Analog synthpop melodies with hooks and solos.

16 MP3 Songs
ELECTRONIC: Pop Crossover, POP: New Wave



Details:
Cameron Macdonald (Grooves Magazine, Sacramento News and Review): "instant hooks, rubber-banded synth melodies and mid-tempo beats set one bare foot in the early Reagan years and the other in the less naive '00s."
Eschewing the simplistic, 'cut-and-paste' aesthetic of current digital electronic music, Junobot uses his motley band of vintage synthesizers and drum machines to channel a solid update to the synthpop genre. The way Junobot idolizes 80's synthpop, you might expect a mash of Vicious Pink and Naked Eyes. Instead, he promises a style all his own with The Nature of Technology; electropop with meat on it's bones, electroclash without the irony, industrial with feelings. Taking the pulsing one-finger basslines of Erasure's Vince Clark and the minor-key despair of Depeche Mode's Martin Gore, Junobot moves deftly between dancy melodies that lodge in your head and darker song subjects. On "Plastic", he sings "...just give me something/something to live for/just give me something/but don't give me plastic..." The line rings out like a plea for substance in the often tasteless sea of modern electroclash- which is not to say he isn't a fan himself, indicated by the track "Love Me." Dressed up with an eighth-note octave bassline and moog-y melody to boot, the track is a plaintive robotic cry to a lover-to-be with analog chirps in the chorus. "U R Not Me" rocks the hardest here with a vocodered request for understanding trembling above the dark layers of synth pulses and driving early industrial-like bass drums. Other standout tracks are the remixes by Lemans Electro and the Duke from Freezepop (whose 'Radiant Sun' remix of Smile delivers airy vocals conjuring warm spring days with "...the cute one in the corner..")