Here
begins the final countdown for this blog, and I have chosen one of my favorite
songs of recent years for it. Mark Ronson is an English DJ, musician, producer
and co-founder of a record label, and moreover, he is the mastermind behind a
lot of fantastic tracks clearly influenced by 80`s sounds. This one, featuring
the rapper Q-Tip and the singer of MNDR, is a perfect example of his influences
and his abilities creating good tunes (and a great videoclip too!).
Before reaching our eagerly awaited Top 10, which will be surely a storm of electronic sounds, let's travel to Romania to enjoy a relaxing song. Included in an EP entitled "Early Nightmares", Hold Me Tight is a psychedelic piece of music performed by Paul Ballo (a.k.a. Hot Casandra) and his mother, soprano Bianca Ionescu from the Bucharest National Opera, who impregnates the song with the necessary touch of glamour.
Strange
Talk are a Melbourne-based Australian electropop band with only some singles
and one EP published (their first album will be out this year 2013). However,
in their few songs they have shown a particular skill for the creation of genuine
and catching pop tunes. I´m sure we will hear of them in the near future.
Almost arriving at our last destination, the expected top 10, we visit Belgium once more. In the eighties numerous obscure minimal bands crowded this small country. Groups making different music for different people. Innovating, ahead of their time. Snowy Red is a good example. Marcel Thiel -his real name- died in 2009, but he left at least a masterpiece behind: in 1984 he released an outrageous piece of work, The Long Run, mixing exasperating -but joyful- distortions, disturbing wind instruments, a possessive synth baseline, hot female panting and his perturbing outstanding voice. A pure climax!
Back
to Austria. There have been not many jazz or swing sounds in this list, but I
really think that a great artist like Parov Stelar deserves a mention. With a
long career behind him (8 albums, more than 20 EPs…), this musician from Linz
has always experimented with the mixture between classic jazzy sounds and
electro-house rhythms. The result of that is a long list of great songs made for dancing. Enjoy!
This is our second visit to The Philippines. This time we meet one of the most promising electro/synthpop artists there, Cerumentric, two-time nominee for Best Dance/Electro Act in the Asian Voice Independent Music Awards. With a fresh dance-oriented nu-disco style, Bleeding Into My Dreams easily makes us move following the rhythm of the frenetic -almost spacey- synths during the whole 7 minutes long, which in fact seems short to me.