Browsing Tag

electropop

Link Strummer Transfused Satin-Slick Electropop Desire into a Radio-Ready Earworm with ‘Victoria’s Secret’

Posted on 30 April 2026

The pop sensation, Link Strummer, has struck again, and this time he’s strumming the sound of seduction with his latest single, Victoria’s Secret.

Nile Rodgers-style staccato funk-racked guitar chops cut against the jazzy horn stabs as the new wave synth lines strobe in the vein of The Midnight, while the vocals remain locked and loaded with libido that seems to have a lifeforce of its own, resulting in an infectious hot-under-the-collar anthem that deserves to slam through speaker systems worldwide this summer. It’s in the orbit of the contemporary pop cultural zeitgeist, while refusing the limitations of the electropop mould; it smoulders in its own lane, amplifying the lingerie-draped heat of the radio-ready earworm.

There are flashes of Prince in the satin-slick sensuality, The Weeknd in the neon-night pulse of the atmosphere, and George Michael in the teasing confidence of the delivery of the lyrics, which carry a psychological sharpness that cuts like razor wire.

After stepping away from music for five years, the Toronto artist returned in 2025 with a clearer sense of identity and a debut album shaped around obsession, desire, guilt, accountability, and emotional fallout. Victoria’s Secret lands as another glimpse into that world, where retro-pop textures and self-aware storytelling move in close formation.

Victoria’s Secret is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

TROUBLE staked their claim as brat pop supreme with their debut single, Bad Boy

Posted on 28 April 2026

The EDM pop duo, TROUBLE, which has a shot of becoming as iconic as Paris Hilton and Nicole Richey with their Y2K aesthetics and infectious attitude, anchored their debut floor-filler, Bad Boy, in siren-esque angst and an infallible recognition of their own self-worth; crashing in as this generation’s wave of aural feminism.

The four-to-the-floor beat, ferociously riling in all the right places vocals, and progressive unpredictability of the earworm never leaves you feeling that TROUBLE is just going through the motions; there’s a rare sense of authenticity in the urgency of Bad Boy; if you met TROUBLE backstage, you’d know exactly what to expect from the duo and their magnetically spiky sensibility if you met them backstage, and you also know that some poor wannabe lothario is still licking his wounds after inspiring this single.

Era-wise, Bad Boy, and its lacerating, playful fury, is impossible to pin down; EDM and pop aesthetics from the 90s and 00s take an intravenous shot into the anthem, which hits just as hard as Icona Pop and Charli XCX’s I Love It.

No fuckboy would stand a chance against these two, or anyone who decides to take note of the hell-hath-no-fury brat pop lyrics and build their own main character moments under the mentorship of the Nashville duo, Sofia Werner and Kyla Cusick.

Bad Boy is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Tara Formosa spawned the heartbreak horror genre in her dark synth pop hit, Monster

Posted on 1 March 2026

Tara Formosa framed heartbreak as an emotive horror genre in Monster;  dark synth pop single that drags you straight into a retro-futurist fever dream. The Malta-based Aussie singer-songwriter channelled the theatrical presence of Lady Gaga in an isolation-soaked production that thrums with transhumanist, feverish rushes. Built through the lens of Y2K synth pop, hazy dream pop textures and the reverberating glow of retro analogue synths, the track forms an atmosphere that feels part haunted club, part neon-lit confessional.

The chorus gives you an anthemic rise that amplifies the aching volition running through the single. Then she tears it all back in the verses, letting vulnerability speak in soft harmonies before the next surge of emotional voltage hits. Monster becomes an intensely affecting vignette: a reimagining of the time-old heartbreak trope where someone takes liberties under the guise of affection, reshaped into something Mary Shelley-esque, carrying the essence of retro-futurist cinema rather than a standard pop lament.

After releasing her debut EP confessional in 2025, Formosa shifted direction for 2026, deciding to release five singles across the year, each tied to a moment of raw heartbreak that shaped her writing. Monster marks the opening chapter of that run.

Monster sets the tone for what looks like a bold year ahead, giving pop fans a track built for dancing through the emotional wreckage rather than sitting in it.

Monster is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Fur Trapper served postmodern ache through razor-sharp refrains in the frenetic synth pop hit, ‘Never Enough’

Posted on 16 November 2025

Fur Trapper hit like a strobe-lit wrecking ball with Never Enough, a frenetic synth pop blast from the Y2K past. If you couldn’t get enough of Shiny Toy Guns, Metric, and Kill Hannah, your serotonin levels will spike with the sheer velocity of the track’s hyper-aesthetic sound design, as it pummels euphoria into your synapses. Through feisty-with-futurism vocals that match the voltage of the post-punk and industrial-pop-soaked instrumentals, Lisa Rieffel pulls you straight into a vortex of psychological disquiet, spiked with razor-sharp reflections on how disillusionment drags you under.

Fulfilment flickers on the horizon, unreachable. Never Enough catches that ache and wires it into a hypercharged groove that bruises as it glows. Rieffel’s performance is urgent, wired, and impossible to ignore, gripping you by the collar and dragging you through a sonic world built on overstimulation and cold clarity. It’s a fever-pitch anthem for the modern consumer burnout.

The surreal visualiser, written and directed by Rieffel, intensifies the punch. Constructed through large-scale greenscreen, the video plunges you into a dream state of digital distortion and existential static. Nods to Wings of Desire ground the surrealism in vulnerability while keeping one eye fixed on the emptiness stitched into the modern condition.

As the centrepiece of her upcoming debut album SUPER NOW, Never Enough makes no attempt to sugar-coat. It injects its tension direct to the bloodstream.

Never Enough is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Haven Bell let heartbreak shimmer like strobe lights in his heady-with-80s-nostalgia pop anthem, Knife in the Heart

Posted on 2 November 2025

Haven Bell has taken himself from Kosovo to New York, but his sound will take him to a worldwide arena, especially now that his new release, Knife in the Heart, is on the airwaves after its Halloween debut. His signature shimmer pop sound is more scintillating than ever in the heady-with-80s nostalgia synth pop hit, which reincarnates the atmospheric percussion with an even more affecting pulse, lays the reverb on thick and exhibits what it means to pour your heart and soul out over strobing synths.

The single arrives in the lead-up to his upcoming EP Blue Hour, which is set to mark a pivotal chapter in the evolution of his emotive approach to songwriting. Since self-releasing Blue in 2017 and chasing down catharsis in Stories of a Summer in 2020, Bell has never strayed from vulnerability. But in Knife in the Heart, he sharpened it. He pulled the pain of fading intimacy into glossy pop arrangements that don’t cut the emotion down for the sake of polish. His sultry vocal style, poetic leanings and affection for nostalgic aesthetics collide to render a bruising dose of electropop melancholia. It’s cinematic, but never superficial.

Knife in the Heart is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 


Review by Amelia Vandergast

Myra Keyes Threw Indie Pop into the Fire and Let Foam Rise with Retro-Futuristic Fever

Posted on 10 October 2025
https://open.spotify.com/artist/42CEdwQ3nYwVfLRjyMWqwS

Archetypal indie-pop cuts clearly aren’t sharp enough for Myra Keyes, judging by her seminal single, Foam, which takes the arbitrary parameters of pop and casts them into the inferno of her red-hot, authentically rendered aural blueprint.

The time signatures trip the rhythmic pulse into a state of dizzy reverie as they brush you up against the anatomy of the sticky-sweet, synth-driven earworm. Her vocals, glazed with just enough reverb to keep the hypnosis spellbinding, glide through the mix while the production fuses the aesthetics of Billie Eilish with the retrofuturist shimmer of funk-slicked new wave synth pop. It’s an electrified indietronica detour where the hooks keep swinging and the energy refuses to let up.

Chicago-based Keyes may have only just turned twenty, but her CV already reads like someone who has lived a full artistic lifetime. From her early years as a five-year National Piano Guild member, studying under jazz pianist Grant Richards, recording with Decemberist Jenny Conlee, and performing with Shook Twins and Patti King of the Shins, she’s no stranger to high-calibre collaborators.

Now writing, arranging, and producing her own material after teaching herself bass and guitar, she’s gearing up to release her sophomore LP, Signature Move, on October 24. With Joe Mengis, Scott Weddle, and Scott McPherson lending their talents, the record promises a full spectrum of genre-skewering vignettes.

Foam is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

ROMAANCE Scattered Stardust and Synth Euphoria in ‘D.I.S.C.O.’

Posted on 16 September 2025

ROMAANCE chose to open their debut LP, Dust Among the Stars, with D.I.S.C.O., and from the first glint of synth strobe, they make it clear this is no ordinary dancefloor filler. Imagine a Kate Bush and The Human League mash-up, throw in a shot of Apoptygma Berzerk, finish it with the unflinching glamour of 80s Madonna, and you will be somewhere near the sonic cosmos ROMAANCE have crafted.

So much more than a sequence of synth pulses, phasers, and chameleonic harmonies, D.I.S.C.O. is the vision of a dualistic force leaving neon confetti in your rhythmic pulses and the glitter-ball glow of transcendence in your chest. Each progression lands like a new revelation, defying its electronica foundations with humanistic oscillations of pure devotion as the vocals sanctify the altar we find on the dancefloor.

The elusive collective, brought to life by Jason Wann, doesn’t just flirt with disco-pop euphoria, they command it with cinematic gravitas, turning Dust Among the Stars into a place for star-crossed dancers to finally find themselves.

D.I.S.C.O. is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sharo Drifts Melancholy and Bliss Through the Synth-Pop Surf of California Sun

Posted on 31 July 2025

In the opening rays of Sharo’s latest single, California Sun, you’ll be swept into waves of Cali synth-pop, where temperate oceanic soul and retrowave shimmer are signed, sealed, and delivered straight from the shore. You can almost smell the lemon haze on the retro synths as the melody breezes in, floating between peaks of effervescent euphoria and undercurrents of melancholy left out to dry beneath the blistering aural rays. Sharo manages to pull the resonance straight from the salt air, inviting listeners to drift with the flotsam in his uniquely bittersweet sound.

If you’ve been on the hunt for the golden middle ground between moody synth-pop and euphorically kinetic earworms, this is your port of call. The scintillating synthetics shimmer around Sharo’s intimately sweet vocal style, which traces a melancholic line reminiscent of Elliott Smith, without ever settling for pastiche.

The Maryland-based producer and vocalist, who has been navigating the boundaries between EDM, chillwave, lo-fi hip hop, and pop since 2016, continues to expand his aural palette on this single. California Sun is a bright, genre-surfing testament to his evolution and proof that even in the deepest synthetic grooves, vulnerability can bask unashamed in the light.

California Sun is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Nathalie King – More: A Sensory Trip-Hop Revelation

Posted on 5 June 2024

Toronto’s ethereal electropop enchantress, Nathalie King, has recently unleashed ‘More’; a sense-awakening cinematic score of scintillating trip-hopped electropop and deep house waves of euphoria that pull you right into the gravitational force of this paralysingly lush soundscape.

The track delivers vocal lines that are just as melodiously luxuriant as the pulsating progressions in a style that will never go out of trend. It’s safe to say King has broken the spell of throwaway pop culture with this seminal release The sensory staying power will stand the test of time as a monument to King’s ability to render catharsis into her staunchly accoladed serene productions, which reverberate with arcanely rendered audial bliss. Nathalie King’s music is noted throughout the industry for its cinematic gravitas which envelops her dynamic vocal range which is just as comfortable in a sultry low register as a soft and melodic upper range.

King is currently working on her new EP, PTSD, which is slated for release in 2024 and has become a therapeutic means to overcome childhood trauma and enduring depression. Collaborating with Bristol-born producer Joseph Snook, PTSD promises King’s fans a more electronic and UK-centric sound.  Away from her solo music, King has garnered attention with placements in commercials and TV shows; she also continues to contribute to Universal Production Music UK and perform throughout Toronto and Europe.

Watch the official music video for More on YouTube now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

nasir mf. turned up the heat for electro heads in his hyper-pop exposition of obsession ‘romantic fury’

Posted on 21 January 2023

nasir mf. won us over with his emo hyperpop debut in 2022; for 2023, the queer icon in the making reached stratospheric heights with his sophomore single, romantic fury. It is impossible not to feel the heat while revelling in the affirmation that there is nothing sane or rational about passion.

The independent Brooklyn, NY-based artist created a world of carnal pleasure through the cascade of luminous synth lines and beats built to body rock to – crafted by Flame Yuppie. For any fans of PC-adjacent music in the same vein as Charli XCX, Namasenda, Caroline Polachek and SOPHIE, the ECHOVALLEY remix may be more your hyper-sonic 8-bit cup of tea.

“This track is a hyper pop banger with rap verses for the electro-loving hopeless romantics. I made this track about experiencing limerence – that obsessive, unhealthy feeling that we often get for someone. I wanted to appeal to all the people who have someone who fucks with their mental state. It is super unhealthy, but hey, it happens… it is honest.”

Stream romantic fury and the ECHOVALLEY remix on Spotify now.

Connect with nasir mf. on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.

Review by Amelia Vandergast