The collaboration between French DJ Kavinsky and Lovefoxxx, lead vocalist of Brazilian band CSS, has proved to be a complete success. Its recreation of a nocturnal atmosphere, with eighties sounds and a cold vocoderized male voice followed by Lovefoxxx's warm touch, reaches its maximum when watching the start of Drive, the film in which this song was wisely included. Fabulous urban sounds to listen to when driving by night in a big city.
We turn now to Norway to meet one of the most respected bands of European electronic music: Röyksopp. Since their 1998 debut, this duo from the city of Tromsø has gained critical acclaim and popular success around the world with his continued musical evolution, crossing genres and experimenting on each album. In this wonderful song, they collaborate with the popular Swedish singer Robyn. Such a combination could not fail.Civ
From Italy, the beautiful dark-haired singer Alba give us the pleasure to listen to her outstanding voice. The former Miss Italia shows her best to suggest that in this world only music survives, a nice sentence for us, music lovers. Melodic and sentimental italodisco sounds, with a perfect piano starting, mixed with one of the nicest female voices I have ever listened to. A perfect song to say goodbye to 2011. And remember, only music survives.
Belgium is our next stop on this exciting musical journey. As we can read on their website, The Backlash is an electro project created by two characters originated from the Belgian electronic scene: Eric Powa B. & Julian K. In this track, they show their interest in a dirty and bastard electroclash, but without losing sight of the importance of a good and catchy tune.
Back to Europe, German band Zwischenfall proposes an escape route ("flucht"), a liberation to our senses in this obscure synthpop track, with possessive melody and male dark voice, as it is customary in Germany. Close your eyes, let yourself be inevitably dragged into a trance. And, above all, enjoy this small electronic gem.
We travel now to Chile to meet the first Spanish-language track on this list. We are talking about one of the best electro-pop bands from that country: Lulu Jam! Led by Sofía Oportot (whose subsequent solo career is also full of good songs), this band was formed in 2002 in Santiago de Chile and released their best and most popular album in 2008, from which I have chosen Superhéroe, a lively song that invites dance.
We time travel directly to another decade and another continent: Asia, 2007. The Korean pop, briefly known as K-pop, which covers a mixture of diverse genres such as R&B, dance, electropop and hip-hop and is normally covered by South Korean bands crowded of young boys or girls, is by then more and more listened to in Europe and America, and their artists start to shine throughout the world. One of the most famous K-pop bands of all times is Wonder Girls, a South Korean girl group whose success started precisely with this single, Tell Me, mostly sung in Korean and sampling Stacey Q's biggest hit: Two of Hearts. A fresh song, with nice exotic voices and easy rhythm.
We stop this time in Scotland, where we find a band from Glasgow who can be considered as the true pioneers of synth music in their country. The overelaborated sounds of this track, Science, are a good example of their excessive and personal proposal, a New Wave style without complexes or fear of experimenting. A gift for discerning ears.Civ
We continue our journey flying across the Atlantic, entering the U.S.A and landing directly in Philadelphia, where this awesome group, Experimental Products, started their short career, from 1982 to 1987. They recorded few -but high-quality- songs, most of them focused in minimal wave sounds while others were more dancefloor oriented, such as their hymn Glowing In The Dark or this powerful track, with a style between minimal synth, Hi-NRG and synthpop. Its electronic sounds catches my senses from the very first minute, its frenetic rhythm makes my heart beat at the same BMP of the song and my feet demand dancing. I cannot stop! Can you?
This time we visit a country with a history characterized by its armed conflicts, but in which creativity has not been destroyed at all: Croatia. Kimiko is a band from Zagreb settled down as a two-piece electro-pop band fronted by Lora Šuljić and Zoran Pleško. Their first album has just been released this year, but it includes the song I have chosen here, One Way Lane, composed in 2010.