Best of 2018- The Singles

This year, for the fist time we were counting down the top 100 favorite singles  tracks which were either officially released or were simply great album tracks. Just a short refection on the top 3; No 3 is Pinkshinyultrablast's song "In the Hanging Gardens" which combines more influences than any other tune on he charts. It is layered, complex and one of the few songs that was holding the synth pop torch in 2018. At No 2, we find "At least the Sky is Blue" by Ssion and yet another collaboration with Ariel Pink. The video for the song was voted as Video of the Year on our site. And finally, No 1, certainly one of the biggest surprises in 2018, "I Love You, but I am Lost" by Tears for Fears. It was released in the last weeks of 2017 and managed to make an impact on us in 2018. It was not love on first listen, but the song managed to grow becoming the song of the year. Not all Tears for Fears would agree here, but we think that the band managed to reinvent themselves not losing their aesthetics.

Please find the entire top 100 list below.

01. Tears For Fears - I Love You But I 'm Lost

02. SSION ft. Ariel Pink - At Least The Sky Is Blue

03. Pinkshinyultrablast - In The Hanging Gardens

04. Seinabo Sei - I Owe You Nothing

05. MGMT- When You Die

06. Thom Yorke - Unmade

07. Lady Gaga- Your Song

08. Chvrches ft Matt Beringer - My Enemy

09. Johnny Marr - Hi Hello 

10. Robyn- Honey

11. BadBadNotGood - I Don't Know

12. David Byrne - Everybody's Coming to my House

13. U.S. Girls- Rosebud

14. Ladytron - The Island

15. Arcade Fire - Put Your Money on Me

16. Soft Cell - Northern Lights

17. Thom Yorke - Suspirium

18. St Vincent - Fast Slow Disco

19. Sufjan Stevens - Mystery of Love

20. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - If Love Is The Law

Best of 2018 - Top 10 EPs

EP has always been a good format to discover new artists and music and like every year, we are presenting you our favorite extended players in a top ten list. As always the EP is connecting the world from New Zealand, Australia via Europe all the way to US and Canada.

Best of 2018- The Album List

2018 has been quite silent and not such active year with news and updates from our end. Musically there were some interesting releases but much weaker with offer (hardly any synth pop) than the previous years in this decade. Regardless of this, every year comes with a certain charm and some records still manage to impress and leave a long-lasting memory.
What was evident, especially in the top albums pool, is that top four albums, in direct or in indirect way link to the LA music scene, and at least two of them feature collaboration with Ariel Pink which means that we have a thematic top five for the first time.
This year on our menu we have top ten favorite albums plus additional ones worth mentioning, also great but did not make such impact like the first ten. Of course there are always other good ones that we missed who might be considered in the years to come along the new releases.

Best of 1988- Top 50 Singles

In the 20th Century, the year 1988 was the year with the most Roman numeral digits, but more important, in science and technology, it was the year of the first Internet-based chat protocol between  the USA and Europe. 

On the music level, in the UK the charts were dominated by the Stock-Aitken-Waterman hits who received the Brit Award for their production skills most notably for the success of Kylie Minogue and Rick Astley. In the USA the charts were dominated by George Michael, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson. 

On the different floors House music was slowly emerging, while Alternative and indie rock were even more diversified into various other musical expressions including the emerging Shoegaze sound. Of course there was a whole lot of different music moving people' hearts...

01. The Church - Under The Milky Way

02. Morrisey - Everyday is Like Sunday

03. Enya - Orinoco Flow

04. Pet Shop Boys - Domino Dancing

05. Morrissey - Suedehead

06. The La's - There She Goes

07. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat

08. Tracey Chapman - Fast Car

09. The House of Love - Christine

10. Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot 

11. The KLF - What Time is Love? (1988)

12. Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal

13. INXS - Never Tear Us Apart

14. S'Express - Theme from S'Express 

15. Inner City - Good Life

16. Bryan Ferry - Kiss and Tell

17. Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy

18. Eighth Wonder - I'm Not Scared

19. George Michael - One More Try

20. Tanita Tikaram - Twist in my Sobriety

Soft Cell's -Keychains and Snowstorms- Compilation Announced

Soft Cell have announced the release of 'Keychains and Snowstorms', a brand new compilation which comes on 9CD+DVD package. It will feature a wealth of material – 50 percent of which the label claim is unreleased – including 12-inch mixes remastered, B-sides remastered, new extended/reworked versions, early versions and demos, radio sessions, live recordings and more. 'Keychains and Snowstorms' is presented as a ten-inch square book packed with photos and a new essay by Simon Price. It will be released on 7 September 2018.

Section 25 Release 8th Studio Album - Elektra

Section 25 are back with a brand new studio album titled 'Elektra'. This is band's 8th studio album and somehow leads back to the Section 25 old work of tracks recorded in one take and plenty of improvisation. The album is released via Austrian label Klang Galerie on CD and all major download platforms. The CD includes an 8 page booklet called 'Section X Section'. This has a foreword by John Robb and contributions / observations from band members past and present.

http://news.section25.com/2018/07/new-section-25-album-elektra-out-now

OMD celebrate 40th anniversary with the Release of the book 'Pretending to See The Future'

OMD have announced the release of 'Pretending to See the Future', a book that celebrates OMD's 40th anniversary. The book contains commentary from OMD founders Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, plus band members Martin Cooper, Malcolm Holmes and Stuart Kershaw, and is packed full of memorabilia and hundreds of photos. With many images in full colour and previously unseen pictures from the band’s own archive, this is the OMD story as it’s never been told before. Contributing to the interesting concept, the book is mixing hundreds of fan anecdotes with memories from the band, their collaborators, other musicians and celebrity admirers garnered from 40 years of recording and performing. 

More info:
http://www.omd.uk.com/news/pretending-to-see-the-future-40th-anniversary-book/

Available here:
https://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/omd-pretending-to-see-the-future

Culture Club is back with a New Studio Album

Culture Club's original line up is back with their first studio album in 15 years entitled 'Tribes'. The band has been working on this album for three years now and the album is not available on Pledge music. "More than Silence" could be the first single from the album and tentatively it is going to be released on July 6th. 

https://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/cultureclub

Next Wave: Close Encounter

 Close Encounter is a Seattle based music band consisting of Bill Darksoft (Guitar/Vocals), Bobby Sydney (Guitar/Vocals), and Cameron Lambert (Drums). Their music is a perfect blend of shoegaze, jangle pop and psychedelic rave recalling some great genre masters, including Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine. 

The band released their debut 'First Light' in 2017 and 'Lost Time' in March this year, both via Look Up Records. 'Lost Time' combines jangley disco, dark 80s pop, and 90s shoegaze incorporating diverse textures and a wide range of moods, dealing with heartbreak, and the loneliness of modern communication.
The album is available for purchase online via independent record label Look Up Records, as well as in all record stores in Seattle (Everday Music, Silver Platters, Easy Street, and others).

https://closeencounterband.bandcamp.com/

John Maus to Release Addendum this May

John Maus have announced the release of a brand new album studio album which is in fact an early return and follow up to his last year release 'Screen Memories'. The new album will be entitled 'Addendum' and will feature 12 new tracks including the song "Episode" which has already been announced as a lead track. The album was recored during the same time as 'Screen Memories' and was originally intended for Exclusive careers spanning 6 LP boxset. It will be released on CD and digital through Ribbon on May 18th.

Instant Hit: Mekons - Ghosts of American Astronauts

Mekons released "Ghosts of American Astronauts" in 1988 and it was taken from their sixth album So Good it Hurts and the only song released by them in that year. It was backed by "Robin Hood" and issued on Cooking Vinyl in the UK.

Retrovision: The Communards- For A Friend

"For a Friend" was released thirty years ago entering the UK Charts at #33. It is one of the last releases for the band and it was not such a big chart success like some former Communards' tunes, but there is more of a cultural value to it as "For a Friend" was written about a friend of Jimmy Somerville, Mark Ashton who died of the disease aged 26. This is one of the few times the gruesome reality of rising death toll from AIDS in the 80s was addressed in the pop charts. The official music video for the song was directed by Andy Morahan 

Next Wave: There's Talk

There's Talk is an electronic dream pop trio which was started by Oakland based multi-instrumentalist Olivia Lee (vocals, synths, programming, guitar). Kellen Balla (electronics, programming, vocals) and Young Lee (guitar, vocals) joined Olivia with hopes of expanding ambitious electronic soundscapes for live performance. The debut EP 'Tiny Stands' was released in 2013 and after the release the band toured regionally, supporting Glass Animals, Cigarettes After Sex, Arthur Beatrice and many others. Their sophomore release 'Bathed Water Moon' which includes inputs from all band members was released on February 23rd. It includes 4 tracks which perfectly blends buzzing synths and echoing guitars with semi-whispering soft female vocals formulating another deep blue night dream pop concept. 

https://www.facebook.com/TheresTalk/ 

http://www.therestalk.com/Music 

In Review: U.S. Girls- In A Poem Unlimited

U.S. Girls aka Meghan Remy released her seventh studio album 'In a Poem Unlimited' this February and her second all together on the 4AD label. This album comes as a follow up to 'Half Free' from 2015 and its release was preceded with the lead single "M.A.H." which came out last year. The brand new album includes 11 new tracks and it was recorded in collaboration with Meg's husband Max Turnbull aka Slim Twig and his band The Cosmic Range.

U.S. Girls has always been good in experimenting with sound and influences, even before their time on 4AD, and this has not changed even with this release and their artpop seem to have even become more vivid this time. The beats on new album reflect 60's and 70's music styles influences, free jazz forms, boogie disco and funk which turn this venture into more organic and expressive music event. It is very dynamic with some pop delights here and there, the lead single "M.A.H.", downtempo "Rosebud" and more electronically structured "Pearly Gates" and "Poem". Vocally Meg's voice register seems to adjust to the music easily from soft whispering Kylish flavour to full soaring ranges. In terms of content, there is angry political commentary to the songs where it stands up against public lies by political and religious leaders as well as studies about gender power imbalances.

 

Now when we compare it with the previous album, there is the impression that the 'Half Free' even more raw in production, was somehow a rounded up concept,  sample based and obscure, that gave the impression of a more intimate affair with the artist. With "In a Poem Unlimited" it seems that the elements that bring the music together and the instrumentation on some tracks seems to be overexposed and a bit out of place. And track wise we are missing a tune that could reach the quality heights of the  brilliant "Woman's Work" from the 'Half Free'.

 

Overall U.S. Girls has expended their territory musically well and some songs have really nice production quality and the protest tone resonates well with the grooves, but as global product it comes too much as polished light Pop for what we would rather have preferred another experiment with loops and samples and therefore a slight downgrade to 'Half Free'.

Release Date: February 16th

Automelodi Return with New Single and Announce US Tour

The Montreal based Automelodi have also announced their comeback with a brand new track which is featured on Holodeck's Vision One compilation. It’s also been nearly five years since the last full-length Automelodi release and as per Post-Punk's Announcement, Automelodi, now a two-piece, is currently hard at work on the third Automelodi LP. Holodeck has also announced the reissue of Automelodi's second album 'Surlendemains Acides' and the duo will go on US tour. More info here.

 

Ladytron Return with a New Single -Animlas- and Announce New Album

Ladytron are back! After five years of hiatus and some of them focusing more on their solo work, they have released a brand new single "Animals", which also announces their sixth studio album in partnership with Pledge Music, expected to release in the second half of 2018. The b-side single includes the remix of Vince Clark. More about Ladytron to come...