Despite his recalcitrance in self-exposing on live stages and the mysterious veil on his identity, Tokyo-based electronic wizard Serph keeps on catching many listener's ears by means of this graceful brand new album, the fourth one of a hopefully big batch, which follows his acclaimed "Heartstrings" and renews and enhances all the distinctive features that justified the incredible sales of his past releases and recently fertilized the dry grounds of dance music by means of his new dance-oriented project Reliq. There's even a logical connection with his previous album , where he seems to describe an utopian world, as suggested by the title "El Esperanka" - a neologism, supposedly coming from the combination of "esperanca", Spanish word for "hope", and "ankh", the ancient Egyptian "key of life" -. Whatsoever blossom Serph is expecting to harvest, listeners will easily bask his musical efflorescences, which bud by means of gorgeous uplifting melodies which swing between jazzy tunes, childish roundelays, easier J-pop themes and springy overjoyed explosions (they could even surmise the hooking melodies of tv or radio jingles or pre-set songs of toy keyboards), breathtaking sparkling rhythm sections, twisting pinwheels and confetti of sonic slides (he reaches peaks of intriguing intricacy on tracks like "Vesta", "Wizardmix" or "Ankh"), refreshing whirlwind of popping splashes and chugs ("Shift", "Magicalpath", "Curve"), sudden chromatic and tonal permutations ("Felixz", "Rem") and the most amazing aspect lies in the fact that he blends so many elements with a built-in adroitness and a catchy vivaciousness which could be associated to nothing but a beating of wings by a butterfly or a fine-feathered bird. The reference to Ankh, the so-called key of life, could be a key for the access to the positive conceptual and "spiritual" (quixotic?) world, which Serph musically daubs, where a pell-mell dimension is no more a source for torment, which vexes a reasoning mind with the obsession for geometrical order, but a thrilling path to happiness!

Nuevo West born from the ashes of a Phoenix band called The Red Squares which disbanded at the end of 1983. Their singer/guitar player Sonic Mike Stephens and the other guitarist/keyboard player Roger Lee Chavous, decided to form another band when they met the bass player Walter Charchuck. Together they had the crazy idea to mix synth punk and country music. The drummer Greg David combined his drumming with the rhythms of a drum machine and dressed like Arizona cowboys, they started playing at art galleries and other unconventional places. Finally, Nuvo West were born. Soon after, they took their four tracks Tascam recorder and started to record their first MLP "Scary". The record was containing six original tunes of which three instrumentals. "Accidents don't happen in my world", "Dogs have their days"and "Little yellow pills" were sounding modern and pop: a sort of Devo meet Wall Of Voodoo. Lyrics were talking about the neurosis of the modern world with an ironic twist. The three instrumental tracks "Androids love", "Shades" and "Theme for alienation", were sounding more adventurous compared to the previous three and even more experimental. Melody, spacey atmospheres or post punk upbeat tempos were the main elements of those cool tracks. The year after, the band went to the studio again and recorded their tape: "Twankin'". Containing six new tracks, the tape sold twice compared to the MLP. Country music was the biggest influence for those tracks: the main tune is a clear example of that, thanks to that classic way of playing guitar and those double snare beats, "Desertate 7" starts with an harmonica and has a massive use of cowbell, "Shades of yesterday" is a melancholic instrumental with a bit of space atmospheres, "Love made a fool of me" is a nice pop song and the closing "The town the winter forgot & The night is over" (they are really two different tracks mixed together), are a nice synth punk song and an upbeat country punk one. Personally I prefer "Scary" to the second release as to me it sounds more inspired and less linked to the American musical tradition. Probably on early 80s mixing synthetic sounds, punk and country was something innovative but I prefer alienation to tradition... Anyway this, by Synthetic Shadows, is a really good remastered reissue which gathers all the releases recorded by the band and it also contains an insert with history and the lyrics from "Scary".

After the acclaimed debut "She Was Coloured In" in 2010, the epicurean stylish Irish duo of Solar Bears comes back on stages with an adorable album, which lacquers listener's earsdrums by means of fluoroscopic and somehow melancholic synth-pop tune as well as a certain dramatic hook and tastes sweet as honey thanks to the topping of ingredients which sound taken from an imaginary recipe book written by proper celebrity chefs of modern and contemporary music such as Boards Of Canada, Air, Stereolab, Vangelis, Death In Vegas, Giorgio Moroder and other knights of cosmic disco courtship, whose best insights seem to palpitate inside the artistic streak of many charming moments of this "Supermigration", a title inspired by Native American mystic culture and the legendary krautrock band Neu!. The lullaby-like piano introduction on "Stasis" resembles the beginning of late night old-fashioned radio-shows and precedes the amazing twist of "Cosmic Runner", where Solar Bears immediately hook listener's hearts and brains by means of an entrancing gyraton on electric guitar and gleaming synths and a tune which is very close to some similar stuff by Boards Of Canada. One of the best moment of the album has been reached on "Alpha People", a lovely synth-pop song sung by Sarah P, which could be described as an imaginary reinterpretation of Air sonorities by Love Spirals Downwards due to the similarities between Sarah P's voice and Suzanne Perry's one as well as the analogy with the style of the notorious French band, while the following "Love Is All", a sweet mixture of alluring synth-pop and electronic bossa nova, could resemble some moments of Stereolab. Its intimate coziness vanishes on the following angst-driven "The Girl that Played with Light", whose drilling guitar and progressive crescendo, which get embellished by absorbing reverbs, smooth melody and sonic preciosities, vaguely resembles above-mentioned Death In Vegas, whose masterpiece "Satan's Circus" crosses my mind on another synth-verdant track, "Komplex", even if under a more "angelical" guise. The opening intro "Statis" seems to be reprised on the deeply intimate jingle-like fathom interlude "You and Me (Subterranean Cycles)", while another substantial peak has been reached on the dazzling song "Our Future Is Underground", a subdued evocation of a shining memory, where present day magically irradiates the unforgotten luminosity by means of the mystical combination of guitar-driven lulling melody, joyful childish drumming and the voice of guest singer (and former Air collaborator) Beth Hirsch. The mindblowing cosmic ride of "A Sky Darkly" precedes the "bucolic" trot "Rising High", which get listeners ready to the engaging synth-disco of "Happiness is a Warm Spacestation", whose title summarize the bursts of sci-fi heat that are going to trigger emotional storms within nostalgic lovers of this kind of sonic juggernauts. The final bedroom rocker "Rainbow Collision" ends in style this psychedelic daydream, a proper musical trip which I cannot but recommend.

Aidan Casserly never gets some rest and by the results he achieves, I think he's right to do what he does. This times he's back with a new project called Kubo. Formed by Aidan and Brian O'Malley (PolyDROID), who already played together in 1986 as ManSeries when they were at school, Kubo just released for Vocoder Tapes their first release, a tape single containing two tracks: "I Dream Electric" and "The Light That Blinds". Musically, the duo plays minimal syntwave music, inspired as much by themes of alienation and science fiction, as it is by the exploration of pure electronic sound. Brian is taking care of the sounds and his influences goes from the electronic music of the seventies (do you remember Vangelis early albums "Heaven And Hell" or the following "Albedo 0.39" and their pulsating sounds and ambient dark atmospheres?), to late seventies/early eighties electronic wave heroes of the likes of Gary Numan. These tense atmospheres find their counterpart into Aidan's vocals: influenced by passionate singers like David Bowie or Jacques Brel his voice gives a twist to the cold beats of the drum machine. Thumbs up for their first release and you can make your own idea by checking them at http://vocodertapes.bandcamp.com/album/i-dream-electric

This intriguing self-named debut release by Vulgar Fashion is one of the most interesting proposal by dynamic label Handmade Birds, who shed chrism on their amazingly contaminated style, which some lucky listeners already tasted during their somehow quirky live exhibition where frontwoman Kubic Zirconia sings and dances on a mist-shrouded (by a portable artifical smoke machine) stage while she smears herself with fake blood and keyboardist Slush numbly maneuvers (seemingly analog) machines in the dark. The initial "Krystal Liez" could let listener imagine that kind of sexy female vampire, who could easily gain liters of blood and a plenty of juicy necks with no efforts due to her allure, so that they immediately respect expectation which could rise from the reading of the official introduction (according to Handmade Birds, "Vulgar Fashion uncovers what heterosexual men think about when they see sexually provocative advertising and stokes the flames of public panic and profit on paranoia over global contagions, extreme weather events, and food contamination scares, while mining our digital footprints to target us with ads and offers that appeal to our psychological profiles"!), which got invigorated by the plastic prurience of the following "Golden Showers". While "Nite Yacht" hovers around that sound which has been succesfully reprised by so-called witch-house, Miss Zircnoia turns into a sort of bad girl who nurtures the hobby of black art on the rabidly riveting "Pact With The Devil", which precedes "Krystal tearz", the most romantic and nostalgic peak of this release, where some mysterious hints made me thought about some stuff by The Electronic Circus, Visage or Crystal Castles. Promising debut!