Electronic heartstrings

Bright Light Bright Light and Rowsy Bosch. I've written about both artists before, but given that they've both just released outstanding new songs, I feel compelled to write about them again in the hopes that my little blog might help spread the word about artists who deserve greater exposure.

A year ago, I called the debut album from Bright Light Bright Light a contender for album of the year. I will amend that slightly to remove "a contender for" and just call it my favorite album of 2012. I can still listen to it from start to finish and hear new details, enjoy it fully as if it were my first listen, and be sad when it seems to be over too soon. (Happily for me, Bright Light Bright Light are performing a few shows around the US, including a stop in San Francisco with Slow Knights later this month. I cannot wait!)

June 3 saw the release of the final single from Make Me Believe In Hope, the melancholic and melodic "Moves". The release includes a lovely video, along with a remix and two bonus tracks, "Blueprint" and "This Is Me Without You", the latter of which is the standout track.

With a tinkling piano to start, the song features a lovely build to cathartic rhythms with lyrics detailing with no small amount of sadness and acceptance the end of a relationship and the need to heal. "On your breath, even simple words / Felt much louder than the streets around me" goes one verse; "But I made my peace with what you couldn't say / Now I move on without you / And hope that you are doing the same" comes the refrain.

It is achingly beautiful, a fitting companion to the A-side, and the perfect conclusion to the Make Me Believe In Hope period. Buy the Moves EP on Amazon MP3.

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Now let us turn our attention to the stellar track dropped this week from Rowsy Bosch featuring Jeb Havens. I wrote about their debut EP last October, and in the meantime they've been hard at work on new material.

"Turn Me On" is a suitable companion to "This Is Me Without You" in several ways: it's an uptempo electronic track, it features a male vocalist, and its lyrics are far more melancholy than the arrangement might lead you to expect. (This will come as no surprise to fans of Depeche Mode, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Robyn, ... ). Where "This Is Me Without You" seeks to move past a failed relationship, however, "Turn Me On" seeks to make peace with a world that cannot or will not give everyone the room they need to breathe and realize their full potential.

"There are days / I just get home and it's on to the next beat / I can't shake this autopilot seeping into my life"

"There are wars being waged on the airwaves / Who am I supposed to be?"

This song marks an evolution in the band's sound, upping the tempo but holding on to the elements that give a song its heart: melody and lyricism. I am very eager to see what comes next for them!

Buy "Turn Me On" on Amazon MP3, and catch Rowsy Bosch featuring Jeb Havens at San Francisco Pride.

Bright Light Bright Light - Make Me Believe In Hope

Remember how my favorite album of last year was Voyage by The Sound of Arrows? Halfway through 2012, we now have the strongest contender yet for that title: Make Me Believe In Hope, the debut album from Bright Light Bright Light.

Nearly a year after releasing the best Robyn song Robyn never made (Disco Moment), the album that follows is full of songs that fully engage the ears, the mind and, above all, the heart. It plays simultaneously as tribute and heir to the dance-pop of the early 1990s. Many songs, especially Feel It, Waiting For the Feeling, and Cry At Films, would feel right at home in a mix with early Cathy Dennis and CeCe Peniston.

The album traces a series of emotional highs and lows, embracing the euphoria of new love (Feel It), rebirth (Love Part Two), mourning (Cry At Films), despair (Moves), resignation (Disco Moment), and acceptance (Grace). Hope is a recurring theme, so the album's pleading title is a perfect fit.

Though there is but one "slow dance" ballad (Debris), the writing is so solid that each and every song would work perfectly well as a spare piano piece. (For proof, check out the Blueprints EP, which contains stripped-down versions of four songs from the album.) Each time I listen to the album—and I've listened to it start-to-finish over a dozen times—the stretch of sad songs beginning with Cry At Films and finishing up with Disco Moment brings me to the point of tears. The album is just that good. On top of that, Rod's voice is evocative and perfectly matched to the instruments, with no Auto-Tune to be found. (Thank the heavens!)

Rod Thomas and his collaborators are to be commended for releasing such a strong, cohesive, confident collection of music. They put a whole lot of love into this album, and it shows. I hope the album gains traction in North America, because I would like nothing more than to hear these songs performed live.

Make Me Believe In Hope is out now. Buy it on iTunes, stream it at AOL Spinner. Buy the Blueprints EP on iTunes or on Amazon.

This week in music

This has been an excellent week for new music! And by that, I mean new-new as well as just new-to-me. Let's start with the new-new stuff.

New Jams

In the interest of readability, I'm providing links rather than embedded players. It also seems right to link to the sources where I discovered this stuff, rather than try to claim it as my own.

First up, we have, at long last, the debut EP from sexy, heartfelt Aussie duo Garçon Garçon. I've been enjoying their song Stay In Touch for a while now, as it's got that inexplicably perfect blend of upbeat synths, sad lyrics, and earnest vocal delivery we've loved for going on thirty years now. The five-track EP expands on that sound, giving us a danceable plea for companionship (Take Me Out), a gritty ditty featuring a verse from Cazwell (Hollywood Song), and wistful—and blessedly non-gender-neutral—longing for love (Maybe Tonight). Give the EP a listen and buy it; these guys deserve the support!

Next, rising star Moxiie dropped a Valentine's Day bombshell of a song on the world. As a followup to her stunning "Jungle Pop" EP, Everything To Me is a smooth, bouncy ode to devotion. It's a free download, so go get it and get into the Moxiie groove.

Bright Light Bright Light, the source of all things disco momentous, gave us a Valentine's Day mixtape that included his delightful remix of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" which he then made available by itself. The remix takes an already brilliant song, which has seen its share of excellent remixes, and transports it back to the dance floor of 1994. And that is by every measure an excellent thing. It makes me that much more eager for Bright Light Bright Light's full-length album, which should see release in the coming months. Check out Gotye's "Making Mirrors" on Rdio.

Other stuff that made me lose my shit this week:

• An astonishingly good mashup of Robyn's "Dancing On My Own" with Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know?" – I'm still shaken up about Whitney Houston's death. The world has lost a truly excellent talent, though it could be said that talent was lost to drug addiction years ago.
• Monarchy's remix of "Lights" by Josh Beech and the Johns
• Sweden's Smith & Thell deliver hotness with "Kill It With Love".
• Another Swedish pop star, Darin, delivers dance-pop perfection with "Nobody Knows" – I've said before and I'll say it again: I really should just move to Sweden.
• San Francisco's Midi Matilda drops a moody, catchy EP available in multiple download formats, and they're letting you set your own price. This is the wave of the future! Go listen to and buy Red Light District now.

New to me

I discovered K.Flay last year when she opened for Casio Kids at Cafe du Nord and was mesmerized. This girl has got it all. What I didn't know is that she'd already put out one EP, and now she has another. I bought both, and they're fantastic.

Karmin performed on Saturday Night Live last weekend, though you wouldn't know it if you watched the episode on Hulu or bought it on Amazon; music performances are often cut out from the post-broadcast digital versions. Why the labels and publishers insist on doing that is beyond me, because I see it as limiting the artist's exposure. Nevertheless, I looked for Karmin's performances and found them on Vevo, and they're fantastic. (Never mind the terrible website.) Everything is available on Rdio, too.

Lastly, I don't know how I managed to live through the 80's as a synth-pop fan without discovering the music of Ultravox. Listening to their best-of on Rdio this week, I was kicking myself for missing it when it first happened. Happily, it's all available there, and it provides a great musical history lesson. For instance, I had no idea that Infernal's "Vienna" was actually an Ultravox original. Learn something new every day! Happily, the news is that the almost-original lineup is working on a new album, so if we're lucky, they'll strike the same gold OMD did with their recent album History of Modern.

Dance on, my friends!