Electropop

Dollskabeat to play in Edinburgh and Glasgow

23 Jul 2009

ELECTRO POP You suspect that Lucy Ross (aka Dollskabeat) might not be one of these musical prodigies who make music look all too easy. ‘I had no idea it would be so bloody hard,’ she says. ‘I had loads of ideas floating around my head and I sang them…

La Roux

9 Jul 2009

Good pop music is instant, but great pop music lasts forever. Elly ‘La Roux’ Jackson, with hair like a winsome gingerbread Mr Whippy, a voice like spun sugar and on the receiving end of more hyperbole than Cristiano Ronaldo, Kanye West and Susan Boyle…

Esser - Braveface

30 Apr 2009

ELECTRO POP Chiselled electro-pop boxer Ben Esser runs the risk of being eclipsed by his quiff, but on the evidence of Braveface, the swaggering Essex techno-dude may yet outshine his sleek coiffure. Addled with a fire-crack amalgam of digital…

M83 - Saturdays=Youth

20 Jan 2009

ELECTRONIC/DREAMPOP (EMI) As special guests on the UK tour of Kings of Leon and support act for The Killers US Tour, M83 have felt it appropriate to re-release their album which was met with critical acclaim first time round but little in the way of…

Manda Rin - My DNA

18 Sep 2008

ELECTRO POP After 14 years in bands like Data Panik, The Kitchen and most famously Bis, this is the first time Amanda McKinnon has stepped away from the collaborations and released under her own (stage) name – although listening to the album, it…

Hot Chip

14 Feb 2008

ELECTRO-POP Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 26 Feb ‘I guess we’ve always been outsiders,’ says Felix Martin, one fifth of geeky electro-pop outfit Hot Chip. ‘I think that comes across in our music. We seem to be unique, we’ve never felt closely related to…

Findo Gask, Someyoungpedro and How to Swim

17 Jan 2008

ELECTRO-POP/PUNK/ROCK Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 21 Dec ‘Twas a few nights before Christmas, and all sorts were stirring. How to Swim firstly – an eight-piece who have been bigged up by this publication plenty of times for their wailing…

Technophobes and Iamchemist

4 Jan 2008

ELECTRO POP Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sun 16 Dec Marty McFly was the only kid ever to get into trouble before he was born. Lamentably, I reckon I was the only person in the audience to get into trouble before either Technophobes or iamchemist were…

Simian Mobile Disco

4 Jun 2007

ELECTROPOP Happily enough for them, quite possibly the biggest moment in electropop duo Simian Mobile Disco’s entire career came about through no fault of their own. Of course, James Shaw and James Ford had already done the whole ‘boys with guitars…

Records - Pomegranate

Pomegranate

13 Mar 2007

ELECTRO POP With a background in futuristic theatre productions and distant cinematic electronica, Pomegranate (duo Stef McGlinchey and Vanessa Rigg) certainly know how to put a layered, nocturnal soundscape or two together (not for nowt is the…

Calvin Harris

Ultragroove, Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Sat 27 J

12 Feb 2007

ELECTRO POP Stop me if you’ve heard one this before: Calvin Harris is the new Mylo. I must admit I didn’t get the anticipated use out my old one and am somewhat wary of upgrading my pop-club saviour should it prove obsolete or, heaven forbid…

Junior Boys - album review

Junior Boys

2 Oct 2006

ELECTROPOP The so far unannounced Depeche Mode revival gets sharply booted into action by these sprightly lads from Canada who claim to be on a cutting edge of ‘Modernist MOR’ which aims to destroy the point of Blunt and co. It still just sounds like…

Peaches

Electro-political-sexual-pop revolutionaries are d

28 Sep 2006

A couple of years ago in a Parisian café, an elderly man sitting at the next table passed me a note over breakfast. It read, ‘Trust no Bush but your own’. Impeach my Bush, the title of Peaches’ new album inhabits similar territory and continues where…