Paris XY: "The Return"

This one has been kicking around a few weeks but I can't let it slip through the cracks. The 90's female singing style has been heavily in vogue for at least a year now, but Paris XY flip the script a little bit, never really delving into the expected modern rock but also proving too restless to adhere to the new wave schtick which still hasn't gotten its overdue backlash. "The Return" percolates along menacingly for the first few minutes before escalating into a filthy update on old skool rave... and no bullshit EDM in sight! Yep, what this track almost gets wrong - sidestepping disaster only at the last second - is every bit as important as what it emphatically gets right.

White Sea: "Prague"

Your first thought might be "this doesn't deviate enough from the M83 template to warrant a side project", but damn if it doesn't deliver the goods. Yay, though White Sea is the "solo" debut of M83's Morgan Kibby, first single "Prague" is prefabbed ear sugar custom built for what's left of modern rock radio... after cleaning up that deceptively vulgar chorus, naturally.

Will you quickly tire of this song after 20-30 spins? Probably. Does that negate the value of those 20-30 spins? Not in the least.

St. Lucia: "Elevate"

Maybe you can't judge a book by its cover, but goddamn if that shirt doesn't say it all. "Elevate" is meant to be consumed with mai thai in hand on a pristine beach with colorful flora highlighting a jungle backdrop. St. Lucia keeps it strictly 80's, eschewing the murky production that would otherwise pigeonhole his work in the chillwave genre. This is a guy who started at Human League and didn't bother digging any further than Thompson Twins, and sometimes that's all you need.

Poliça: "Tiff" [feat. Justin Vernon]

Well well, Mr. Bon Iver himself takes a little time off from being Kanye's cracker barrel muse and throws a little love elsewhere, this time popping up as a back up vocalist on Poliça's fantastic new single, "Tiff". Honestly I'm guessing Justin Vernon's contribution took him all of five minutes to lay down, so let's reserve most of the credit for Channy Leaneagh's 90s chanteuse vocals atop Ryan Olson's synthpop-meets-cloud rap production.

College: "Départ"

There's arguably been no greater popularity booster for post-Moroder minimalist electro than the 80's-repping soundtrack to Nicholas Winding Refn's 2011 polarizing film, Drive. Kavinsky's "Nightcall" got most of the press, but David Grellier's College project made noise with their Electric Youth-featuring "A Real Hero". Grellier's chosen nom de plume evokes 80's electro-R&B group Collage and "Electric Youth" is obviously the name of a (best forgotten) Debbie Gibson hit, so everything about the song was firmly rooted in a specific decade.

College goes back to 2005, one of several backward-glancing projects that Grellier juggles - others being Valerie and Sexy Sushi - and March saw the quiet release of their third album, Heritage.

Hey Champ: "Celebrate"

I listened to the new Simply Red recently. Sucked. As you probably expected it. "Celebrate" actually sounds more like SR contemporaries Thompson Twins, maybe with Howard Jones fronting. That chorus is totally it's own beast, however.

Butterclock: "Hologram"

In contrast to the previous two posts this morning, this synthpop jam from Berlin upstarts Butterclock is sweet effervescence with no trace of cynicism or doom. The beat has a beat of that 80's freestyle (a.k.a Latin hip-hop) vibe, also reminiscent of cracker-rap classic "Genius of Love", which I guess had kind of a Krautrock engine driving it as well now that I think about it. Full circle, then, carry on...

Lemonade: "Perfect Blue"

"Perfect Blue" is like vintage Erasure, putting full stock in a minimal synth line with only skeletal beats adorning the framework, with a lilting vocal line taking center stage. Lemonade also share that band's penchant for huge choruses to provide contrast to the more intimate verses. When done well there's always room for more of this.

Snowden: "So Red"

I always feel a twinge of homer guilt when I post an Austin band, wondering to myself whether I'm holding them to the same standards that I would if the group weren't from my hometown. Then it occurs to me that writers in other thriving music scenes like Brooklyn and Chicago would be willfully ignoring a lot of great bands if they took a pass on their own locals, so with that I bring you Snowden.

No One In Control is out May 14 on Serpents & Snakes Records.

(via Off the Radar):

Cold Cave: "Oceans With No End"

RIP Justin Benoit. The former Cold Cave collaborator passed away from an undisclosed reason last week. The "band" is basically Wesley Eisold's baby, so Benoit's passing won't affect the touring/release schedule (he'd already exited the revolving door line up some time prior) but at 35 years old his untimely end seems like exactly the kind of warm eulogy a track like "Oceans With No End" was meant to commemorate.

Goldroom: "Sweetness Alive" [Future Unlimited Remix]

We've covered Future Unlimited before, but here they're remixing Goldroom - a band hitherto unknown to WKMR - to stunning effect. Nothing wrong with the original, but take a gander at the unreconstructed version over at Goldroom's Soundcloud then come back and tell me this mix doesn't take it to some next shit.

Psychic Twin: "Strangers"

More evidence that "chillwave" was a crass marketing gimmick all along, and that the faux genre's perpetrators actually meant to occupy the crevice between arctic synthpop and tropical dream pop all along. I mean, they're all marketing terms, obviously, but most of them serve a certain shorthand purpose, as opposed to the clearly deliberate attempt to coin a phrase just for the sake of coining a phrase. Oh, and by the way: Psychic Twin, y'all.

Banks: "Before I Even Met You"

In spite of what many who want to write off all new music as derivative will tell you, there's been an insane amount of excellent - even groundbreaking - shit that's come out of the 80's synth renaissance in recent years. Truth be told, though, we've reached a saturation point and have now hit Peak New Wave. So what's next? Fucking 90's revival, what else?

Banks kind of hearkens back to the Trip Hop-lite of Poe but makes sure to throw a little of that sultry Lana Del Ray sex kitten in there to stay contemporary. It sounds a bit art-by-committee on paper, but as a first single it works pretty well; the vocals have an appealing melodic flow, and I actually appreciate the fact that whoever produced this opened up the beat instead of burying it in gauze like every other shoegaze/dream pop crossover track of 2012.

Toro Y Moi: "Say That"

Quick, one last chillwave entry before the wheels come off. Can't believe I haven't covered Toro Y Moi previously, but then again I don't tend to cover a lot of the tunes that are already canvassed by literally every other indie blog on the planet.

I'm making an exception for this one because it may, in retrospect, represent the moment where the genre merged into mainstream pop. The production lacks the syrupy filters and atavistic synth lines associated with the style, instead proffering a breezy yet accessible pop sensibility. In other words, we've reached Peak Chillwave. Shit happens.

Anything in Return is out January 22 on Carpark Records.

Purity Ring: "Lofticries"

Production values are definitely of an era: it's easy to imagine "Lofticries" coming out back in the late 90's with more of a hazy, slowed down trip hop vibe. All of which is to say that the central melody has a timeless pop quality to it, not dissimilar to what Grimes is pimping these days (both 4AD artists, none too coincidentally). The Shrines album came out last summer - and singles from it were already being released in late 2011 - so presumably this is the last of the OG shit we'll see until the sophomore material is prepped.

The Presets: "Promises"

"Promises" brings back that Northern Soul-influenced synthpop of the early 80s, sort of a middle ground between Spandau Ballet and Level 42.

The Octopus Project: "Whitby"

As far as Austin-based retro synth bands go, Ghostland Observatory gets all the love (and a lot of backlash to go with it), to the extent that fellow townies The Octopus Project have been quietly playing wallflower to Ghostland's raging kegger for years now. A lot of that probably has to do with O.P.'s sound oscillating wildly between eclectic genres of synth-friendly tuneage. "Whitby" is about as accessible as the band get, with the lion's share of the quartet's more esoteric energy apparently being funneled into this maniac music video.

The Whitby EP is already out on Peek-A-Boo.

Prince Rama: "Those Who Live For Love Will Live Forever"

Much of today's retro-synthpop is less outright homage than drugged out, misremembered pastiche. Nowhere is there a better example than Prince Rama, a well-hyped piss take whose Top Ten Hits of the End of the World was released recently to universal acclaim (and threats of year end top 10 placements) on Animal Collective's Paw Tracks label. These fuzzy, weathered, VHS-reminiscent videos are a dime a dozen these days, but few bands pull off the sound to go with them quite as successfully as this lysergic, ersatz aerobics anthem which is zero percent grounded in reality (or even pathos). This Beantown duo has done nothing less but disappear down their own K(-Tel) holes and want to bring us all to the party. Rendezvous with Rama, but pack a heavy lunch... you're gonna be gone awhile.

Cold Cave: "A Little Death to Laugh"

Tidy little sound Cold Cave got going for them, grimly fiendish goth vox insisting on business up front while squiggly, upbeat synth lines scream party in the back. It's like if Erasure went darkwave, which is exactly what Erasure should be doing right about now.

This 7" is supposed to be getting a release via Heartworm Press but damned if I can find it on their site, so shoot on over to Cold Cave's website if you want it.

Hiawatha: "Dogs of War"

If chillwave is on its way let "Dogs of War" be one of its last great anthems. Hiawatha is the side project of Night Slugs producer Egyptrixx, though he does a damn fine job covering up that fact on his data-deprived Soundcloud profile.