Parametric Delay’s bubbly electronic visions of childhood

Parametic Delay - Love Song Before Sleep (NS035) (nk082)

The best way to describe this release is to paraphrase something our lead vocalist once said onstage in-between songs at a live gig: “Nice place, lotsa bubbles.”

Parametric Delay’s EP on the No-Source netlabel and the Nowaki Net Label is all light beats, flittering melodic lines on wispy thin synths, and bubbles. Lots of rainbow-colored bubbles flying in random patterns everywhere. There is just a hint of the sinister in these arrangements (which draws a host of similarities with early music by Air and Plone), but as a whole, the EP is meant to encapsulate the innocence and bright-eyed optimism of children by creating modern lullabies. Even the titles of their tracks seek to exude child-like wonder: “Drizzle Ice,” “Love Song Before You Sleep.”

It’s sweet and sugary. And at 5 songs long, it’s the perfect dessert after a lifetime spent listening to the bitter, psychotic ramblings in a lot of music these days.

Listen to a sample song below: “Depict the Dream” by Parametic Delay. Track 3 on the EP.

About the Artist:

Parametic Delay is two-person electronic group from Malang, East Java (Indonesia) who make music using Ableton Live, Casio mini keyboards, noise boxes and funny toys.

Details:

• Download Parametic Delay’s Love Song Before Sleep on their No-Source netlabel page.
• Parametric Delay’s artist bio.
• Parametric Delay’s Facebook page.

Cerumentric Takes on Reality Wielding a Sword of PunkSynthPop

Cerumentric rocking out live

Reality Rock is a 2009 album from Manila-based singer-producer Erick Antonio Fabian Sr. aka Cerumentric. Forget the scientific sounding name, his music is all about putting punk back into synth music.

In “An Analogue Embrace,” Cerumentric sings: “I’m still young but I feel old/ I feel warm but the world is cold….It stings to not belong/ I won’t be staying long” while behind him, percolating in the background is a straight-up joyful child-like synthpop tune that could’ve easily been a hidden track on Depeche Mode’s Speak And Spell album.

Cerumentric never sings too loud, opting to bury his vocals behind a wall of bouncing square wave synths just like Bernard Sumner used to do in early New Order tracks. Possibly because he knows vocals are not his strongest asset, nevertheless, they serve the purpose of carrying his message out.

Summary:
Wielding electropop that is half early Depeche Mode and half Erasure, Cerumentric uses music as his vehicle of expression and outrage that he was born 20 years too late to be a popstar in the ’80s. Ironically, he uses synthpop to be punk. Because littered all over the album are angsty expressions of rage and isolation, peppered by loud, distorted keyboard melodies and dizzying delay effects. Punk music with a casiotone and a PC. Gotta love it!

Details:

• Reality Rock is available for download from Cerumentric’s bandcamp site at the cost of “name your price.”
• You could stream or download it for free yes, but why not give a little something to help this artist produce more punksynthpop gems for the world to hear?
• Cerumentric’s Facebook page.
• Cerumentric’s SoundCloud page.

Socket Science’s perfectly formulated electropop in Pulver Stunts

Socket Science's debut album Pulver Stunts

Artist: Socket Science
Album: Pulver Stunts
Netlabel: Astor Bell

The trick to electro pop is letting your machines sing for you. It’s not techno which is all one massive groove. It’s not minimal house which is a groove with the least number of intruments. Rather, it is utilizing the patterns of a pop song, and letting the synthesizers sing your melodic lines in place of some gaunt warbly dude with painted nails who will concoct witticisms about suicide and leprosy and then hog all the girls after the show.

Socket Science’s debut album Pulver Stunts[ASTOR002] is sweet electro pop peppered with IDM and ethnic instruments (bells, flutes, percussion) and which veers into minimal house every now and then. But on tracks like the epic “Honduration” and the bouncy “Bits & Breezes,” you get the precise formulation of groovy beats and melodic flight that make for blissful electro pop. It’s so good, you don’t want those two tracks to end.

I have a feeling Socket Science (aka Don Simon, co-manager of netlabel Astor Bell) is using his software (sounds like Propellerheads Reason to me) in order to resurrect the Orb, Orbital, (early) BT, and 808State for the 21st century’s ignorant ears. Hearken, O listener.

6 MP3s encoded at 320 kbps bitrate, 44.1 kHz stereo.
Total running time: 29 minutes.

LINKS:

Download the entire EP in one zip file from the netlabel release page.

Socket Science artist page on the Astor Bell Netlabel.

Socket Science on MySpace.