‘Light Up Your Dark’ is the debut EP from Swedish songstress Hanna Rua. Released on Aztec Records, the one-time home of BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT and NINA, is the native from Östersund the next artist from the roster set for bigger things?
Certainly Hanna Rua has a dreamy immediate electronic pop sound with the emphasis on the pop, but this EP also demonstrates her scope and capability using darker aesthetics. Currently based in the creative South Coast seaside hub of Brighton, she launched with the deliciously uplifting debut single ‘Don’t Cut Your Angels’ in Autumn 2021.
Included on ‘Light Up Your Dark’, the infectious optimism of ‘Don’t Cut Your Angels’ provided a YOLO anthem with shades of ABBA and yes, THE SEX PISTOLS! The warbling electronic bassline at points recalled the punk trailblazers but then ‘Pretty Vacant’ did actually borrow from ‘SOS’!
Continuing the supreme Scandipop template with a call to “get up again”, her next single ‘Tears On Your Pillow’ continued the good work at a more cruising pace. It was the sort of classic melodic synthpop that fellow Swedes Max Martin and Oscar Holter had producing with THE WEEKND. Acting as Hanna Rua’s own Max Martin is near namesake Sam Martin, a producer who served his studio and songwriting apprenticeship with XENOMANIA who worked with PET SHOP BOYS and GIRLS ALOUD.
Of the three new tracks on the EP, the ‘Light Up Your Dark’ title song is the best; with a wonderfully gritty austere, it plays with gothier influences, coming over like a Nordic NINA in her more recent work but remaining melodic. The brooding presence recalls unga moderna veterans LUSTANS LAKEJER and their 1999 single ‘Cynisk’ in particular and grows in stature with each play. It’s a battle against the demons where our heroine declares that she “Danced to your darkness, there in your arms, I told you, I told you, I’ll light up your dark”.
With its exotic piping moods, the breezy and serene ‘Hold The Light’ offers more encouraging messages to grow as souls and to experience love, while ‘Hear Me Now’ is airy angelic pop that allows Hanna Rua’s bright scaling vocal style to shine.
Overcoming life’s curveballs, Hanna Rua is a beaming new talent out to encourage the light within us all with her catchy tunes and positive personality. A fine debut, ‘Light Up Your Dark’ is a perfect pop collection for the summer.
DAWN TO DAWN are the Canadian danceable dreampop trio comprising of Tess Roby, Adam Ohr and Patrick Lee.
With their debut album ‘Postcards From The Sun To The Moon’ slated for October, the rather wonderful new single ‘Stereo’ celebrates the joy of music, especially in times of adversity. Driven by a Roland TR909, the song was written during the early 2020 lockdown.
Whereas previous single ‘Care’ was a touching ode to summer nights with friends, ‘Stereo’ touches on the acceptance of confinement where “I wait for no one to ask ‘when do we go?’”; but it embraces the notion that “you’re here – on the stereo” in a romantic reflection of past parties and good times. With a breezy allure captured while maintaining an understated synthesized danceability, ‘Stereo’ is marvellously infectious with a promise of even better things to come.
Directed by Tess Roby and filmed by Hugo Bernier with DAWN TO DAWN, the grainy Kodak 16mm visual accompaniment features hazy lava lamps, a 12 inch single of ‘Personal Jesus’ and summer scenes of DJ-ing, dancing and chilling to highlight how music is central to both friendship and life.
When the trio met, there had been no intention of forming a band, but as friendship blossomed, a musical affinity emerged. Constructed via jam sessions in Montreal and with 808s, 909s, Minimoogs, System 100s, Juno 60s, MS20s and Solinas invited to along for the ride, the self-produced ‘Postcards From The Sun To The Moon’ will also include DAWN TO DAWN’s previous singles ‘Meridian’, ‘A Colour Named By You’ and ‘Care’.
To be released on Tess Roby’s recently established SSURROUNDSS label, her aim is to provide a platform for independently-minded Canadian electronic music with a focus on female-identifying artists. With its sparse folktronica backdrop, her second solo album ‘Ideas Of Space’ was its first product.
The forthcoming DAWN TO DAWN album ‘Postcards From The Sun To The Moon’ is released on 6th October 2022 by SSURROUNDSS, pre-order from https://dawntodawn.bandcamp.com/
Having released some fabulously ethereal singles in the shape of ‘Verónica Pass’, ‘Placelessness’, ‘Saturnining’ and ‘Crimeless’ in the past 18 months, New York-based darklings R. MISSING present the sinister beauty of ‘New Present City’.
Fronted by enigmatic Sharon Shy, R. MISSING issued their debut EP ‘Unsummering’ in 2017. From 2020, ‘Placeholder For The Night’ provided their wider breakthrough and set them on a path into a heavily reverbed glacial sub-CHROMATICS world. Indeed, the wonderful ‘Crimeless’ could have easily been mistaken for the combo originating from Portland.
Cut from a similar cloth to ‘Crimeless’ but moving at a more forlorn pace with added teardrops, ‘New Present City’ is reminiscent of DESIRE’s recent cover of the Korean folk song ‘Haenim’ featuring Soo Joo Park. It comes with a visual accompaniment directed by Dominique Eyraud and filmed in Charleroi, Belgium. Starring Emilie Lacape, the story focuses on a lone woman in a post-apocalyptic world, seemingly the only survivor as she trapes around a desolate landscape while wearing a gas mask, asking “Why did you spare me?”
When our heroine arrives at an abandoned train station, she encounters a young teenage boy played by Nel Jude Lene. Thrilled at seeing another living being, she lets down her guard and removes her mask. What follows next is controversial… has she been assaulted or has she consented to procreation in order to save the human race? Or is he saving her life?
R. MISSING’s bleary electronic pop noir fills a gap left by CHROMATICS in their embracement of the fragility of life, with gently propelled soundscapes swathed in icy melancholia.
GENRE PEAK is the musical vehicle of Sacramento-based multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Martin Birke who first became known as a member of CASUALTY PARK.
With four albums to his name as GENRE PARK which have featured among others, JAPAN members Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri and the late Mick Karn, Birke’s most recent release was ‘Triptych+’, an Eno & Fripp inspired ambient trip in collaboration with their former guitarist Robert Dean. Birke began as a drummer so it is no surprise that exotically constructed rhythms feature on ‘Psychopathy’, his fifth long player as GENRE PEAK.
Working with former CASUALTY PARK band mate and producer Aaron Kinney who adds his own Moog Modular and fretless bass to proceedings, the resultant album has been self-described as “tracks of dark introspection, self-awareness and transformation”
Opening salvo ‘Deathbed Confession’ brings in synthetic brass and slap bass in that mature rock-oriented manner that was ubiquitous as the CD era took hold. The pulsing backbone of ‘Psychopathy’ plays host to Middle Eastern inflections and intense vocal impressions not unlike ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ era NINE INCH NAILS while the tingling abstraction of ‘Western Lights’ brings in brassy overtones from Tony Passarell over a frantic tablafied percussive template.
With a scratchy rhythmic stutter, ‘The 4th Wall’ channels moods of frustration but the lengthy ‘POV’ utilises a meditative tapped mantra as a setting for slowed reverse effects and jazz-laden trumpet before morphing into something more propulsive while counterpointed by piano and accompanied by a Japanese monologue.
A track with a title like ‘Muzzleloader’ can be expected to sound a bit like NINE INCH NAILS and as one of the album’s highlights, its drum programme maintains the hypnotism while ‘Enjoy The Silence’ as reimagined by Trent Reznor looms in the song’s second phase. Talking of the devil, the brooding ‘Return To Earth’ exudes industrial NIN-flavoured phase Numan but without the goth metal and works well as a slice of doomy electro-rock with the filtered vocals accentuating the sense of unease.
The conceptual ‘Wendigo’ acts as a schizo closer with a variety voices penetrating the head but this proves to not be essential to the ‘Psychopathy’ experience. As a collection of shady electronic rock, ‘Psychopathy’ is likely to appeal to Steven Wilson fans with a penchant for early NIN as a reflection of the disorientation and rage caused by world events over the past few years.
As CIRCUIT3, Dubliner Peter Fitzpatrick mined the classic era of synthpop for his first two long players ‘siliconchipsuperstar’ and ‘The Price Of Nothing & The Value Of Everything’.
But channelling his hopes and dreams through a childhood fascination with space travel as well as Sci-Fi TV shows such as ‘Star Trek’, ‘Space 1999’ and ‘Blakes 7’, Fitzpatrick takes his CIRCUIT3 vehicle on its most ambitious musical mission yet.
‘Technology For The Youth’ is a retro-futuristic narrative on the world before the space shuttle.
While there are past references, these were triggered by a range of extreme events from the last 3 years; the political swipe to the far right, disbelief in the science and denial of the pandemic are the disturbing topics of fear and ignorance that counter the fearless aims to explore space and unite the world.
Recorded over a 2 year period during the pandemic in a home studio that could be compared to sitting in Major Tom’s tin can far above the world, ‘Technology For The Youth’ is a conceptual work that was inspired by Hannah Peel and her space themed musical adventure ‘Mary Casio: Journey To Cassiopeia’. But it could also be compared to ‘Radio-Activity’ by KRAFTWERK or ‘Dazzle Ships’ by OMD which both conjured nostalgia for black-and-white television and short wave radio.
Named after long-running Soviet-era magazine, ‘Technology For The Youth’ is an album where every track has been carefully thought out with a story behind each, whether pop song or instrumental. Capturing a light breeze, opener ‘Ветерок’ gently sweeps and builds for launch, before ‘50 Years Ago’ kicks into action in honour on the first human space travellers Yuri Gagarin, Gherman Titov, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and John Glenn with a triumphant middle eight synth solo.
‘Спутник’ offers a drifting orbital interlude before accents on the thirds shape the lively ‘Star City’. The vocodered tone poem ‘Weightless Part 1’ booms but the floating minimal backdrop of ‘Blinded By The Sun’ provides the setting for an observation on the Trump-era of “alternative facts”.
It’s all a sad indictment of how the human race will die out eventually through its own stupidity, akin to Greek God Icarus who was given wings fastened with candle wax by his father Daedalus and told warned him not to fly too close to the sun; but excessive pride saw Icarus ignore him. He floated up until the sun’s heat melted wax and left him falling into the earth, killing him…
‘Луна’ provides a pulsing Luna ambience but the mysterious ‘Transmissions’ speculates at the alleged “Lost Cosmonaut” crews abandoned by The Kremlin as a metaphor for today’s political cover ups. In 1959, a high-ranking Czechoslovakian Communist leaked information about unofficial missions with Alexei Ledovsky, Andrei Mitkov, Sergei Shiborin and Maria Gromova among those said to have perished in service to the Soviet Union. While no evidence came to light, two Italian amateur radio enthusiasts had made audio recordings of a transmission to support the conspiracy theory that these cosmonaut deaths were indeed covered up.
But one very public mission was that of Valentina Tereshkova whose 1963 adventure in Vostok 6 made her the first woman in space. On ‘Valentina Fly’, the minimal structure and string machines of the wonderful piece evoke OMD.
Featuring Fitzpatrick’s Roland Jupiter 4 which was loaned to Martyn Ware for the HEAVEN 17 live presentations of ‘Travelogue’ and ‘Reproduction’ in 2021, the fittingly titled ‘Jupiter City’ makes use of the presets Ware had saved for those shows; with recurring pulses and motifs, it is a delightful homage to those first two seminal albums by THE HUMAN LEAGUE. There are other instrumentals too, such as ‘Laika’ in honour of the first space dog.
With a moody Howard Jones versus Karl Bartos meets ‘Twins Peaks’ vibe, ‘Spacewalking’ tells the story of Ed Dwight, set to be the first African American astronaut but who was failed by the institutional racism within NASA despite having reached Phase II of the Aerospace Research Pilot School.
Not all the material on ‘Technology For The Youth’ is space themed; originally conceived as a homage to THE BUGGLES, ‘Future Radio’ is the bridge to CIRCUIT3’s past synthpop offerings, expressing the joy of the new “here on the radio, receiving in stereo”. Featuring the vocals of Italian singer Alessia Turcato, ‘Overview Effect’ stargazes on two fronts about the life imitating art scenario of William Shatner who played Captain Kirk on ‘Star Trek’ while also becoming the oldest person in space at 90 on board Blue Origin’s New Shepard sub-orbital space rocket.
Fittingly the tranquil ‘In The End (We All Become Closer)’ offers hope as “love is all we need” while using actual communications from the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission of 1975. Reflecting on this handshake in space as a symbol of détente, it is a reminder the world how it has lost its way in recent times and will be set on a disaster course, either through armed conflict or environmental catastrophe unless a united selfless front is actioned… so please LOOK UP!
While not as immediate as ‘siliconchipsuperstar’ and ‘The Price Of Nothing & The Value Of Everything’, ‘Technology For The Youth’ is an intelligent artistic statement on the trials and tribulations of mankind in the context of space travel. Like a musical research paper that draws parallels to today, it prompts a thoughtful mode of listening that encourages further reading.
Just as OMD sang about ‘Tesla Girls’ in 1984 and inadvertently exposed ignorant journalists who thought Messrs McCluskey and Humphreys were making up words, ‘Technology For The Youth’ is a record for the smarter-than-average music enthusiast, not your usual ‘Let’s Rock’ festival frequenter.
‘Technology For The Youth’ is released by AnalogueTrash on 15th July 2022 on digital and vinyl LP formats, pre-order from https://circuit3.bandcamp.com/
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