Since the beginning of this magazine that we have been receiving great electronic tracks. For some reason, we didn’t post about those submissions because we felt they should be integrated into a specific mood. We are now building that mood with a monthly post focusing on the best of indietronica. This is Electromental – part 8.
Arctic Butterfly – Float Bye
Piano, harp, sax, and heavy bass, that’s how we can describe Float Bye sonority. Intertwining everything together, with a distinct electronic vibe behind it that feels like Summer has arrived earlier. The track is the perfect demonstration of what Arctic Butterfly’s mind (and body) can create, with even violins having a proper space in the middle of this downtempo and mostly electronic felt track. There are a lot of organic elements in the track and the artificial ones just make everything more tight and perfect together, demonstrating that electronic music these days just has to make you dance along and feel it inside you.
declares. – rollout
Funky electronic? Yes, please. It has been a new tendency in the new indie world, and more and more of the genre arrive on our radars. However, very few draws us so instantly as declares.’ rollout. This is a track that feels bouncy and groovy from the first moment and is a track that you almost can’t describe as electronic provided the number of instrumentals built-in. There are a lot of jazzy keys, some funky vocals here and there, and the beats and electronic mix everything together like a big funky electronic pizza. And you know what? Doesn’t everyone love pizza?
GMTA – E-Motion
GMTA are two guys from the Netherlands who love music, making fun of names, and talk about things and stuff. That simple way in how they describe themselves is transported to the simplicity and straightforward approach with which they do music. However, there can be a very clear sense of beauty in order too. And E-Motion, their latest track, is a great example of that. Mixing elements of Jazz, drums, bass, and a very smart electronic layer that makes us feel warm and calm but also on a sort of a wave of productive feelings that give space for some positive introspection. The track is perfect for a chill-out but also asks for a deeper remix that will easily make it highly danceable. The track’s name is perfect. Have you ever thought about how emotions actually sound? Here you have what sounds like a proper interpretation of that.
Groovemonk – Disconnecticut
About Groovemonk we only know he is an Instambul-based electronic musician. His tracks are inspired by the feel of the 90’s club together with rave and breakbeat, but also by jazz, disco, hip-hop, funk, soul, and well, almost any traditional genre. Disconnecticut is an electronic bomb that perfectly demonstrates why we created this section in the blog. Electromental to its bone, the track bases itself on a strong electronic beat and melody that repeats itself to exhaustion, but exhaustion never really comes. While listening to this we do get inside our mind at least a couple of times until we found ourselves physically dancing while we become more mentally aware of how good life actually is. Electronic catharsis? Yes, right here “Alicia”:
Goth Babe – I Wanna Help Your Mind
“Off-the-grid nomad” Goth Babe makes songs that make us feel the scenery and at the same time party inside. I Wanna Help Your Mind is one of the tracks taken from his EP announced alongside a non-profit build to protect our ecosystem (Protect Our Winters). This is a super-paced track that takes what sounds like a natural folk element and mixes it up in his special electronic blender. He mixed it with a gorgeous simple-yet-enchanting video montage that celebrates what might be parts of his days as a nomad musician with a solar-powered recording in the back of a campervan. Cool enough? Yep. But the song is even cooler. And will make you party hard. Both mind, soul, and body, if you want.
Hudsone – JRNY
Hudsone is a NY-based producer and multi-instrumentalist who focus on merging several genres into the electronic scope (pretty much what we do in Electromental). JRNY is, like the name suggests, an electronic journey through several genres but which uses house as the main fuel for everything that comes along. Very easy to listen to, and sometimes quite ambient-like, he calls it a continuous self-discovery in a confusing and tumultuous time. We clearly feel it, and the track is the perfect soundtrack for a day like today, where everything seems to move too fast and too unpredictably at times.
IHF – Don’t Forget My Love
The first thing we feel when we listen to IHF’s Don’t Forget My Love are those sbtrkt vibes in the synth piano. But they go a deeper way into distinguishing themselves. The vocals, while artificial, do the perfect flow working as one additional instrumental element, and by mixing in the bass, drums, and every little thing in between, they leave their sonority right between pop and electronic. Doing tracks since 2014 and already gaining more than 50 million streams, it’s incredible how this feels fresh and effortless while still giving us the party and summer feels we are looking for.
Laura Escudé feat. Jamie Lidell – Can I Hold You Anymore
We’ve been used to listen to great tracks by Jamile Lidell. It’s actually been a lot of years already where we associated the name with great pop tracks. We haven’t yet, however, associated it with great electronic tracks. In the latest collaboration with Laura Escudé, you can find Jamie’s vocals disguised along with an incredibly powerful flow that portrays a healing journey of Laura’s through a 20-year long eating disorder. The track makes use of a piano melody throughout, but goes much beyond that, with a dark but hopeful sonority that invades all our space, and welcomes us right in into its overwhelming feel.
Miilk – Loot Bag
Miilk is the latest bass hop sensation and we’re under the impression they’re here to stay. After the releases of the incredible Blow The Whistle and Mr. Officer late last year, this third drop just shows there’s no stopping this creative flow. Loot Bag is a deep bass experience with trip-hop and glitch-hop elements all over, with a stinging similarity to one of our favorites: Infected Mushroom. We recommend the use of headphones to listen to this so you don’t miss out on any of the diverse elements incorporated throughout the track that make this an ever-evolving bop. The greatest part of Loot Bag for us is that Miilk are able to merge modern soundscapes with old-school scratching hip-hop sounds, which turn listening to this track an emotional experience. Go ahead and listen to one of the best pieces 2021 has offered us yet:
Minev – Night Shift
Night Shift is London-based Bulgarian artist Minev’s debut vocal single and it dropped May 21st. This track first came to our attention due to its club-ready beginning. Then the vocals hit, with constant variation and hazy vibes that just made sense. The single is portraying the feeling the artist got when he met his partner one night. That sensation we all know (and miss) of a hardly awake dream state – cold night air in the face, warm red blood in the veins, and plenty of hazy fragments of reality just passing through you. “I wanted to capture the distinctly London vibe of the girl I was falling in love with, and I wanted to evoke the blissful feeling of staying up through the night and experiencing the dawn with a new ally“, said the artist regarding Night Shift, and we say he got it just right. The electronic elements as the cold air, the punchy bass feels like blood flowing, and the vocals recalling the fragments of reality – chef’s kiss.
Ormiston – Time Fades
Time Fades is the third track released this year introducing Ormiston’s first album entitled Hammer Down. With each track processing a distinct concept reminiscent of the cinematic genre “coming-of-age”, in this track he focuses on the growth from childhood to adulthood focusing on failed relationships with a very light way of looking back to the past. The track is evidently pop, with the gorgeous vocal hooks sounding immediately familiar and almost indie-rock at times. The highlight is the big electronic melodies that invade the track from around the first minute on that will perfectly fit into our memories as a soundtrack that makes everything lighter and “well-vibed”. It’s like everything we’ve been through can be remembered like a straightforward memory from which we can extract good feelings. And we kindly agree with this healthy way of putting things.
SHANGE feat. LANIEAKEA – Nothing For There Beyond
Nothing For There Beyond comes in two parts (1 and 2) and under the short name NFTB. This is the latest release by the Portuguese-based SHANGE (stage name pf Gonçalo Lemos) and the latest release of the Portuguese label Chilli Pepper Fields. Much more electronic than probably any other track on this selection, both tracks count with the collaboration of LANIEAKEA, and focus on a Techno, glitch, and IDM approach that feels both electrifying and progressive. A progression that feels inside our brain while listening to it. While in the beginning, this feels more atmospheric than any other feeling, it slowly gets into us as a proper rhythm and a proper ambient of its own where feelings of drifting and wonder are easily reached. Sometimes with a deeper/stronger drum, others with a more conceptual melody in the back, there are so many layers that one can dive into both tracks time and time again, and each time you will exactly understand why the name of project puns with “change”.
Sïckö – RAINBOW WARRIOR
We love to discover new electronic acts that are still undiscovered for the rest of the public. That’s also one of the main goals of this feature. Sïckö already released an album, but he is still quite low on the radar of alternative electronic music, but we feel he shouldn’t. The way his tracks flow with a natural guitar vibe that feels more electronic than electric, and the way he mixes it up with a clear slow but groovy and almost pop build-up immediately gets us into his vibe. RAINBOW WARRIORS is a song taken from his second album entitled HAUNTING SEASON and is a track for you to listen to repeatedly. Starting with the artificial clouds, going through the bubbly evolution, to the distinct guitar melody… There is just too much to write about it. You just have to feel it.
VANDELUX – Matter of Time
Matter of Time is the second single released from Vandelux‘s (Evan White) EP entitled Dream State. Written during the quarantine in the midst of an entire world losing their minds, and in that way is a track that pushes us back, and makes us drift away from that feeling. With an airy vibe that is supported by a breathy electronic feel, the track alternates a good feel with serious catchy elements that take the listener to an occasional unpretentious dance. Chilled in its general sonority, there is a sense of familiarity in the saxophone elements that elapse throughout. The modified vocals still sound kind of natural, like a calling to calmness before a storm, a calm where the house vibes are natural and captivating.
Wolfedisk – Fool
If you’re looking for a new electronic EP to make you lose track of time, you might want to dive into Wolfedisk’s latest EP Muon. Fool is one of the tracks included in that EP and the perfect example of how this producer, singer-songwriter, and guitarist based in Belgium takes his previous experiments with multiple indie genres to create an engaging electronic experience. With the highlights being the drum elements that only slowly evolve throughout, there are also Moby-like vocal elements and synth hooks that make its action advance like a dream. Never dull, always sounding rich and taking the listener to a far place where he/she feels at peace, this is music that gives us space to think positively.
All these tracks (and previous tracks featured in Electromental) are also in our Spotify Playlist: