Video: Love Fast Die Young (Live) - FAANGS

I hadn’t listened to Love Fast Die Young by FAANGS before being sent this video of a live studio rendition, and I have to say it stopped me in my tracks. The original is a powerful piece of melancholic pop music - this live version strips it back and really shows you how great the song is.

The beauty here is in the simplicity of it all. The camera circles the two performers as they both give this their all, and yet whilst the vocal is belted out like it has come straight from the heart there is a remarkable level of restraint to the whole thing.

Check it out below:

Stream: Far - Komplement

Far is the new release from duo Komplement, who focus on crafting music through sensitively layered electronic production.

Komplement originally started as two solo artists - multi-instrumentalist De Rien and singer-songwriter Head Under Water. Having met last year and collatorated on a single Soar, they began playing live shows and DJ sets in Germany and further afield. Working together De Rien is able to create the underlying groove behind their music, providing the bass and percussion, whilst Head Under Water creates the melodic centre of the music through chords and vocals. Talking about their style and approach, Komplement highlight that their music isn’t just about the words and lyrics, but the way the songs come together:

“Our storytelling is just as much a matter of the right synthesizer at the right time, as it is about a word, it’s pitch, the evocation of context.”

Far is a considered and artfully constructed piece of music. With emotive vocals combining with gently deconstructed rhythms and synths, the song makes good use of space. Indeed the duo make references to sparsity and creating space in their description of the song:

“If this song were a shot in a film, it would be a scene where the actor simply moves out of the screen, disappearing, and leaving the camera still filming.”

I can feel that mood coming through here - loneliness, determination and vulnerability.

Video: Hospice - Moscow Youth Cult

London duo Moscow Youth Cult have just released their latest single Hospice in anticipation of their forthcoming second album, Brutalist, and it’s a wonderfully intense piece of industrial pop.

In a story that feels a little perfect for their sound, duo Jon Dix and Dan O’Donnell-Smith formed Moscow Youth Cult after they collaborated on an electronic sound installation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Elite for GameCity, Europe’s biggest video games cultural festival.

With a sound that is suitably modernist given their background, Moscow Youth Cult combined driving electronic synth noise with ethereal vocals. As a result Hospice sounds both violent and innocent. There is a little bit of a Health and Crystal Castles sound here, but Hospice shows MYC have something unique to offer in the way it builds to a climax that feels overlwhelming, in a good way.

Check out Hospice below.

Stream: Soon Enough - Still Parade

Deep psychedelic vibes abound here on the new song from Still Parade, aka Berlin-based musician Nickolas Kramer, who I first featured here all the way back in 2014.

In part inspired by dreams, and the subjective and intangible nature of reality, Kramer’s second album Soon Enough attempts to pull together nine songs that document his own personal experience of reality. There’s also a fair amount of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks inspiring all of this talk of dreams and reality. Describing his experience of taking a creative vacation to work on the album in Los Angeles, Kramer says:

“I stayed in a red room in the reddest place in Silverlake, close to Koreatown. Everything was red in this apartment, the floors were red, the walls were red, the sofas were red. The guy I was renting from had all these German vinyl records on the wall, so the first thing I saw after a 15 hour flight from Berlin, were these Stereo Total and Andreas Dorau records. That whole place was like this amazing low budget Twin Peaks set.”

As the title track from the new album, Soon Enough aims to capture an ephemeral moment that can’t be held constant - a beautiful sunset, slipping away. Kramer was clearly touched by his time in LA:

“I was really stunned by all the colours in the sunset. Coming from the gray of Berlin Winter and ending up in this colourful world, it just blows your mind.”

There is an otherworldly beauty to Soon Enough. If you have ever felt a beautiful moment and wished it wouldn’t end, or that it could be revisited, then this gently meandering record is for you. The proggy psychedelic sound comes from the same school as Tame Impala - a little distorted, thick ‘n’ heavy ‘70s bass grounding bruised falsetto vocals - and that only adds to the sense of being lost inside a dream.

Check out Soon Enough below:

Stream: Come Back - Bussauto with Felish

Having built up a reputation working as a producer and audio engineer, with Come Back Bussauto has taken centre stage.

Created in collaboration with vocalist Felish, Come Back is the result of a partnership that started when Felish sent a phone recording of her singing to one of Bussauto’s instrumental tracks impromptu. The pair got on so well that they ended up creating Come Back together.

I love the gentle feel to Felish’s vocals here, and the crunchy, woozy sound to the drum track. Check out Come Back below: