it's a comforting sound, something that's familiar on the ears, so easy to fall back into like a very well-designed armchair. Thudding kicks and muffled snares hide behind this buzzing wall of noise, later joined by circuit-board arpeggios and whooping soft synth solos.

The most entrancing thing about this song, however, is Alma Elste's voice itself. It is husky and laid-back, a caramel croon that's charming in the slight vibrato at the end of each line and beautiful in the effortless almost whispered glide between notes. Could just listen to her sing all day without the music, to be honest. A close second to this are her endearingly mundane yet cryptic lyrics - this is a lovesong, but one that speaks in stark poetry instead of sloppy balladry:

I'm in your car
We run red lights
I don't give a damn about here
drinkin forties, playin GTA
I stole some baseball cards
the end's behind
give up timeline
we can always sleep tomorrow
We'll last until sunrise
We'll make it
I like your Corvette
I could almost see myself with you

Her references are indeed images of "virtualism" - the world of Grand Theft Auto spilling over into reality with the petty theft of baseball cards, the traffic offences, making you wonder what else they did together. But of course the highest sense of "virtualism" in the song is the almost tragic last line, "I could almost see myself with you" - even the subject of the song, whoever it may be, is not a true reality yet. And it's quite nice that these are touched with that synthpop vibe (co-created by Willy Duft) because it gives a dreamy appeal, something not real, a little bit videogame if you get me. Escapism. A summer romance that never was nor will be.

Anyway, that was that. She's got a lovely voice and she's working on releasing an EP at the start of 2014. What's not to like?

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HΛRRISON LOLIPOP LOVE

Loving this sound at the moment. It's turning old into new. You know the story by now. Some artists I've talked about who are doing this KINDA thing include Wasted Nights and Saint Pepsi, just to name a couple. It's a style that's spreading across the internet, which is or at least must be in many people's eyes the future platform of music. But that's beside the point.

The point is, it's using old shiz to make new tracks. I guess it's like fishing. Fishing has been going on for thousands of years, and the fish stay the same the whole time. But what's different is the cooking method - the dish. People are always pushing the boundaries when it comes to haute cuisine, or indeed haute musique. Just music in general.

After that convoluted message I suppose it's time to introduce the cause of my gibberish: HΛRRISON (but for the purposes of convenience let's say HARRISON). He's a young, up-and-coming artist from Toronto, Canada. He makes music that drips 80s vibes like a lush freshly watered houseplant drips water. It's the prevailing sound. Sensual, groovesome, phresh. You know what I mean.

So let's d-d-dive right into HARRISON's catalogue - actually I'll leave that to you; I'm just gonna slice off the freshest piece and dip it in some sauce and grill it. Which is 'Lolipop Love' - a reworking, a cover I guess kinda, of an obscure song of the same name from 1984 by obscure artist Bryan Loren (shrug).

HARRISON turns the pastel coloured drum machine synth-fest of the original into a much meatier listen. It's as if everything's been reinforced, from the now well-rounded reverb of the beat to the low rumble of the bass. The funk is undeniable, creeping under your skin in an instant. The heart and soul of the 80s original is most definitely kept, transplanted into a bigger, better vessel, like some kind of android, who is sleeker and stronger than the old body. Now, that's quite a talent, don't you think?

There's a powerful grip to this song, one that you can't help but yield to and be carried off by. To where? Somewhere nonexistent where everyone is power-dressing and swishing their perms around. Yet people have smartphones and stuff. It's the middle of the Venn diagram where past and present (future?) meet and party forever and ever. Positively swimming in good, summery vibrations. Oh and he has a KEATS//COLLECTIVE (same label as Wasted Nights) release coming out soon. Who knows when?

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BOYS GET HURT LOVE THE WAY U FEEL

Totally love these guys. They always have such a nice sound in their songs that it's like nigh-on impossible to not like them. If you haven't been introduced yet, "these guys" refers to Boys Get Hurt - a Tokyo DJ/producer duo who make emotional dance music and try to have a fun time whilst doing it.

I interviewed Yuki Abe, one half of the BGH (the other half being Takumi Kawahori), a while ago so go have a read of that if you want to know more. You also might like to check out one of their earlier songs, a Justin Timberlake-sampling wonder called 'b e a c h'. But for the moment, right here and right now, we will focus on a new song of theirs that has appeared: 'Love The Way U Feel' - romantically themed, as always.

The pair have a knack for capturing an end-of-summer vibe, or else it's an endless summer vibe, within their songs. I'm happy to say that it's absolutely no different with their new track. Though it's slower than what I've heard before, falling within the "slow jams" category, this just serves to heighten the emotive atmosphere of the track - it's certainly illustrated very well with the gorgeous female vocals that fall like petals throughout the song, or in the smooth transitions between each changing dynamic.

Pounding bouncy bass kicks resound, sumptuously painted over with popping synth melodies that are arranged in such a way as to give it a tropical beach-party vibe. It sounds akin to some nameless house disco track of yesteryear - the sound that BGH go for. The romance is there, too - I get images of heart-aching dancefloors, longing bodies grooving to the beat, soaking up the rich house-piano and synth chords that flesh out the sound. A sense of sweaty bodies approaching each other, knowing each other through the music, caressing from afar. Maybe a bit deep but it's a DEEP song with a disco soul, made with love and care.

I like this song, in other words. It comes from a really nice mixtape called THE VIBE GUIDE Vol. 2, which you should check out. As ever, I am looking forward to more summer-infused Boys Get Hurt new songs.

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