I’ve previously mentioned my love for Delphic, but upon hearing that they signed to Universal for the release of their debut album, Acolyte, I feared they would go the route of many over-hyped bands (like Passion Pit) and reduce their sound to a more comfortable exercise in dancey electronic pop, palatable to the coveted 18-34 set. Instead, they’ve refined their sound and vision, and emerged a more determined post-dance electrorock band. This strong debut combines the most energetic moments of bands like Friendly Fires with beautifully composed electronic sounds a la Hot Chip. Old favorites Counterpoint, This Momentary, and Doubt remain relatively unchanged, but new songs such as Red Lights and Remain provide a enticing look at a pulsing, anthemic Delphic that screams for life on the stage. Check them out on their tour of Europe this winter and be sure to keep an eye on Kitsune for more artists that can make you dance to practically anything.

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This video is so accurate. I want to grab a pair of kick-ass headphones and go dancing in the streets to this all day long. Too bad it’s so short!

Crystal Fighters - I Love London

Delphic is one of my favorite last.fm finds so far this proverbial season (it’s always music season, people). I really like their description on their profile, which says they “aim to be the future sound of Manchester mixing euphoric electronica with anthemic songs for a post dance world,” mostly because it’s pretty accurate. The three tracks here, Counterpoint, Doubt, and This Momentary are all really addictive. They are on Kitsune Maison, along with a lot of other kickass artists. Check it out before it gets over-hyped!

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This is awesomely danceable, cheesy French electrohouse by one of the original masters, David Guetta. It’s awesome this album has gotten so commercial and it probably sticks out like a sore thumb on this site, but I’ve been so into “When Love Takes Over” ever since I first heard it two months ago. Then, driving in the car with a friend, I found myself strangely loving a new Black Eyed Peas song (?!?!) called I Gotta Feeling. Turns out it’s produced by Guetta. If this is the direction pop music is going, I’m all for it; at least it’s something danceable, and boy are the lyrics fun. I don’t know whether I should like the song “Sexy Bitch” as much as I do, but the lyric “She is nothing like a girl you’ve ever seen before, nothing you can compare to your neighborhood hoe/I’m trying find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful [Damn, girl!]/Damn You’s a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch…” well, I wonder if it’s kind of brilliant.

This album is fun, in part because it reminds me of summer, as I saw him at Electric Zoo at the tail end of one of my craziest summers ever. You will probably enjoy When Love Takes Over, Gettin’ Over, Sexy Bitch, I Gotta Feeling, I Want To Go Crazy. just don’t think too hard :)

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UPDATE: Link is now 320 kbps version.

Oh also this little gem came out. A lot of hardcore noise enthusiasts (who probably never really liked/appreciated Fuck Buttons in the first place) will disregard this record as Fuck Buttons’ descent into the maelstrom of dance electronic acts that exists in hipster music culture today. This is due in part to the presence of producer Andrew Weatherall, a noted electronic dance music producer with roots in 90s techno such as Orbital, and his own IDM band Two Lone Swordsmen. So, out is previous producer John Cumming (Mogwai) and with him the industrial, tribal beats of their gently harmonious noise. In is the earsplittingly intense anthemic dance manifestos. Their new producer is a prominent but welcome addition to what could otherwise have been vapid reduction of the best (and worst) of American noise over the past years. They were never supposed to be Yellow Swans.

This is an awesome album. With song titles such as Surf Solar, Space Mountain, and Flight of the Feathered Serpent, and electronic beats to match perfectly, they must have been on a lot of drugs between the Street Horrrsing tour and the recording of this and my guess is that those drugs were ecstasy pills. [Don't do ecstasy pills they are dangerous]

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Ghetto & fun electro dance from Australia. It’s really silly stuff, and I can’t tell if they’re serious. This ambiguity kind of suggests that they’re a sort of ironic-hipster electro-dance group (in the vein of EAR PWR, who are also really fun), but whatever their intentions, it’s tasty stuff.

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guys, its time for a sober rant:::
so i’ve grown kind of disillusioned with traditional electronic dance music. a lot of the sounds started to blur and nothing really innovative was going on. there were a few great acts that really stood out (SOUTH CENTRAL / JUSTICE), but everything that followed was more or less derivative (not that it sounded BAD, but it wasn’t like damn). even the old greats were toppling under the inflated confidence of their success (DAFT PUNK, wtf was that last album?). this album by Filthy Dukes is unfortunately not worth wow but its good stuff…like a horizon to look towards for better days of electronic dance. in the context of dance music, its great. a very enjoyable electro-pop album. but my changing tastes leave me not all too psyched by it. SO YOU SHOULD CHECK IT OUT FOR YRSELF & DECIDE, INDEPENDENT THINKER.

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Disco legend. First album. 320 kbps. “La Vie En Rose.” “I Need A Man.” Ultimate classic. Ultimate necessity.

I have decided to write less as I increasingly have more to do and less to write, and realize that when looking for links you probably care less about what I have to say and more about my taste. Also, a guy who smells like ravioli just sat next to me and I want to move so I don’t have to listen to LBJ talk for three hours with my surroundings smelling like the bottom of a pot of pasta. Gross (yet my stomach is rumbling….)

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This leaked a few days ago and I was SO ECSTATIC that it did that I didn’t even listen to it until right now, as I’m sharing it with you. It is the sophomore effort of unstoppable nu space disco wunderKINGS Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas. Although I haven’t listened all the way through yet, it seems to have a slightly more kraut-rock/yacht-rock beachy flavor to it where their debut was more traditionally space-disco influenced (think a dash of Studio in place of Daniele Baldelli). That being said, it is still an all-over epic cosmic disco album, and L&PT continue to push the boundaries of this exciting and (re)newly popular genre with their measured additions of rock instrumentation alongside lush cosmic synth loops. This album will make your year. Have at it.

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This is a brand new album from venerable Italo cosmic disco master/founder Daniele Baldelli. If you liked his historic Cosmic, The Original, then there is no reason to not try this - it’s his first album of fully new material in a looooong while, and I have a hope that it will pave the way for a space disco revolution on the dancefloors over the next few years. Snap it up and dance it out!

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So this is Aeroplane. They are also on Eskimo Recordings, kickass nu disco label with Lindstrøm on its roster, among others. They remix a ton. Their own songs are good too. Here they are (i was too lazy to go drag the remixes into the folder so you’ll have to find them yourself which shouldn’t be hard considering these guys are the shit recently). They did a song with Kathy Diamond. It’s on here. They don’t have that much out yet until their full-length, which is inevitable, so this will have to do for now. Check out DISCODUST for a great remix they did of Grace Jones’ “Williams Blood”

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THE STUFF OF PAC-MAN’S NIGHTMARES. No…this is a pretty laid-back dance album - it never gets bangery and there are no fist-pumping opportunities (but it’s got bite at some parts). But it’s still groovy, GHOSTLY at times // HAUNTING, even (esp. the track “Full Moon” or on other string tracks). The vocals add a lot of character…like crooning ghost. Damon Albarn rears his head (Blur, Gorillaz, The Good, the Bad & the Queen…one busy guy, even wrote an adaptation of Journey to the West for opera) on one track. The last track even sounds a little bit like the end of the world.

Fav track: Repetition Kills You (ft. Damon Albarn)

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PS their “DJ LIFEFORCE”(tm) appears to be skeleton hoodies:

Another Ghostly disco artist, Daniel Wang - originally from California, then Taiwan, New York and now doing the Berlin thing, making disco sunrise beauty from the clubfloor. This is really smooth cosmic house disco, perfect for a Saturday night. This is a re-release of an album he did called Idealism, I figure it’s updated a bit for the recent cosmic disco revival that’s been hitting big. Snap it up

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So this came out last year and it was said to be one of the best comps last year. I had it for a while but never really listened to it until like november, but then I got it. i mean, it’s disco, but it’s italo. very pure. very. it does seem to be essential, at least it was in my appreciation of disco.

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(NOTE: this isn’t an album, just some of their tracks I’ve collected off the vast internets)

So I found out about these guys last year or so, after Justice had gotten really big and the excitement was starting to fade. The MP3BLAGOSPHERE(tm) was lookin for the next big thing. Revolte is a French (OF COURSE, dance music is France’s most profitable export) electro duo. It’s hard-hitting, funky, and glitchy w/ hints of the disco…they’re gonna be compared to Justice and were even hailed as their successors. I love the sound, though it isn’t incredibly radical or fresh the way Justice was when they hit the scene, but it certainly does carry on their legacy. If you <3 electro, check deez guyz out.

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(BTW, their “DJ LIFEFORCE” [the symbol/imagery/mask from which a DJ derives all of his or her power] is crash-test dummies…one of these days i’m gonna write a paper on DJ symbology, SO FASCINATING)

This is the major opus from the Godfather of Cosmic Disco, Daniele Baldelli, also one of the first ever Italian DJs who helped create the Italo Disco sound. It is essential and defines the slow, “chuggy” disco sound from late 70s Italy. Once also called Afro Disco for the genre’s use of afrobeat percussion sounds, Baldelli in particular was known for his ability to lay Fela Kuti on top of Tangerine Dream and have everyone moving on the dancefloor like there’s no tomorrow. This is thick. Get it now.

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I’ve been sitting on this one for awhile, but it’s relatively new stuff (came out late last year). These guys are from the UK (not South Central). Years of listening to electronic (particularly dance) music had jaded my robot ears…I was growing tired of the scene…I was still in love with the electro sound but nothing new or interesting was being done with it, and then there was that 80’s revival thing going on (which I still love even though it can be kind of derivative) and not much else. All the sounds kind of melded into one (but not in a Voltron way). But this album…IT CHANGES EVERYTHING. These guys are an electronic duo AND a five-piece band. Their shows are live - no lame DJ sets - they got live drums and guitars and vocals and live effect manipulation. The sound is the love child of electro and punk if it were raised in a rough neighborhood so it’s as tough as nails. And the guys have a real great punk-DIY-ethos…their effects are handmade. They are the defibrillators for the hard electronic dance scene. They are the map that shows the way for the lost DJs and producers of the world. They are the light for the masses of musicians huddled over their laptops in the dark. OK METAPHOR OVERLOAD here’s the album (plus some bonus remixes!):

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PS in their band photos they’re a bunch of BAMFs with those hoodies…like hip zombies or something. Wanna be a part of their gang // <3

This album is nothing new, but it will never grow old. Junior Senior has a talent for creating insanely catchy, upbeat dance songs (though they have little talent for writing lyrics). One of the most euphoric albums ever (from Denmark!). It sounds like it should be a greatest hits album in the way that every track has an inherent familiarity and greatest-ness. Sidenote: we’ll never see a Junior Senior greatest hits because they BROKE UP (WTF? It’s like breaking up Hall & Oates or peanut butter & jelly) although maybe I can still see them live (REUNION TOUR???). Anyway…the album’s funky-fresh, poppy, romantic but never sappy, and groovier than James Brown dancin’ on the Soul Train. It continues (& ends) the legacy of moving yr feet…RIP Junior Senior!

(btw Jeppe Laursen [aka "Senior" aka guy on the right] looks so creepy)

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YAY! Awesome 80sesque synthheavyhappy dancedisco beats from a French master named Keenhouse who just won’t quit! Part of the Valerie Collective, one of the best musical collectives out there - stay tuned for releases from artists Anoraak, The Outrunners, College, Miami Horror, and more! If you like similar music and know of other artists like this guy, please drop them in the comments! I always love new music, obviously, even if I don’t have room for it.

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