🐣 LIPTICISM — WELLINGTON

⌾ LISTEN TO LIPTICISM, WELLINGTON ⌾ At first ‘Wellington’ is like a dream where you wake up floating in space: the cascading chimes, the reverberating plasma bass, modulated chords like the PS2 startup, the lances of synth soaring into an unseen distance. But there’s something super grounded about Lipticism’s track, owing to the earthbound first line and refrain: “That girl from Wellington, she says she never wants to see me again.”

The vocal, equally imploring and detached, spins a story with this stark statement: What girl? Why? What happened? Instant connection and intrigue.

And in its never-the-same-twice choruses, ‘Wellington’ is a swirl of glitter, sludgy sub kicks, hissing percussion, the voice of Lipticism herself rising in a nebulous stream; a shredded melodic line, lamenting coolly, overlaps into the next section - something this song does well, a constantly morphing dynamic.

More lyrics half heard in this jostling milky way of sound present the realness, the semisadness and frustration in simple terms: “That’s how it used to be…” and “I can’t read your mind” standing out beacon-like. And always it is cosmic, it is star-flung, sparklingly offbeat, visions of a void—the actual self, alone but catapulted above earthly troubles.

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• 🔔 Listen to more Lipticism over on her SoundCloud.
• 🔔 'Wellington' is taken from Lipticism's album emergency released via CRY LIKE DONNA which is where you can also stream and purchase it should you wish to.

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📠
☟ Lipticism Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ instagram

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🐣 DRONA — FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

"I moved to America for university on a scholarship and that's when I encountered a stark change in culture," says Indian musicmaker, Drona. The Cornell student tells the story of those cultural differences in 'First World Problems', a track that bumps with bass and blooms of hazy, heralding synth, with clacking percussion keeping delicious, swaying time.

The song makes use of not busying up all the space with instrumental, allowing the vocals room to impact. And it is all about the vocals in Drona's outsider observations of an Ivy Leaguer's life—all wrapped up in a playful, upbeat slice of sound.

These observations come mainly in the form of crushing, eponymous problems: "Truffles on pizza / but delivery is just not on time / pills in Ibiza / but the traffic is a bit of a crime." And these little vignettes are contrasted with Drona's own experience, namely the pre-chorus line, "I guess I can't remember / when I had / so much to have," highlighting the differences between a first world problem and, well, a real world problem; the trauma of just having too much stuff to begin with.

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• 🔔 'First World Problems' is taken from Drona's upcoming EP, The Third World Season. "It talks about the whole arc of being in India to coming to America and then finding "First World Problems" after I came here," he explained to us. Feel free to download 'First World Season' here via your fav service.

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📠
☟ Drona Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 CURXES — THE STARS, LIKE DUST

This is the tightrope walk between nostalgia and a sort of despairing doom, the warmth of uncovering objects entangled with happy feelings yet in the miasmic embrace of the baleful knowledge that it is but a fleeting glimpse into the past; this is 'The Stars, Like Dust' by UK musicmaker Curxes, where the synths skew and fizz with something memorial, the beat – dusty, sharp, abrasive – ticks and stutters with mechanical stamina, where the bass bulges in ominous waves.

Formerly a trio, the now solo Curxes (aka real human Roberta Fidora) herself spoke to us via email to explain the track, which she admitted she wanted to sound "somewhere between ocean and space organ waves." And there is that sense of organic vs. synthetic broiling in the almost living-and-breathing irregularity with how the synths dip and peak minutely but remain zingy and metallic.

The lyrics are desperately alive, calling from this pocket of bright, submerged flavours, this whirling and swirling of sound—the words feel like they've arrived via signals that are lightyears away, rebounding and crackly, crooning with nonchalant distress about "an age of infinite dread."

"The lyrics were written at a period when I felt that the entire country was going through a transitional phase and not for the better, fuelled by misplaced nostalgia," explains Fidora. "I think many of us have our own nostalgia to deal with, but generally it isn't anything that has the ability to distort or disrupt people's lives." And so 'The Stars, Like Dust' is a cocktail of that childhood yearning for the stars and that deathly, adult fear of what we might find there; the reluctant progression of vast swathes of humanity.

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• 🔔 Curxes tells us a bit more about the creation of the eccentrically British visuals for 'The Stars, Like Dust' - complete with triangle sandwiches, a chihuahua, and reclusive behaviour.

  "I worked with portrait photographer and 50s sci-fi enthusiast Rob Luckins to make a video based on our collective love of space travel, which seems to be undergoing a resurgence, maybe because it gives people the hope that they can escape the things to which they don't belong."

• 🔔 This song is taken from the 2017 Curxes album Gilded Cage.

• 🔔 You may stream and purchase 'The Stars, Like Dust' via Bandcamp.

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📠
☟ Curxes Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ spotify ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ songkick ⚘ hype machine

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🐣 MEISHI SMILE, LLLL & U-PISTOL — ALWAYS FEAT. CALENDULA

We heard from a pairing of Tokyo producer LLLL and Manila-based artist U-Pistol quite recently, on the happysad trance-pop-gaze of 'Falling', but now the musicmaking team extends, including Zoom Lens label boss Meishi Smile as well as sometime vocal collaborator Calendula lending their voices to a brand new song: 'Always,' — with a comma, like an unfinished sentence, the miasmic spirit of it hanging there unformed, waiting for the right words to emerge.

From the extensive introduction – a building of excitement with twinkling lights (reminiscent of the marimba arpeggio on The Who's 'Baba O'Riley') above a propellant house beat, exploding into the spaced apart synth chord hits synced with the drums this triumphal showstarting prelude quality to them – from this a spark for the rest of the track is lit.

Calendula's vocal sings quietly but swims in close-to-your-ear intimacy, vocodered layering courtesy of Meishi Smile giving the lyrics a futuristic feel, a sense of distance that fits the lyrical content of two people grasping at mirages of each other as they drift apart in their relationship, the present hammering down in the crashing snares of the beat; U-Pistol's vocals croon the story in juxtaposing upbeat pop fashion: "Slowly we've become two entities / used to be as one, which was you and me."

The track goes through a zippy synth solo, a progression that oozes positivity, heightening the feeling of this song as something "happy", the glitter and soft focus of a cherished memory, before reaching its coda; everything quietens down, the chords summon this sunset melancholy, the happiness of knowing that it happened, looking back, twinned with the all too real feeling of loss. It is romantic, sentimental, looking tentatively ahead, evocative of days gone by, the closing credits of your life.

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GO TO SPOTIFY AND STREAM THE TRACK AND ALL THE REMIXES OF IT* BY CLICKING THIS HYPERLINK

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🔔 The track is out today (!) on a partnering of Zoom Lens and Maltine Records. *It also comes with remixes by: Kristofferson (slow gossamer synths and bass above a house beat in a nebulous reworking); パソコン音楽クラブ (a synth heavy remix with a barrage of footwork-ish beats bumping the track along); ANAMANAGUCHI (faithful to the original, though even more a pogosticking dancefloor of noisy pop); Yoshino Yoshikawa (hefty and cute at the same time with clonking percussive elements and a tumbling beat); Sayohimebou (clattering experimental breakcore remix that fulfils our desire for speed and noise and glitch). Purchase it all as a nice bundle over here.

🔔 The artwork for 'Always' was created by FANGRRLZ, and it really evokes not only the spirit but the content of the song: with melancholy yet neon lighting it reflects the bittersweet feeling, the setting of the Japanese train with its sort of end-credits placement, the way the couple sits in different positions facing away from each other, their face sadly reflected in the windows of the train. Plus an easter egg—the Maltine logo as a sticker stuck below the seat on the right; and the girl is wearing a Zoom Lens badge. It's perfect.

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📠
☟ Calendula Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ last.fm ⚘ twitter ⚘ tumblr ⚘ instagram ⚘

☟ LLLL Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter

☟ U-Pistol Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ tumblr

☟ Meishi Smile Social Media Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Bandcamp • Twitter • Tumblr • YouTube

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🎥 RARE FACTURE — VERSE GIRL

This track, with its indelible europop atmosphere, is wave of euphoria, but dimly lit and soaked with rain. Icy chords wobbly softly, snowy and glacial, sadly fall like an electronic hail, strings spin tension, descending icicles of sound sparkle, a cradle of sharp throwback arpeggios whirling over a pulsing beat and the propellant bass both bumping the track into overdrive below the stuttering serenity of the track. There is this serenity to it, somewhere in there, the light at the end of the tunnel of urgency that it does summon, and it sounds like this for good reason.

Salt Lake City duo Rare Facture tell us that 'Verse Girl' was inspired by women "who have ended up in abusive or controlling relationships but can't escape." Continuing, they explained further over email: "It's about the reality of there being a happier world out there with someone who loves you for you. I guess in the end, like much of the songs we write, 'Verse Girl' is about love."

This simultaneous heartbreaking and heartwarming quality, brightness and darkness, energetic and unfathomably kinetic trance sound yet downcast and slow-motion, the dual nature of love spun with throwback synth-pop that feels as timeless and as timeworn as the inspiration for the track itself. The duo went on to talk about the video for the track itself, which in its monochrome and snow-filled way reflects the song's lyrical and sonic elements—and, in yet more echoes of the track's inspiration, in a case of "art imitating reality," the duo tells us, "the girl in the video is literally the girl the song is about."

Euphoric and dysphoric, the hard, sad realities of life and the specks of hope that come with it are reflected with this digital fantasy of sound.

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• 🔔 'Verse Girl' by Rare Facture is out now courtesy of Groove Distortion, and can be purchased via iTunes and also Amazon.

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📠
☟ Rare Facture Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ tumblr ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram

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🐣 MOON MASK — TWENTY MINUTES DREAM RUNNER

Like a heavy heart this track shifts its way into your perception, that sinking stomach feeling, emptiness, beginning with a slow ominous luscious clopping clock and insectoid ticking and slumbering breaths and then we fall into the urgent synthpop of it all, and the vocals of Manila's moon mask opens up a deep croon: "Met you asleep in a dream…" Big thumping drums create a driving energy – a gotta-do-something '80s filmic montage of an atmosphere – with simple kick-snare alternation with stomping gloopy bass that cuts a basic booming groove beneath the miasma of electronics that glide and soar and punctuated by sparkling starlit melodies twinkling beneath it, bright neon chords electrify the heavenward introspective gloom of it, shocking strobes in the murksmoke.

But the dreamy atmosphere that dwells in 'twenty minutes dream runner' arises because, moon mask explained on Twitter, it's "based off a short story I wrote once about a decaying man reliving dream." There is indeed an aroma of decay that whirls around in this synth-laden dreamscape, the cardinal reverb that the drums are soaked in so they crack and roar in the song's verses, and in the literally decayed melody that twists and turns fizzing abrasive in the bridge, overdriven and piercing. The chorus is catchy, deliciously so, with rapid pogoing vocals: "20 minutes better run baby ah, 20 minutes left before they take you away…" A fantasy lovesong, an electronic pop elegy, this is the idealised grip of nostalgia manifested in the hazy hangover of something distantly dreamt.

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• 🔔 You may purchase 'twenty minutes dream runner' digitally via Bandcamp if you like. It arrives ahead of moon mask's EP scheduled for release early next year; "I've been trying to take a bit of a new direction in my sound," says our boy in the track's description, and the new EP will probably mirror that sentiment.

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📠
☟ moon mask Internet Presence ☟
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🌭 AYLIN — ON MY OWN

This luscious slice of music is a wondrous illustration of pop, with its delicious sumptuous percussive sounds, the shuffling shakers, the streaming liquid gurgles, its chimes and its crying-out vocal samples. And in this tapestry of textures, the lush thickets of percussive bristling, there is a smart, city-leaning clarity about the track, seeming to mix this tropical spirit with the colder angular soul of an urban environment, the slick-smooth syncopated chords, the clean subtle gloop of the bass; something restless and lonely in the verses where the synth flutters, confused, from left to right.

Whilst Aylin questions herself and expresses doubt in these more mellow verses, confident resolve arrives in the chorus: "so I'm thinking of myself not you, like I should do" and "I'll be thinking for myself alright, should be just fine." The Romanian singer, in the midst of the snappy funk of the track, sings with a voice that is at once as malleable as it is crystalline, seeming to purr as it sparkles. There is a certain emptiness in 'On My Own'—staging the decision to go it alone as the chorus suggests rather than stick with something that isn't working, even something that's pulling you down, is a difficult thing to do, and the struggle to come to that decision is illustrated with dynamic contrasts between the verse and chorus, between a chilly empty feeling and one of fresh determined wholeness.

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• 🔔 This track is taken from Aylin's upcoming second album This Is My Otherside, a collaboration with Otherside.
• 🔔 Aylin, full name Aylin Cadir, is also an actress at the National Theatre Bucharest.

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📠
☟ Aylin Internet Presence ☟
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Y/N GUEST MIX 015 :: JOLLY MARE

I saw a person on Twitter like last week say something like, "There are too many mixes therefore they are obsolete" – when questioned they cited "inflation" but I think they meant "saturation" maybe. Anyway, it's a ridiculous statement: replace "mixes" with any other thing of which there might too many or too much – food, videogames, paintings – and you can see how. I just thought that would be a nice thing to say cause, like, here's another mix. But I'd really hate to be the one to push you over the edge, so if you think you've heard one mix too many, then go take a cold shower, talk it through with a loved one.

This guest mix is from Fabrizio Faberismi, aka Jolly Mare: an Italian DJ, producer, and a participant in the Red Bull Music Academy 2013. I've also read that he has a PhD in Vibration Dynamics, something that led me to stare at gifs of wobbling catilevered L-beams on the wiki page for 'Vibration'; this might be why in an email he sent to me he described himself as "Something in between a gone-bad scientist and a musician." He also loves old music, and if this mix is anything to go by it's obscure old music in particular that is his penchant.

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I got good taste in music

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Self-confessedly inspired by a "groove, any kind of" when it comes to his own music, it also seems to lead his choices for this wondrous guest mix, itself a lil' under half-an-hour of groovesome entities. Mostly taken from the 1980s, and most you've probably never heard OF let alone actually heard, it runs from the sultry 'Marinero' by Spanish singer Lucía who also provided the Spanish entry, 'Él', for the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest, held in the UK at Harrogate (really weird choice), to the synth-disco of 'Histoire D'un Soir' by Bibi Flash, aka Brigitte Gasté, a French singer active in the '80s. The song really really sounds like Blondie's 'Rapture' – mainly in the rap-singing, the bassline (almost note-for-note), etc.

"There is some freakness in every one of them," says Jolly Mare of the tracks in the mix – and it's true: from the first vital, note-hopping bassline of 'Use My Body' by the unknown Mavis John, through the stretched out, night-anticipating 'Sunset' (L33 and Sven Atterton) and the effortlessly cool remix by Luke Million of The Swiss's summery 'In The City', to the Italo disco of Big Ben Tribe's 'Tarzan Loves The Summer Nights' and the indefatigable soulfunk of 'Better By The Minute' by unlocatable group Glass Pyramid, it's an amalgamation of genres and styles that basically utilise "freakness" as their foundations, namely funk, disco (regular & Italo), soul, boogie, R&B.

What does it demonstrate? "That I got good taste in music," replies Jolly Mare. I mean, well, yeah, these are good songs. And for those of you who are looking for some obscure tracks to boogie the fuck on down to, chill to, do your taxes to, stir fry some noodles to, fix that thing in your car to, clean your living quarters to, whatever to, then don't worry cause this crate-digging mix has done it for you.

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• T R A C K L I S T •

1. Mavis John - Use My Body (1980)
2. L33 & Sven Atterton - Sunset (2013)
3. Lucía - Marinero (1986)
4. The Swiss - In The City (Luke Million Remix) (2014)
5. Desi - I Want To Be With You (1984)
6. Gladys Knight & The Pips - Save the Overtime (For Me) (1983)
7. Big Ben Tribe - Tarzan Loves The Summer Nights (1984)
8. Bibi Flash - Histoire D'un Soir (1983)
9. The McCrarys - Love On A Summer Night (1982)
10. Glass Pyramid - Better By The Minute (1984)

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☟ Jolly Mare Social Media Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Twitter • YouTube • Mixcloud

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ESPRIT 空想 – VIRTUA.ZIP

It's been a long time coming but finally I am writing about ESPRIT 空想's latest (and perhaps greatest) album virtua.zip. Last time we heard from this guy it was actually in the form of his alter-ego (or is this his alter ego?), another musical project: Mirror Kisses – namely the cool video for even cooler song, 'Genius'. There's some new Mirror Kisses stuff out right now actually but let's just put that off for a second and get right into the melted-mind sounds of this collection of songs.

A key component of the slightly undefinable, nostalgia-and-sample-ridden style of vaporwave – whose sounds can reach as far back in time as any artist's musical memory will allow, and as far forward as their imagination will take them – ESPRIT 空想 has moved forward, describing his album as "distinct in that it is comprised of all original compositions. Samples are utilized as a brushstroke rather than a canvas. Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10 and 11 are entirely free of sampling." As such, the imaginary constraints of vaporwave fall away to leave nothing but its lightly distorted aesthetics and its apparent liberal-mindedness, wherein the freedom to do whatever underpins most of what has been made within the brackets of "vaporwave", which simultaneously leads to an eternal paradox: if this is the case, then what is vaporwave? A genreless genre; a community brought together by common interests.

Almost as a realisation of this kind of maturation into formlessness, ESPRIT 空想 does as he pleases: to great effect. virtua.zip – its name reflecting the cube comprising of Akira Yuki (from Sega's Virtua Fighter series) on the album art – is expansive and atmospheric yet groovesome and quirky, building these soundscapes with relatively short tracks; each one of these suffixed with the extension ".wav", the perfect accompaniment to the album's own ".zip" – as if the sights, sounds and words attached to this release are wholly indebted to all things digital.

And what a set of sounds! We go from the warm holiday sounds of opener 'whispers.wav', with its '80s-commercial glitz and two chords spacing out in 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World' (Tears For Fears) fashion, and the chopped-up sounds and stammering beat of 'select.wav', as well as 'slow2014.wav', which sounds like an area on Streets Of Rage, swaggering yet calm in the post-crime-syndicate-clean-up; to the moody chillment of 'mindless.wav' – the hollowed-out skull of deadbeat intoxication – with a beat reminiscent of 'peter.wav': almost pure trip hop: spacey strings and surprising sub-bass as accoutrements to a slowed-down beat that uses the "Amen break"; 'esprit.wav', whose tropical washes of sound cloak a familiar sample and ghostly vocals, matches with 'iwillbe.wav', which finds its partner in the aching 'withyou.wav', the two essentially one track cut in two ("i will be with you"), both sufficiently equipped with steel pan stylings and epic tom drums to evoke a bepalmed beach paradise at sunset – titularly including the fantasy love-(or-lust)-of-one's-life.

Then there's 'warmjet.wav', a master-class in warm, modulating synths, focusing also a lot on empty space, syncopated bass and the loving sway of the beat, similar in a way to 'love.wav', a jaunty track with twisted, drugged-out synths, upbeat percussion, and the shadow of an angelic choir oooo-ing for extra romantic flavour, as well as the wholly retro 'gameover.wav' – staccato-chopper synths over a slow beat, with weird moo-box-style decorations; for virtua.zip, it's an ending that couldn't be more different from the romanticised glistenings of its beginning.

It's certainly an eye-opener, an insight into new territories of sound that paradoxically – and conversely to many "futuristic" sounds in music at the moment – are drenched with cassette-tape fuzz, imbued with nostalgia and, ultimately, could well have been made 20, 25, 30 years ago. Even though it runs the gauntlet of chillwave, retro game music, hip hop, synthpop, and yes: vaporwave – virtua.zip just effuses freshness effortlessly. And it's all condensed into around 21 minutes of music, making it a brief and blissful slice of escapism; I did, in fact, at many points find myself whisked away somewhere else. Basically, this album is like a modern version of exotica ("a musical genre, named after the 1957 Martin Denny album of the same title"), itself an offshoot of lounge music, and intended to provide listeners with a synthetic, sonic experience of Pacific islands, African jungles & South American mountaintops.

What ESPRIT 空想 does is very much the same: from its very concept, as a .zip file, you have this strange, digitally tangible feeling for the music even before you've heard it; then, when you're listening, you could at certain points be in a videogame ('slow2014.wav'), in the past ('whisper.wav'), on a beach ('withyou.wav'), or – for something more descriptive – stuck at home on a rainy day during summer looking out the window ('esprit.wav'). The places it can take you depend on your imagination, of course, but to have made songs that are capable of acting in this way shows, maybe not intent, but at least a capacious and reflective imagination in the first place.

This is vaporwave's answer to lounge music – or perhaps vaporwave IS just an unknowing, modern interpretation of it – and it really is lovely.

• Download virtua.zip for just $1 (USD), or more, from ESPRIT 空想's Bandcamp page
• '空想' means 'fantasy' in Chinese
• N.B. lounge music does not mean 'bad music' – I am being complimentary, not disparaging.

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Like ESPRIT 空想 on Facebook
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Watch ESPRIT 空想 on YouTube

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ANDELS – BATTLE RACE

I don't often write about drum & bass or jungle stuff because, well, a lot of it seems quite... what's the word? – uninspired. Yes. It just feels, despite ramping up the bpm past the point of caring, unenergetic, lethargic almost. Just goes to show that you don't necessarily need to make FAST music to provoke a FAST (i.e. excited, energised) reaction. So when stuff like this does come along and sounds different to the rest of it, well, it's instantly recognisable. And in some cases it's really good.

Like with 'Battle Race' by Czech producer Andels, real name Lukáš Puška, from Ostrava, Czech Republic. This track feels less like a drum & bass or whatever track, and much more like a theme to some kind of high-speed racing à la F-Zero that just happens to have these d&b beats in the background. Beginning with these fluttering synth chords that pan left and right, we're soon dropped into a bass-bubbling beat littered with many instances of synth all over the place. Bleeping arpeggios, string synths rising and soaring into ecstatic heights, and a vocal sample singing its triumphant wordless stuff. A break in the song plays with the beat, trilling the snares and putting in these amazing little fills that are impossible to ignore.

After this break, things get even better in the second section: saw-wave bass judders to the end, synth leads summon a nostalgic mood, strings hang like a mist. And that nostalgic mood is something that is pretty much inherent in the whole track – even the beat, sampled no doubt from somewhere, is something you'd find in a 90s jungle track for sure. And the synths appear joyfully reminiscent, as if lifted directly from an old-school racing game. It's full of undeniably delicious sounds.

Looking back to the past is something that a lot of people seem to be doing to find their feet in the music world. Whether that's because their favourite music is from when they were growing up, or if they feel an affinity with sounds and styles which, though before their time, still excite their mind with an artificial but simultaneously strong sense of nostalgia – who knows. What it does seem to do, however, is be the basis, the foundation, for a lot of very good tracks in all sorts of genres from all over the world. 'Battle Race' is a prime example: a power-synth-jungle medley from the Czech Republic.

• Andels is part of Czech collective KOSMOSPIEL – check em out.

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Listen to Andels on SoundCloud
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MIRROR KISSES – GENIUS [VIDEO]

Is this a photograph of the young George Clanton, aka (or at least the brains behind) Mirror Kisses? I think it might be. Now, with that kinda cleared up we can move forward. Who is this George Clanton? He is a musicmaker from Richmond, Virginia (USA innit) who creates hazy nostalgic vaporwavey tracks under the alias ESPRIT 空想 but with Mirror Kisses – a more real, less dreamy, less idealistic project – there's something quite different going on. Maybe there's a similar sense of nostalgia, but that's where comparisons end: this is truly heartfelt: a live, wriggling entity with 80s aesthetics, punk energy and a romantic sensibility, seemingly miles away from the bedroom lassitude of ESPRIT 空想.

The perfect opportunity to show this off arrives now, in the form of the brand-spanking-new video for 'Genius' – taken from Mirror Kisses' album of last year, Heartbeat, it's a brilliant example of the sights and sounds that go with this exciting project. In the video we see shots of the man himself singing live at a show in Washington DC, alternating with two guys painting a wall black and then erasing what they've done with white paint. "I didn't even know he [Robb Payne] was making it," said George himself. "It was shot at a show in Washington DC and a couple of the guys who were there made a painting for the song." Luckily, or maybe it was something that was just meant to be – either way it worked, and it suited the song: "I think it's really cool how they make it and then erase it," he said, explaining, "I thought it was very fitting to the spirit of the whole song about second-guessing yourself but still doing what you love in the end."

So without further ado…

It's George's favourite song from the album and you can see why. It's a corker of a song, a cracker even, one that bulges with as much drunk shuffle-dance-inducing sway as it does heartfelt emotion. Thin flanging chords keep their sombre time above the slow 80s-style lo-fi drums with syncopated hi-hats, whilst ear-pinching icicles of high-register synth strings pierce the air above the heavy muffle of the jouncing distorted bass squelch. But what makes this so real, not that the music isn't dead nice on its own, is the vocals, the voice of George, an aching rich baritone that simmers with just enough reverb, crooning lines like "I know… I'm no genius / But when you say those things / It makes me feel so dumb" that seem summoned from a deep well of emotion, gently echoing into the atmosphere.

NB. If you ask me, it sounds kinda like a slowed-down version of 'Last Christmas' by Wham (minus any Christmas-theme ofc) which ain't a bad thing at all. It shows that the 80s synthpop influences are there, well and truly, and they're blissfully endearing.

• In honour of this fancy new video, the Heartbeat LP is now available for FREE.
• A little birdie told me there will be new Mirror Kisses stuff soon, so GET ACQUAINTED with pre-existing stuff (see first bullet point).

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Like Mirror Kisses on Facebook
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Hear more Mirror Kisses on Bandcamp
Visit Mirror Kisses's official site
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Watch Mirror Kisses on YouTube

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NOLA WREN – SOUL SUCKER

Ha ha! Well. This just flew into my inbox from far across the ocean – the Atlantic ocean btw. It instantly jumped into my ear and started doing cartwheels, carrying out a spot of light raving, and sending basically some really nice soothing sounds. Why did it do that? It did that because it IS really nice, and nice things tend to act upon you instantaneously – it's physiological yo.

I will hark back to a moment I was told about once; a friend told me about a random commenter who said that it was probably "a bad sign" that they liked a piece of music straight away. What sort of garbled tripe-shit nonsense is that? I instantly liked Ace of Base's 'All That She Wants' when I heard it as a child, and when I hear it now, I still like it. I didn't WORK to like it. Anyway. Don't believe the hype: like what you like however you please.

Sorry. What was I saying? YES these are the sounds of New York City resident, musicmaker and self-confessed "nocturnal creature", Nola Wren (real name Kara Francavillo). In her most recent track, 'Soul Sucker', she evinces a certain pop nostalgia in a cradle of comforting sounds, a mix of organic and electronic stuffed full of vocal hooks and a driving beat.

Founded on a clattering acoustic guitar (which minutely reminded me of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, in a good way ofc) with glistenings of electronic scatter-beeps decorating like glitter, the song shoots along with emotive intent, totally encased in pop trimmings, Nola Wren's supersweet voice crooning out the melody amidst light synth chords and harshening for the rapid-fire "Soul sucker, soul sucker, you'll n-n-n-n-n-n-never get my…" in each freshly reverbing chorus as distortion juts upward against the thumping beat.

All in all, it's a treat for the ears, an unabashed pop song that holds no pretence, injecting at the same time a particular marginal attitude – an essence, at least, of punk (perhaps) – into the music at the same time; no mean feat. Honestly I think this is a very good song, how can I stress that any further? And it's only a demo!! But it sounds great!

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MEISHI SMILE – LUST

Oh goddd this like everything else has taken ages to actually get from my ears to my brain to my fingers to the keyboard. It was released over a month ago. What is "it"? God damn— it's Meishi Smile with his debut album Lust. Yes indeed it's "The 1st Album" – there can never be another one by Meishi Smile, no no nope. This is the 1st album and it always will be.

But what is it like? Lust is essentially a mix of rough and smooth, a mix of harsh self-berating distortion and endless reverb free-floating out into the gulf of digital voids, all beset with J-pop sensibilities; it's sugar-coated white noise, it's dance music for bedroom dwellers and indoors inclined individuals, it's idealised. Within its 8 tracks, there are many moments where it soars past the boundaries of euphoria with a post-Balearic furore, too happy to be real; a gentle, dream-induced kind of EDM, not the type you'd hear in a massive tent at a festival, but the type that takes you away to weird worlds in the middle of the lonely nights.

Opener 'AJS' perhaps embodies this EDM style most clearly, keeping all the tropes of the so-called genre – like multiple drops and trance-like melodies skirling away in hookish fashion; likewise, 'Honey' drops in with octave-skipping bassline and clean-cut fast-paced synth melodies. However, here is a quirk of the album: the vocoder. There is something retro about the vocoder, yet in its very nature it IS a modern device. It is at odds with itself. But this works perfectly for Meishi Smile. The vocoder appears as a mainstay of 'Pale', which alongside its icicle-esque synth glistenings gives the track an atmosphere of coldness, of chill in the nominal sense. It's also in the chilled atmosphere of the next track, 'Still' – looping vocoders battling high-register hollow synth and wide washes of dreamy chords.

These chilled vibes start the proceedings on 'Heart', a song that moves between swaying seabed ambience and bouncing electro-dance; thick synth bass grooves in a pop mood and the vocoder seems here to be "singing" more than anywhere else. It's a song of slow and fast. That slowness, however, is portrayed so much better on the almost-surprise track 'Ai' – this one sounds like a super-reverbed and super-distorted version of the kind of slo-house synthpop that the infamous Drive soundtrack popularised with artists like College and Kavinsky (in this instance, more by the former than the latter). It reeks of nocturnal stylings, a simple melody and a steady, driving beat fogged by reverb and underpinned by formative rows of saw-wave bass jounce.

That's in direct contrast to the happy-happy pop of previous track 'Summer Blue', a foray into something maybe you'd find on a videogame – squelchy bass, simple but very effective synth raining down in showers of 8-bit bleepery with an overriding melody played by synth lead and vocoder, syncopated toytronic chords in lieu of house piano for extra oomph. This is in direct contrast to the closer and most crazy of all tracks, 'Tears'. Meishi Smile mysteriously describes it on SoundCloud: "Dedicated to the one who was lost." And indeed, in title and in its near-happy hardcore extreme distortion, this aims to reflect not the moroseness, the lassitude, of being sad, but the fury and frustration of sadness, wholly up-tempo yet down-beat, tear-like droplets of synth raining down amidst the whirlwind haze of twisted grey noise synth.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. There are remixes. KOSMO KAT keeps 'Summer Blue' close to the original, adding touches here and there – percussion, a sunset-conjuring breakdown, droplet sample – for what is 'Summer Blue V2' basically. 'Heart' retains its washes of sound, yet is given a gentle touch of officious industry by Uio Loi, and la pumpkin turns it into an almost beatless slice of bassy experimentalism with added instruments, with the original melodies picked out and spotlighted. mus.hiba does likewise with 'Pale', extracting the song from its up-tempo frame and giving it a semi-trap makeover with added 80s synth melody and waves of trance synth. My favourite, I think, is gigandect's redoing of 'Honey' – now essentially a chiptune number, completely overrun with glorious bleeps, from its low-low buzzing bass all the way up to its fluid telephonic melody.

Phew. Well, this ain't conventional dance music; Meishi Smile ain't conventional. This is dance music hazed over with influences from videogame music to shoegaze and beyond, dreams converging like clouds to rain down startling reworkings of various recollections, feelings, and recollections of feelings. It's icy and robotic, but this cybernetic feel exudes nostalgia and emotion with subtle effortlessness; behind a mist of idealised sounds, just as anybody URL is veiled by idealised monikers and titles, Meishi Smile is there with boundless feeling.

• Get Lust for 10USD by clicky-clickin over here
• Listen to the truly awesome guest mix that Meishi Smile made for YES/NO

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TOUCH SENSITIVE – SLOWMENTS

I've been thinking about this song ever since it arrived in my inbox. I didn't write about it straight away because 2013's timeless-incredible track from Touch Sensitive, the indomitable and eternal 'Pizza Guy', was just so good that I was worried the next instalment from this Future Classic-dwelling Australian producer just wouldn't match up. With that worry firmly locked in my mind last night, I finally steeled myself: it was on the cusp of sleep that I resolved, tomorrow – today – I would write about Touch Sensitive's new track, 'Slowments'.

The song itself is a remix, essentially – or perhaps more correctly, a re-envisioning – of Art of Noise's bizarre and sensual 1985 track 'Moments In Love' (also responsible for the Prince-covered 1988 hit, 'Kiss'), yet when the slow arpeggio of synth bips rippled through the air, my first thought was of the 'Prelude' from Final Fantasy VII, and if that makes you angry, or you think I'm stupid, I'm really sorry. Just listen to the song and forget I said anything.

Turning the original vocals into high-register piercings of soul-moving sound, Touch Sensitive – real name Michael Di Francesco – lays on controlled torrents of warm, flowing bass, enough to rumble your very blood, whilst organising jumbled metallic hits to reverb their way through the faraway romance of the song. It's a perfect match of old and new – modern drum sounds clapping and thudding out a mid-tempo, extremely danceable rhythm; glittering old synths like vintage jewellery raining from the sky. At heart, it's a retelling of 80s synthpop and it's very pretty.

But— is it better than 'Pizza Guy'? Well, in my opinion, no. I say this because I have been and still am obsessed with that track. It's one of my go-to songs. But 'Slowments' is different in style, eschewing the bold and bright Drive inspired sounds of last year for something subtler, and maybe prettier; something that, by description, pays homage to something else (and as such it's difficult to compare to the originality of 'Pizza Guy'). I like it, I like it a lot, but I am yearning for something that is going to jolt my heart with such energy that I can't help but listen to it on repeat for days on end – perhaps that's what's to come.

Get this for free right here (clickety-click-click).

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FORTUNE HOWL PAWS (BO EN REMIX)

Yo. Wow. This is good. Let's rush straight in. Rush we go. So, this is another one of the pretty damn awesome re-workings of the songs from Fortune Howl's Earthbound, collectively called Earthbound [Remixed]. I wrote about one of them - Bwoy De Bhajan's remix of 'Interzone Export' - the other week. And, listening through it now, there is so much talent going into these remixes that it's impossible for them to be bad. Or perhaps talent on its own isn't sufficient; each of these remixers has a definitive voice and style, making each one more than a remix - something closer to an original track.

There's XXYYXX's synth-heavy trap-leaning version of 'Echo The Sun', for instance, and also the lush, ghostly remix of 'A Terrible Machine' by Mister Lies. Likewise, London producer bo en sets off some seriously sweet fireworks for us in his remix of 'Paws'. Fortune Howl's original is a luscious, ballad-like number that swoons with vocal samples, warm synth waves and slow-dance drums. bo en's remix is very different.

Taking cues from a synth-heavy revival of Japan-exclusive genre Shibuya-kei (a mix of jazzy lounge sounds with traces of synthpop and lashings of pop energy), bo en - real name Calum Bowen - turns 'Paws' on its head and makes it his own. Beginning with a deliciously funky, 80s-themed intro, complete with some scene-setting slap bass, at once we're bowled into the nu-Shibuya-kei that bo en does best. Puffs of fidgety synth chords overlook a fast house kick as the original vocals float over in washes of reverb. At 0:55 he samples Yoshi's down+B move from Super Smash Bros. before launching into a candy-coloured world of modulating synths, squeaky bed sounds, claps, down-south hip hop snares and remnants of samples.

The rest of the song reads beautifully, a floating mist of the song's original vocals, a saxophone solo, wah-wah chords, samples of "Hey — hey!" all cradled by a rainy-night synth bassline and 80s drum machine beats. A classy yet magical finish, like a rendezvous with a high-class escort who turns out to be searching for someone to help her solve an existential, metaphysical mystery - you becoming the reluctant detective. It moves flawlessly between sugary sweet nu-Shibuya-kei and retro-infused sounds - a teapot brewing leaves of tea-breaks past - combining many different elements that on paper would seem barmy. Hip hop drums? A little known Japanese genre? Slap bass? 80s aesthetic? Videogame samples? Yep, all of that. But the way that Mr bo en melds these sounds into a cohesive, dynamic showstopper of a track that's as jaw-droppingly impressive as it is unabashedly enjoyable.

You should definitely check out Earthbound [Remixed] for your fix of totally fresh sounds. And a FREE DOWNLOAD. (The fact that the album and its original are named after one of my favourite ever games has no bearing on the matter).

Also, check out bo en's lovely debut album Pale Machine out on supernice Japanese netlabel Maltine Records - and download the whole thing for free.

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HOME NOD IF YOU CAN HEAR ME // GET UP AND LEAVE [FREE DOWNLOAD]

This picture right here, right here, does the job at pretty much accurately describing not just one but in fact both of these songs. I dunno. Do you know? What am I talking about? In any case: I've found some more really nice music and I hope that's ok with everyone. My aim is to find nice music and well most of the time I do achieve that aim. That's not arrogant, it's just what happens ok? Sorry.

This time around I like literally couldn't decide on what song to include here. There are so many lovely songs on this guy's SoundCloud and I recommend - at least, if you like the stuff you hear here - checking out his entire back catalogue. He's prolific and his name is Randy Goffe but we shall refer to him simply as HOME for that is what he has baptised himself in this online world. This Florida-(Punta Gorda)-based producer is making some seriously delicious 80s-flavoured sounds that make me just wanna eat ice creams, drive fast cars, play GTA Vice City, emigrate somewhere tropical, drift on a lilo in a pool in a mansion bought by drug money. Perhaps not that drastic but, you know. It's a College-y, Electric Youth kinda synthpop sound and I love it.

The first of these (yep I'm sharing two: shock HORROR) is called 'Nod If You Can Hear Me' and, well, you'd better get ready to nod cause you're definitely gonna hear him.

This song is alive with synth bass that really helps to drive the song - the perfect vibe for driving along a dramatic coastal road someplace pretty. Rich chords plummet down to your ears from the thumping pace of the song, which is for the most part quite a minimalist experience: a simple beat takes us from start to finish, doubling up on hi-hats for a faster pace towards the end. For me, this is over way too soon. I could listen to this like, all night. Or all day. Wheeling synth with delayed attack time swoop in with an ache, a longing, that feels like squinting on a sunny day. Glorious.

And then there's this other one. It's 3 months old but that has never stopped me from posting a song. No siree. So without further ado, here is 'Get Up And Leave'.

This one has a different atmosphere about it. There's a touch of lingering sadness in gentle electric piano chord progression, in the pattern of the lead synth melody floating above everything. It might just be me, but it sounds as though the bassline doesn't properly kick in until later in the song, after halfway, begetting a heavy atmosphere that isn't completely apparent from the get-go, but which is wonderful to gradually fall into as the track goes on its way. At 1:29 we lose the lead synths, or they just join in with the original chords, to create a less celebratory tone, making for an organic fade-out in terms of passion rather than volume. Like a break-up song, kinda. I can imagine someone driving away from a house having just broken up. I'm welling up just picturing that.

Anyway. It's all lovely. These are just two particular gems in the treasure chest of sounds on HOME's SoundCloud. HOME is a good name; whilst not very googleable, it is a nice statement on the instant familiarity that you feel with his sounds. Given that he's "like 17" as well, it's even more of a nice surprise to hear these great sounds. If he's not like 17 then shame on him for lying. Just kidding, it's fine. It's music, after all, not a registration form.

In other news: you can download a mixtape of "pretty much every song [he's] ever done" called The Atlantic Tapes. All of his songs are free to download, including these two above. MUSIC FOR EVERYONE!

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STRANGEHEAD ㄷㄹㅊㅅ (DREAM CHASER) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

For ease I am not going to be dealing with the Korean characters, although here is a fun fact: it's called Hangul and instead of being written straightforwardly, each word is a 'block' of these little characters. Isn't that fun? Someone should create some blocky typography of English in this way. It'd look nice I think. What am I saying? Who cares. The Hangul here - ㄷㄹㅊㅅ - if you want to know, is like an acronym or abbreviation, cause it's in letter and not word form, and says: d r ch s. DRCHS - a truncated form of Dreamchase(r)? I guess.

Anyway, in the depths of the night I found this song and I enjoyed it a lot so I am writing about it right now. It's probably really bad for LA trackmaker Strangehead because I'm writing about this in a not very good mood so I don't think I'll do the song as much justice as I normally would, however I do hope that you - whoever is reading, skimming, or ignoring this writing right now - enjoy the song no matter what gibberish I blather, what garbage words I tip-tap into this word box right here. Pls enjoy it. Let's call it 'Dream Chaser'.

Caught up as I was in the 80s synth dreamscapes offered by people's musical reaction to the film Drive and its College & Kavinsky-dominated soundtrack, the love of this type of music has never left me so the opening to 'Dream Chaser' is like a sudden step into an alternate world populated by electronic beauty and the tough undertones featured in games like Streets of Rage. However, this song is the kind of thing you'd hear once you've cleaned up the city in that game, don't you think? It begins as a foray into dubstep tinged by bleeping arpeggios and a smooth lead synth heralding good news.

Claps lead up to a lovely winding build-up awash with freestyle beats, snares roll and hi-hats buzz with insectoid surgicality, the second part of this song being marked by the fun vocal sample of "Readyyy... Go!". It's a plunge pool of low melodies bopping over wide Sonic-inspired chords, clean and smooth and delicious. A second "take-off" at like 1:38 sends us into fantastically happy world, where house piano chords stab and vox synth provides simplistic melodies (sounding like a K.K. Slider song from Animal Crossing). More dynamic changes - strings join the show for drama - claps in a frezy. Then everything suddenly fades out leaving you with candy-popping soft synth mixed with a pop song sample from where I don't know.

How nice was that? And with all the videogame references I've made it's clear that, whether intentionally or not, the often underrated, earworming videogame sounds have made their influence known. With the song levelling-up its atmosphere of fun and magic, the title seems very apt indeed.

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LIFE & LIMB FOOL'S NEST (LIES "PROMISES" REMIX) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Hello. Remixes, not always but often, are really fun. It's not just a re-tweaking of a finished song, it's a whole new song, a whole new person's creative vision based on the original elements launched into the world by the original creator of said elements. It goes to show not only how interesting it is to have somebody else's take on things every once in a while, but also that "art" - yeah that includes music - can never be finished. Even Marcel Duchamp "remixed" the Mona Lisa by drawing a moustache on the original and calling it L.H.O.O.Q (which is a pun cause in French, the reading sounds like elle a chaud au cul). As long as remixers are out there in the world, art of any kind can never be considered utterly finished. In anything's contemporary, original format, however, it is difficult to see a new beginning - that is, unless you are the kind of person who can remix things.

But I'm talkin' too much! About stuff! Stuff!

So let's talk about this song. It is, as you may have guessed by now, a remix. And it is a very nice example of a kind of completely different take on the original. In this instance, the track - 'Fool's Nest' - is originally by a one-half-Italian, one-half-New-Yorker duo called Life & Limb. It's a nice chunky slice of synthpop that is buzzing with saw-waves and sentimental overtones.

Enter LIES. This Italian duo - Oscar Cini and Piero... something - (whom I've written about a couple of times before) have essentially softened the original and turned into something more dreamy, more intangible in a way, than the structured original. They've sped up the pulsing lead synths of the original, teasing with the hint of tumbling hi-hats in the background as the vocals come in ghostishly looped on one syllable with forever-eternal glassy synth chords sweeping the whole song with their ambience.

It's the kind of thing that makes you drift off a little; LIES' style of embedding an addictive, cyclical beat in amongst a bristling thicket of noise has that kind of effect on a person. Thin snares pummel the offbeat with minimal hi-hats riding high above a constant click and the steady, sometime-rolling thump of the kick. A wonderful take on a song which is now similar to this one in title, and a bit in sound, only: even the atmosphere changed from sentimental and slightly sad to one of feelingless dreaminess. Hooray for the (good) remixers of the world!

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JENI PARABLES

Omg what the hell so old omg what am i doing??? Song so old. so old. Is that ok? Of course it is. Since I've got that out of the way we can move forward with the singular purpose of writing nice things about this very good song, no matter how old it is. Have you heard it before? If you have, please register your complaints with any good social media outlet - something like "This isn't new music you dimwit!" would be cool. If you haven't heard it, you're in for a treat.

The song is called 'Parables' and it's by a girl who is really good at making music called JENI. She was brought to my attention from a tweet I saw the other day (it was actually from Lidly) and it's that kinda thing where you get sucked into someone's YouTube channel and just can't stop watching. Once you pop you most certainly cannot stop. Especially when the channel is good. JENI makes music defined by futuristic synth sounds, thickets of R&B beats and beautiful vocals, all of which are provided by JENI herself.

She's made her name by covering/remaking some pretty high-brow songs, for example, SBTRKT's 'Wildfire', Justin Timberlake's 'Suit & Tie' and 'Stay' by Rihanna. And they're all beautiful covers. I urge you to check them out. But I thought I'd chat about something original by her. Here's 'Parables'.n

The base of this track is Jeni's fantastic looping work on the vocals she records at the beginning. I have a lot of time for loopers (is that the right word); The mind-power needed to construct things in this way is pretty impressive. But yeah, those oh-oh-oh's sound just gorgeous - and these are only supporting vocals. She brings in some heavenly thick synth, all-encompassing, smooth, mind-tanglingly bassy. It's the perfect contrast to her voice, which is superb, dripping in pop groove and aching with emotion - powerful yet floating above everything else.

Modulating synth chords pierce the softness that comes before to bulge in the chorus, alongside the deep pulse of a beat heavy with kicks and featuring the perfect tap of a snare. All of it is beautifully produced. Her voice is half-shrouded in a mist of reverb, the bass is undulating and organic, she brings in electronic bleeps to decorate the track like glitter and alters the beat at times to muffle it. That voice though. Very nice. All to the tune of what is essentially like future-something. Future R&B. Speaking of futures, hers could be very bright indeed. How wonderful that true talent can shine through in this day and age more than in any other.

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X PRIEST X SAMURAI

Meant to post this a few days but life gets in the way doesn't it. Stuff happens that you kinda can't avoid. Best to accept it than get too frustrated. In any case, that's enough of that.

These are the dulcet dark pop tones of Florida trio X Priest X with the cryptically titled 'Samurai'. Made up of Madeline Priest (vocals), and producers Chandler Strang and David Kazyk, X Priest X embrace wholly a vision of stylised 80s synthpop in this dankly pretty song. It's pristine with a dull tinge that reeks of sunsets come too soon and long walks home - emotional, but with just enough dance sensibility to prop it up, like someone sad still determined to spend a night boogying on the dancefloor.

But that doesn't mean it's the kind of song that's gonna make you cry uncontrollably for no reason. It just has a sad air about it. Perhaps it's the airy drone of the synths, ones that seem to fly like whispy clouds through the rest of the song's sounds - ambiently emotive. The melody too has a tinge of longing to it, both in that of the vocals and the bouncy bass synth.

Not too heavy. And definitely some style in there - the kind of thing that goes hand in hand with a film like Drive; it has that cold-cut aesthetic, that 80s pop spirit that injects groove wherever it steps, that dead-cool vibe of endless nights and neon-lit palm trees. The vocals are clear, lucid, playing host to only a slight echo - in a similar vein, the drums are gloriously understated with especially perfectly placed golden-touch hi-hats.

It's the stuff that escapist dreams are made of. Luckily for those who often have those dreams, or like to listen to music like this that conjures those feelings, X Priest X are currently working on an EP - their debut, in fact.

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