Kissy Sell Out

Kissy Sell Out is a one-man DJ/Producer team with an album just out (Yes, this was yet another of my famed trips to Vinyl Exchange, paying about £3 from a random promo in the Electro section). He hails from Essex here in the UK, and has remixed everyone from Gwen Stefani to the Human League to Datarock to The Noisettes. In 2009, Mixmag described him as "one of the most exciting, charismatic and entertaining DJs of the decade" - gret praise indeed!

The album Youth took over a year to make and is inspired by his childhood memories of growing up in Essex, UK. It contains 11 tracks, 3 of which are instrumental and includes a long-awaited full length version of "Harriet" - a track Kissy wrote about missing his younger cousin while she was at university. To my ears, Kissy Sell Out's music has that distorted electro-rock sound of Justice, but with far better tunes and a lot more vocals. The album is a pleasure to listen to from start to finish, and really has hardly any filler in there.



Download: Kissy Sell Out - Garden Friends
Hervé ft Kissy Sell Out - Everybody

La Roux

Flame-haired songstress La Roux seems to be getting a lot of hype in all the right places - she's been named in the BBC's annual ones to watch list, along with Frankmusic and already-got-a-number-one Lady Gaga, among others. Signed to the cooler-than-thou Kitsuné record label, she's already featured on their Maison 6 compilation, to great acclaim.

La Roux's music seems to be one of those hipster-girls-doing-electro affairs that goes down well amongst all those indieish circles that I used to frequent all the time. 'Quicksand' has a distinct whiff of Prince's 'When Doves Cry' about it, and next single 'In for the Kill' is a jolly synthpop ditty, whereas 'Bulletproof' sounds like it could've been produced by The Knife in one of their more listeneable moments. All her iconography is heavily 80s-influenced, which goes very well with the music in question.

Download: La Roux - Quicksand

La Roux - Bulletproof

Visit: La Roux's Myspace

La Roux's Official Website

Annie - Norwegian Pop Goddess!

Norwegian popstrel Annie has recently allowed a track to be leaked (legally!) - the eagerly-anticipated Two of Hearts, a cover of the song by Stacy Q. Annie's version is produced by her partner-in-crime, Richard X, and though it's still pretty good, the song seems to lose something in translation.

Obviously, Annie's record company are hoping that she'll follow her fellow Scandinavian and 'do a Robyn'. With the help of hitmakers Xenomania (Girls Aloud, Sugababes) and Richard X, she looks set to continue this trend.

In case you can't remember who Annie is, here's a Youtube clip to refresh your memory:



That was one of Annie's previous 'hits', Heartbeat.
Download: Danny Danny (Bonus Track)
The Crush(Richard X mix)
I Can't Let Go
Two Of Hearts (Stacy Q Cover - Richard X Production)

Buy: The album Don't Stop at Amazon.co.uk

Spektrum

The band Spektrum might not technically fit into the Electro category, personally I consider them to be more Punk-funk or Disco-not-Disco. One thing is for sure though, the band really do churn out some great tracks.

If you recognise the name already, it might be because of their club smash Kinda New (We all Live and Die) as remixed by Tiefschwarz and Dirty South, the Tiefscwarz mix of which is below, just to jog your memory.

(Apologies that it's got other music around the edges, this was the best YouTube could offer).

All that was back in 2006, and of course we don't expect the band themselves to produce more tracks sonically similar to a remix they weren't responsible for in the first place!

Fast-forward to 2008, and Spektrum have a follow-up album entitled Fun at the Gymkhana Club, showcasing their own musical style, which bears more than a passing resemblance to that of New Young Pony Club, but somehow with much more energy then the aforementioned band. Indeed, Spektrum's album cover features the band in horse-riding gear, and the album itself contains a track named Horny Pony(!) possibly in a sage nod towards NYPC.

Download: Spektrum - The Mirror Man

Download: Spektrum - Build An Army (Snax mix)

Visit: Spektrum on MySpace

Mantronix

OK, so who said this blog had to only be about new music?

Many of you will have heard of Mantronix before, even if it's just for their biggest hit Got To Have Your Love (later covered by Liberty X). Mantronix are an Electro band who survived with a few lineup changes from 1984-91 and are Electro in the original sense of the word meaning rap music with an electronic backing. This was breaking the mould at the time when rappers seemed to be doing nothing but chopping up James Brown songs to rap over.



Based around the production of Kurtis Mantronik, the band successfully carved their own niche back in the day as a nice link between Afrika Bambaataa and the New Jack music of the day. Since then, they've been sampled by such luminaries as the Beastie Boys, Beck and many others.

Around 1985, Mantronik himself begann working on A&R at Sleeping Bag, where he signed EPMD and produced for Tricky Tee and T La Rock. Simultaneously releasing his own second album - this was a hard-working man in demand!

Early track 'Ladies' here shows the blueprint for which their biggest hit would soon follow.

Download: Mantronix - Ladies

Visit: Mantronix on Myspace

And remember kids - if you'd like to support the artists please...
Buy: Mantronix at Blah.com
You have no excuse now that most of their albums are only a fiver each!

Vivek Shraya

OK this man contacted me via his MySpace, basically in a bid to be included in this very blog and it's the best offer of it's kind that I've had! A few days after being contacted, I had a shiny new CD in the post! (This blogging malarkey is turning out better than I thought eh?)

In my opinion, he's the best electro artist to come out of Canada since Tiga (bear in mind, I'm not actually aware of very many other electro artists hailing from Canada).

The man seems to be positioned as an even-cooler Calvin Harris, or as a Sam Sparro without all the pointing towards his penis (what is that all about?) And lets, be honest, Vivek is actually quite fit, which is very important in the grand scheme of things. His musical style is electropop with big squelchy synths, immaculate vocals and the occasional glam-rock guitar stab. The resulting sound is left-field without losing its pop sensibilities. And no, he does not sound like Goldfrapp.

Vivek seems to be getting some publicity out of the fact that he's covered Seven Nation Army (who hasn't?) but in this case, he's actually made the song sound even better than the original.

So here I present for your delectation, a pair of tracks from the lovely Vivek.

Download: Vivek Shraya - Scratch
Download: Vivek Shraya ft Sara Quin - Your Name

Visit: His myspace
Vivek Shraya Official Website - You can also buy his CDs here.

Digital Dog: Remixers/Producers of Glitchy Electro

A Remixer/Producer type, Digital Dog's first original production on commercial release is the single from Therese. You might recognise her name as that of the guest singer from those Stonebridge songs. No? Well it's her anyway. Her of 'Put Em High' fame.

Therese's debut single is actually nothing like the music that she's guested on, and it's all the better for it - Feelin Me is a great slice of glitchy Electro-Pop.

There's an album coming out for this young lady fairly soon, with more work produced by Digital Dog, along with a few collaborations with the aforementioned Stonebridge, and with Thomas Gold. Looks like Positiva are looking after her pretty well for a Dance Act, and if they play their cards right, she could become pretty damn successful in a Dannii Minogue-circa-2005 way. Neon Lights See My... Obviously sounds Dannii-esque as a title, and to be fair I'm not sure who this is produced by, but it does have a similar sound to Feelin' Me so is most probably another Digital Dog one. Interestingly, she uses the line 'hooked on you' in both tracks. Maybe she's trying to make this her 'signature line', much like Mary J Blige did with 'No More Drama'?
Download: Therese - Feelin Me
Download: Therese - Neon Lights See My...
View: The video for Feelin' Me

Another person to benefit from the Digital Dog treatment is Sophie Ellis-Bextor, with her last single 'Catch You', which was the Comeback one, allegedly, but didn't seem to do much damage to the public conscious, as far as I could tell(?) Anyway, the Dog's rework of the song has slower vocals than the original radio edit, and is in the same Glitchy-Electro vein.
Download: Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Catch You (Digital Dogs Club Mix)

Sophie's new album Trip The Light Fantastic is in the shops now - and in my opinion, the album constitutes the best work she's ever done, and thoroughly deserves to be a huge hit. If you've heard the two singles Catch You and Me And My Imagination, they only tell half the story, as the most interesting tracks are still the album tracks. So as a special gift, I'm offering a track from said album. New York City Lights is probably closer to Catch You than the sebsequent single, but has an electronic feel to it as well (why would it be in this blog otherwise?) whilst still being a great Pop Song through and through.
Download: Sophie Ellis-Bextor - New York City Lights
Buy: Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Trip the Light Fantastic from HMV.co.uk (£8.99 inc P&P)

And Finally, we have Pink. Yes, Pink does often annoy me with all her claiming to be 'Not Here for Your Entertainment' (You're a pop singer for a living you stupid girl, of course you're here for our entertainment), and professing to not be one of those awful slutty megastars in 'Stupid Girls' (then what were you doing dressed like that in the Lady Marmalade video you hypochrite), but I digress...
The Digital Dog mix of Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely) is as commercial as everything else she's done, except it's good. Enough said really.
Download: Pink - Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely) (Digital Dog Radio Edit)