Songs you may have missed: 2015 edition

After one of the most disappointing Christmas release schedules in living memory (was a U2 album really the best the music industry could come up with?) thoughts are turning to 2015

Rihanna's in the studio. Madonna's vampiring some of dance music's biggest names, and Katy Perry is undoubtedly planning something ridiculous for the SuperBowl.

But before all that, the record labels will use the January lull to sneak some new artists onto the radio, and to raise the profile of some established acts. And that is where this "songs you may have missed" begins...

1) Frank Ocean - Memrise
Hopefully a signifier of a follow-up to Channel Orange in 2015, this was given a low-key premiere on Frank Ocean's Tumblr over Thanksgiving.

It's so abstract it barely registers as a song, but you have to admire the levels of filth he crams into the all-too-brief 1'57" running time.

"I could fuck you all night long from a memory alone," Ocean croons. What on earth would his mother say?






2) Zara Larsson - Weak Heart
She's Swedish, she's gorgeous, she's riding a horse. What more could you ask for?





3) Ed Sheeran - Autumn Leaves (J-Kraken Remix)
Despite being rather heavy on the old bongos, this is a lovely re-tooling of Ed's Autumn Leaves. It even withstands the addition of pan pipes. Just.






4) Ronika - Marathon
Plucky pop archivist Ronika released her debut album, Selectadisc, earlier this year and it's still a pleasure to listen to when the mood for an 80s disco revival hits me.

Marathon isn't the strongest track on the record but the video's a lot of fun.





5) Kate Pierson - Mister Sister
Unbelievably Kate Pierson of the B-52s has never made a solo album UNTIL NOW. Believably, the album features "input" from definitely-not-spread-too-thin songwriting person Sia.

The first single is a spritely new wave "transgender anthem" called Mister Sister. The lyric video features Fred Armisen off of Portlandia doing some amusing business at a table.





6) Slow Knights - Without You
Slow Knights is a side-project of Scissor Sister Del Marquis. His new single has vocals from Rod Thomas, aka Bright Light Bright Light, and part-time actress Bridget Barkan.

It's a midtempo "my world would end without you" love ballad, which would make a really good track 12 on a mixtape.





7) Låpsley - Falling Short
Liverpudlian singer-songwriter Låpsley, aka Holly Fletcher, landed on the BBC Sound of 2015 longlist last week and it's easy to see why. A cross between London Grammar and the xx, she makes minimalism mesmerising.





8) Charli XCX - Breaking Up
I know Charli XCX is all lip curls and punk attitude these days but this song just reminds me of Shampoo.





9) Hippie Sabotage - Waiting Too Long
Fresh from the success of their Habits (Stay High) remix (which, despite being unofficial, broke Tove Lo in the UK and US) Hippie Sabotage have uploaded this song to Soundcloud.

Appropriately enough, it sounds like the comedown from Tove's narcotic advenures. Meandering, drowsy and melancholy - it suggests interesting things from the band in 2015.




10) Listenbee - Save Me
If you liked Waves or Prayer In C, this is going to be right up your street, into your driveway and peering through the kitchen window.

Listenbee is a new singer from NYC, signed to Kiesza's label, and that's about all I can tell you. She opened her Facebook and Twitter pages just 6 days ago. Before that... nothing. Mysterious.





11) Leo Kalyan - Full Circle
"With your eyes closed, the sounds are enough to make you feel like you’re flying," said influential pop blog Pigeons and Planes, and who am I to disagree?





12) K Michelle - https://soundcloud.com/nxnnyxsets/08-k-michelle-something-about-the-night">Something About The Night
This was recommended on Twitter by the one and only Nicola Roberts - aka the only member of Girls Aloud with a modicum of taste.

You may remember K Michelle for her Missy Elliot-featuring single Fakin' It in 2009 but, let's face it, you probably dont't. This song is head and shoulders above that formulaic number, though. And the video - a six-minute mini biopic of Billie Holliday - will take your breath away.

And that's all we have time for. Hope you found something you liked.

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Pre-order Ronika's album, you fools!

Super-fluorescent pop being Ronika has been on my radar since June 2011, when she released the nonsensically-titled but very good "Wiyoo EP".

Since then, the young pop star (real name Veronica Sampson) has been popping up at irregular intervals, distributing a sack-full of incredible, 80s-inspired disco tracks like this one:


And this one:


In a nutshell, Ronika was two years ahead of the curve on the Nile Rodgers revival, and deserves to be bigger than Pharrell.

Why? Well, for starters, she knows how to choose the correct size of hat.

More importantly, she is a retro pop genius and a noted wit, as evidenced by her Twitter feed.

Just watched Spike Jonze's 'Her'... the film is much funnier if you imagine Samantha the female voice is his moustache speaking to him

— Ronika (@ohronikagirl) February 10, 2014

THE NEWS pic.twitter.com/QiBz7DJI6i

— Ronika (@ohronikagirl) May 8, 2013

my dubut album is produced by ridley scott and features vocals from harrison ford and is 112 minutes long

— Ronika (@ohronikagirl) December 5, 2013

Speaking of her "dubut" album, where the hell is it?

Sessions started a couple of years ago and were progressing well until Ronika developed a chesty cough. After a bit of poking and prodding, the cough turned out to be pneumonia. Then, terrifyingly, the pneumonia turned out to be the symptom of "an incurable auto-immune disease".

The last couple of months haven't been easy (she compares it to "a wave crashing over you and pulling you under, and you don't know if you're going to reach the surface again.") but Ronika has been wrapped in bandages and declared fit to support Little Boots in concert, finish the record, and set up her own record company to release it.

The album, called Selectadisc, is now ready to go to the presses, or whatever it is they do to MP3s to get them on the internet.

Named after the infamous record store in Ronika's hometown, Nottingham, it features all of her singles to date, and many brand new songs, including this one:


If you pre-order the album today you (a) get Shell Shocked for free and (b) immediately become a superhero. So what are you waiting for?

Here is the blue text you click to go to her website and make the purchase. I've just done it and you should too.

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Now that's what I call a time paradox

This morning, as I was flipping through my Now Music collection, I noticed something odd about Now 5 - aka the one with the pig.

Can you see it? Right there in the middle, where it used to say Howard "frightwig" Jones, it now says Ronika.

I guess I'm not surprised. Ronika's singles to date - including the excellent Automatic, Forget Yourself and Rough N Soothe - have all been masterclasses in 80s Discopop. So it only stands to reason that she's bought a DeLorean, built a time machine, stolen weapons-grade plutonium from a bunch of Libyan terrorists and nipped back to 1985 to get a recording contract.

The song that appeared on my Now album (and, yes, I am persisting with this ridiculous conceit) is called Search Siren. Perfect for side three, track four, it's a sultry slice of Eurodisco melodrama. "Please don't let this be over too soon," pleads Ronika over bubbling Moroder synths and a paper thin snare drum. The backing vocals frequently threaten to slip into Abba's Voulez Vous - but this heartbreaker is much more "morning-after-the-night-before" than the Swedes' disco classic.

Ronika says the track was "inspired by reading Asimov, guided by an Italian moustache and finally assembled together at night by the tears of an automaton worker". So now you know.

Listen / Download below.



Ronika's debut album is on it's way later this year. I think it'd be fair to say I can't wait...

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Ronika is trapped in your TV set

Ronika, who we love, has made a video for her new single Rough And Sooth, which we also love.

It's all a bit murky - like our hero is trying to escape, Poltergeist-style, from inside a TV set. Only it's a dayglo 1980s TV set, not the creepy possessed-by-Satan kind.

Feast your eyeballs below.

Rough and Sooth

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Ron de Replay

Get your fishnet gloves at the ready, 'cos here's a new single from 80s throwback pop sensation Ronkia.

Regular viewers might remember I was very excited about Ronika this time last year - but then she sort of disappeared. There was a remix for Little Boots, a sampladelic mixtape, some vague mutterings about Berlin - and then she caught pneumonia. Luckily, the doctors patched her lungs up, and Ronika is back, Back, BACK!!

Her new single Rough and Soothe is bouncier than a Tigger, and twice as much fun. It also features the lyric of the year: "Bossa nova / Casanova / Play it nice and slow on my Casio, will ya?" Sadly, it does not contain the equally-amazing verse Ronika tweeted last week: "Does your love only come, does your love only come, does he only come, in a volvo?"

Not bad for someone who says she struggles with words, and has to "go shoplifting" for her lyrics.



The good news with this single is that it heralds the arrival of Ronika's debut album. No firm release date yet, but as the Nottingham singer has yet to put a foot wrong, it's already a dead cert for my end of year list.

No pressure, then...

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Five tracks you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of the videos and songs I didn't get time to write about during in the last seven days. This week's stars are...

1) Maverick Sabre - These Days
While Plan B is off being "gritty" and "real", Maverick Sabre is your next best bet for blue-eyed British soul. Based around a sample from The Turtles' You Showed Me, These Days is best single so far from his debut album Lonely Are The Brave. Interesting fact: Maverick Sabre writes all of his songs in the dark.







2) Paloma Faith - 30 Minute Love Affair
You know when you get dumped by your boyfriend, and the only thing you can do to ease the pain is go and sing about it in a seedy burlesque club? So does Paloma Faith.






3) Little Boots - Headphones (remix by Ronika)
The whole slowed-down / speeded-up vocal motif in this remix is a little bit disturbing, but I like the idea of Little Boots duetting with a male Little Boots impersonator. Can someone make this happen, please?




4) Josephine - What A Day
I fell head over heels in love with Josephine's single A Freak A two years ago. She's been a bit quiet since then, sorting out a record deal and putting together her debut album. Born to African parents and raised in Manchester, she has the soul of Dusty Springfield and the intricate guitar flicks of Baaba Maal. What A Day is the first single from her forthcoming debut album, due in October.




5) Aiden Grimshaw - Curtain Call
I have literally no idea what's going on here. Nice tune, though.






Oh, and don't forget Azaelia Banks's mixtape came out this week. Patchy but promising, it's a free download via this link.

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Gig review: Ronika

Last night, Ronika did an EP launch in a room above a pub with a glitter ball on the ceiling*...

The Nottingam-born singer (real name Veronica Sampson, according to ASCAP) is so steeped in 1980's iconography you expect her to arrive on stage in a De Lorean, sipping a Dr Pepper, clutching a poster of Ralph Macchio.

She doesn’t, though. She simply strolls through the crowd, clambers over the lip of the stage and starts singing. It’s not the classiest entrance in pop history, but this girl has the poise to pull it off.


Ronika is relatively new to the live 'arena' but she's already perfected her Goldfrappian ice maiden death-stare. Her stage patter has a similarly bleak humour: "I’d like to introduce you to my band: Exhibit A, Exhibit B and Exhibit C."

Not that this is a seriousface pop tragedy. Ronika also breaks out the robot dance, and the double handclaps, while her tight blonde curls literally bounce to the beat. The choreography has been lovingly cribbed from the early, clumsy TV appearances of a certain Madonna, before she started looking like a frayed rope.

If you're a regular reader, you'll already know that Ronika's retro rollerdisco funk gets a big thumbs up from us here at Discopop Towers. It works just as well live, complete with choppy Chic guitars, crunchy Linn drums, and a surprisingly limber man (I think he was Exhibit B) playing frankly impossible bass runs. Ronika, who had lost her voice earlier in the day, sounded studio-perfect. Breathy and peppy in equal measure.

It's still early days for the project. I'm told an album of demos will be ready by the summer, after which the real work of finding a record label starts. But with a bit of luck, Ronika should become a star bigger than the fluorescent sweatbands on her wrist.

*This picture by Dom Henry was taken at a completely different show, because some cretin stole my phone last night. This is what you get for going to East London, folks.

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Automatically sunshine

Let's face it, not everyone has the money to jet off to California to film a sun-kissed surf video for their latest single. Ronika is one such cash-strapped pop star but does she complain? DOES SHE HECK. She drags out her film projector, beams footage of a seagull onto her bedroom wall and stands in front of it looking a bit moody.

I love Ronika and that is that is that.


Ronika - Automatic


Automatic is out on 9th April, and she's launching it with a gig at The Old Blue Last on the 10th. See you there.

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A message has arrived from 1985

Here is why:



And you can find out more on Facebook.

Simple.

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Two excellent singles are out today

Make haste to iTunes store, for the purchase therein of these popular fancies.

Marina & The Diamonds - Radioactive


Ronika - Only Only


I'm no expert, but I'd hazard a guess that neither of these women are natural blondes.

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Ronika is in a spin

I have worn out the debut EP from Ronika (a couple of 1s and 0s are missing from the MP3). So the release of her new single, In The City, is perfectly timed.

Fans of Wiyoo and Forget Yourself will know what to expect - effortlessly cool retropop, with shades of Larry Levan, Tom Tom Club and Gwen Guthrie. Or, in Ronika's own words, "magnificent, over-cooked, doomed-joy sounds posing like a Grecian god in the neon glare of mundanity." But of course.

Like many of today's pop stars, Ronika is available on Twitter (@ohronikagirl). Amidst the inevitable retweets of obsequious compliments are some deliciously surreal witticisms.

:: "I may not have a big heart but at least i have a big nose." (24 August)
:: "Beyonce was unbelievable. Unbelonceyable." (27 June)
:: "i think my house is built on an ancient kebab burial site. i smell meat." (7 Feb)
:: "would like it if everyone treated ice-cream vans with the same respect as ambulances. move to the side of the road, their work is important." (2 May)
:: "i have drawn a lion on my little toe. and am having a toe jam." (27 June)

Ladies and gentleman, we have a new favourite pop star.

Now all I need to know is whether Ronika pronounced like "Veronica" or "Wrong sneaker". Answers on a bandage.

Ronika - In The City


You can download an MP3 of In The City FOR FREE from Soundcloud.
And you can read an entertaining interview with Ronika on Mike Atkinson's blog.

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Welcome to the remixatron

Friday night is party night. Actually, Friday night is collapsing on the sofa with a bottle of wine night. But I always like to end the working week with a few remixes, which is some sort of hangover from listening to Radio One's Big Beat with Jeff Young in the late 80s.

Here's what I'm putting on tonight's playlist.

1) Beastie Boys - Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win (Major Lazer Remix)
With Switch and Diplo at the controls, this Beastie Boys album track gets a dancehall makeover that propels Santigold's contribution to the forefront. Which is exactly how it should be.




2) Kelly Rowland - Motivation (Remix)
Hands up who thought Kelly Rowland had given up on R&B? If she's not collaborating with David Guetta or Alex Gaudino on some abysmal Magaluf "anthem", she's practically invisible. So this track, which also features Busta Rhymes and Trey Songz, is a revelation. A slow, seductive soul jam - it's sexy in a way Rihanna could only ever hope to be.




3) Arcade Fire - We Used To Wait (acoustic version)
Technically not a remix, but who cares? It's brilliant.

Arcade Fire - We Used To Wait



4) Adele - Set Fire To The Rain (Thomas Gold Remix)
Remixing Adele is about as pointless as putting a coat on a dog. Nonetheless, this arms-aloft retwizzle is so cheesy it almost works. Hang around til 3'45" for the drop. Amazing!

Adele - Set Fire To The Rain (Thomas Gold Remix)



5) Alex Winston - Sister Wife (Ladyhawke Remix)
Ladyhawke has never done a remix before, so she must have been really impressed with Alex Winston to get involved. Or maybe she thought the song was broken and only a Ladyhawke remix could fix it. Or maybe she needed a bit of extra money to finish her second album. Either way, GET ON WITH IT LADYHAWKE.




6) Ronika - Wiyoo (Ronika 'own you' Remix)
I'd be lying if I said I hadn't listened to Ronika's Wiyoo EP every day this week. This remix isn't as good as the original, but it has bits of the original in it, and as such is brilliant on toast.



Hope you enjoy... Have a great weekend!

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Fire, fire, sizzle. Feel the heat.

I went all giddy over Ronika's new single Forget Yourself earlier this week (the headline is a lyric from that song).

Since then, three things have confirmed my suspicion that Ronika is a rather brilliant pop star in the making.

1) Promotional picture taken after a sad but glamorous road traffic accident.

2) Amazing mixtape on her Soundcloud page.
Ronika - Do or Death Mixtape by ronika


3) Ronika said "hello" on Twitter, which shows she has very good manners. Good manners, I have come to discover, are a hallmark of all the most successful pop stars. Pop stars and doormen. So she's got a career to fall back on if the music doesn't take off.

I just had to share that with you all. No idea why.

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Da Doo Ron Ronika

I'm not going to beat around the bush here, this is one of the best new artists I've heard this year. Her name is Ronika and she is to John "Jellybean" Benitez what Ladyhawke is to Jane Weidlin (IE her music sounds like a lost Madonnna 12-inch from 1985 (IE It is amazing)).

So comb back your hair, pull on your fluorescent socks and say a prayer to Molly Ringwald - because here is Forget Youself, the standout track from her new EP, which is out next week.

(Don't be shy with that "play" button - this video has Metal Mickey in it. METAL MICKEY!!)

Ronika - Forget Yourself


Enjoy that? Here are some links you might also be interested in:
:: Ronika's blog looks like this.
:: She tweets on this account.
:: And another track from the EP, Wiyoo, is also on your internet.

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