Motel la Solitude is an amazingly strong sophmore album from the Italian synthpop duo, Babylonia.

Released four years after their last album, Later Tonight, Motel la Solitude features a rich tapbestry of well-crafted songs that take the group’s sound in some fresh new directions, while retaining enough of the group’s signature songs – Max Giunta’s plaintive, urgent vocals, electric piano and lush synthesizer arrangements – to create one of the first truly outstanding albums of the new year.

The pleasures of this delightful album are best appreciated with a good pair of headphones. The production on Motel la Solitude is first rate, with the group’s lush arrangements rarely if ever sounding muddy or over-produced. A new addition to the Babylonia sound on this album is guitar, which is perfectly integrated into the group’s rich instrumental tapestry on several songs, and adds an exciting new dimension to the group’s already-distinctive style.

Here are some highlights:

A Feeling Without Feeling: The first song on Motel la Solitude starts out with a stark, lonely synth line, followed by Max’s expressive vocals. Against this spartan backdrop, the song slowly builds into a delectable, multifaceted mid-tempo number punctuated by a soaring synthsizer riff.

On The Corner: An ominous sounding mid-tempo song that is one of my favorites. After a 30-second synthesizer intro, the lead guitar is paired with drums to establish a strong, driving beat for this excellent song. As usual, Max’s plaintive vocals reinforce the ominous tone of On the Corner: “Something waits around the corner/I don’t want to discover/What stands around the corner/I’m trembling.” A very cool song!

By My Side: A great selection for the first single from Motel la Solitude. This song has a very lush sound and a strong beat. I love the way Babylonia uses different instruments and vocals to set up a point-counterpoint, with synth and guitar playfully swirling around in my headphones.

Better Days: An excellent ballad, underscored by a soaring synthesizer line that reflects the lyrics’ hopeful tone:  “We just can’t seen to find a way/So I can pray for better days.”

Ethereal Connection: Another well-crafted, lush mid-tempo song. One of its highlights is a beautiful instrumental interlude about 1:40 into this excellent song that serves as its bridge.

Myself Into Myself: This song features many playful touches and contrasts in it’s lush arrangement that gives it a DM-esque sound.

Requiem For Me: A sparse but blissful ballad that features a great point-counterpoint between Max’s heavenly vocals and atmospheric synth lines. Pure ear candy!

Soundtrack for an End: This excellent song features propulsive vocals, underscored by a playful beat underscored by jangly synths. At the end of the song, there is a very cool interlude with what sounds like a synthesized slide guitar. Heavenly!

Love Not For Me: A soaring, multi-layered violin intro slowly reaches a crescendo, then transitions into a propulsive beat with synth accents that sounds very reminiscent of recent Depeche Mode songs. Lots of playful noises and synthesizer riffs swirl around Max’s distinctive vocals, making this a real stand-out track, in my opinion.

Although it’s too early in 2010 to proclaim Babylonia’s new release as the best album of the new year, it’s certainly in first place on my playlist right now!

You can listen to excerpts of four songs on Babylonia’s MySpace page. Motel la Solitude will be released on January 15, 2010.

Some albums just grab hold of you the first time you listen to them. With other albums, it takes repeated listening sessions for the songs to grow on you. And some albums you “connect” with only in a limited way, no matter how long you listen to them. I’m afraid to say that the latter is the case with Mesh’s new album, A Perfect Solution.

I had high expectations for this album, especially because their last release, We Collide, is an absolute masterpiece.  Mesh set the bar very high for themselves with this stellar album. In comparison, A Perfect Solution just doesn’t measure up.

I waited for weeks to write this review, waiting and wondering if perhaps I was jumping to conclusions too quickly. Maybe if I gave it more time, it would start to grow on me, I reasoned. But that never quite happened.

To be fair, A Perfect Solution does contain some excellent songs, such as Only Better, If We Stay Here, It’s Gone and Who Says. But the rest of the album seems to be populated with fairly mediocre songs that just didn’t resonate with me.

Here are some highlights:

If We Stay Here – A very strong opening track, with a rocking beat.

Only Better – A great choice for the first single from this album. Only Better has that signature Mesh sound – Mark Hockings’ distinctive vocals, angst-tinged lyrics, guitar for underpinning and soaring synths. The outro on this song feels bolted onto the song, and doesn’t quite seem to fit. Still, an excellent track overall. Be sure to check out the Alien 6 Mix of this song, which gives it a driving clubby beat and contains numerous neat little touches. It can be found on the Only Better EP, which was released a month before A Perfect Solution.

Everything I Made – Another solid mid-tempo Mesh song; just not very memorable.

Is It So Hard – A ballad; just doesn’t do anything for me.

Hold It Together – Another mid-tempo song that feels a little bit like filler.

The middle of the album is where Mesh seems to run out of steam. It’s not that they’re badly-written songs; they just don’t meet the usual standard that Mesh fans have become accustomed to.

It’s Gone – I like this pop-styled ballad, which is supported by a sweet-sounding acoustic guitar. Synths are used sparingly, mainly in the bridge of the song.

How Long – Another forgettable mid- tempo song, with somewhat inane lyrics: “If we’d ever write the play/We’d never need rehearse/Cause everything we say/Someone’s said it first.”

Who Says – What makes this song really stand out is the duet between Mesh frontman Mark Hockings and Julia Beyer of Technoir.

Hope.Dreams – Very much a classic Mesh mid-tempo song, with percussive synthesizers and Hockings’ minor key vocals. This is one of those songs that took a while to grow on me.

Want You – Not one of Mesh’s more memorable ballads.

The Bitter End – The closing song on A Perfect Solution starts out with an echoey synthsizer riff that sounds like an homage to VNV Nation, and transitions into a driving, industrial beat with Hockings’ punchy lyrics proving the counterpoint. This is a strong end to an otherwise average album.

A Perfect Solution marks the return of a former Mesh staple, the instrumental outro. They work well on a few songs, such as Who Says and Hope.Dreams but they seem randomly bolted on to other songs, such as Only Better and Hold It Together.

My verdict: A Perfect Solution is a pretty good album, but as a follow-up to their last album, We Collide, it’s not of the same caliber. Die-hard Mesh fans will want to pick it up to complete their collection. But if you’re new to the Mesh camp and are looking for an entry point into their extensive catalog, We Collide is still your best bet.

Tenek’s new album, Stateless, is one of the standout synthpop releases of 2009. It’s filled with infectious, complex songs that are a delight to listen to, with a myriad of rhythms and textures that are pure ear candy.

Tenek is the latest project from Geoff Pinckney (The Nine/Mesh) and Pete Steer. Both gentlemen have had long careers in the UK electronic music scene, and it shows in the confident, polished but never over-produced arrangements on Stateless. This is the first full album produced by the duo.

What really sets Stateless apart is the variety of songs, from synth-driven pop to club-friendly, beat-heavy, densely arranged floor fillers, plus several impressive instrumental tracks. A number of songs do an excellent job of blending synthesizers with guitars – a rarity in most electronic music these days. Steer’s guitar playing is used for emphasis, and never overwhelms the arrangement of the songs.

I’m a fan of layered arrangements where different elements swim around in the headphones, sometimes supporting and other times contrasting with each other. That means there’s lots to love in Stateless. There is literally no filler on this album. Every song is a strong effort in its own right.

Here are a few highlights:

Breakdown – One of my favorite tracks on Stateless. A club-friendly beat becomes really pronounced in the chorus of this densely layered arrangement. Vocals are punctuated by some use of vocoder, but it’s not excessive.

Submission – Opens with very cool guitar riffs. This is a nicely arranged mid-tempo song.

If I Should Fall – A driving uptempo number with nice use of vocal harmony. Another favorite from this album.

Where’s the Time – A rocking song with a great rhythm. Rather sparsely arranged, with pulsating synths and lyrics providing a very effective counterpoint to each other.

Fatality – A mellow instrumental track that starts out with a sparse beat, adds an understated, spacey guitar riff and is eventually punctuated by driving synths about two-thirds of the way through.  Nice!

I Don’t Cry (For You) – Intelligent lyrics and soaring synths combine with a nice, driving beat. Synthesized guitar is used nicely for emphasis between the chorus and verses. Another one of the better songs on Stateless.

Less is More- A driving beat and chilly, cool-sounding synths combined with Geoff’s sharply-punctuated vocal stylings make this perhaps the best track on the album, in my opinion.

State of Mind – Spacey opening that quickly evolves into a lush arrangement with pulsating, layered synths.

Sombre Friday – An awesome chilled-out instrumental that you simply must listen to on headphones. Nice layered arrangement point-counterpoint about halfway through the song between the stately “chorus” synths and an electric guitar.

If you’re a fan of contemporary synthpop, chances are you’re going to love Stateless, which is released on the Toffeetones label. I can’t wait to see where Pinckney and Steer go from here!

Depeche Mode has always been one of my favorite groups, thanks to their awesome songwriting skills and the infectious style that is uniquely their own.

I recently went through the song list on my iPod Touch and compiled a list of my favorite DM tunes of all time. It contains quite a few “old school” songs, but also some very recent ones:

• Behind the Wheel – One of the first DM songs I ever heard, which I immediately fell in love with.
• Black Celebration – I first heard this on 101, and fell in love with it even more when I saw the live version in the 101 movie.
• Things You Said – Another early favorite, which I originally heard in its studio version on a cassette tape that a coworker gave to me. Soon after, I bought 101, and liked the live version even more!
• Strangelove – How can you not love this song?!
• Halo – An excellent song off of the amazing Violator album, from 1990. I love the way the vocals and synths punctuate this song!
• In Your Room – Spooky, moody DM at its best.
• Never Let Me Down Again – One of the biggest crowd favorites at any live DM performance – and rightly so!
• Personal Jesus – One of the closest things that DM has ever had a to a pop hit.
• Sister of Night – Another brooding, classic song off the Ultra album. I love the synth solo at the end of the song. Gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.
• Waiting for the Night – Also from Violator, the lyrics of this song paint a rich word picture. Cool!
• Higher Love – A great song from Songs of Faith & Devotion.
• In Chains – One of my favorite songs from DM’s latest release, Sounds of the Universe. It’s got a definite bluesy feel to it.
• Perfect – Probably my favorite song from Songs of the Universe. It has a real classic DM sound to it.
• Little Soul – This odd little number from SOTU caught my ear for some reason. I just like it a lot – I can’t explain why, though.
• Sacred – I first became acquainted with this song on the local alternative radio station in Milwaukee, WMSE. Heard it while driving to Chicago one day, and was amazed by its vocal harmonies and punchy synths. I think this song was what pushed me over the edge to buy 101, which I nearly wore out in my car’s tape player during the next few years!
• Stripped – I love the live version of this song from the 101 movie (and the live album).
• World in My Eyes – Another solid hit from Violator with punchy synths and great lyrics.

What are your favorite DM songs?

(Flickr image by leeno used under Creative Commons license)

On Tuesday night, my sister and I went to see the Pet Shop Boys in concert at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee. Despite the fact that they’ve been making music for over 20 years, I had never had an opportunity to see them live, so this was a real treat for me.

The show was amazing. PSB played an entertaining blend of old and new songs, including many of the classic tunes that I listen to regularly on my iPod Touch, such as Two Divided by Zero, Closer to Heaven, Left to My Own Devices and Kings Cross.

New tunes from the group’s latest album, Yes, released in March of this year, were also well represented, with the boys performing Did You See Me Coming, Love Etc., Building a Wall and More Than a Dream. Neal Tennant and Chris Lowe incorporated several interesting “mashups” into their performance, at one point starting off with the instrumental part of Disccoteca, seamlessly morphing into several riffs from Domino Dancing and then transitioning into a cover of Coldplay’s Viva la Vida.

A Pet Shop Boys concert is not only an aural treat, but a visual one as well. Tennant and Lowe made multiple costume changes. The stage setup was amazing: A stark wall of giant white blocks, which served as both a prop and a projection screen. Four “cube people” – singers and dancers wearing cube heads and robotic-like outfits provided back-up vocals and entertained with well-choreographed dance moves. About a third of the way through the concert, the performers knocked down the wall, after which stage hands in white lab coats and hard hats periodically rearranged them into different configurations.  The motif was both simple and amazingly flexible.

The capacity crowd at this intimate venue was very enthusiastic, dancing and cheering for PSB classics like West End s, Go West and It’s a Sin.

All in all, it was a stunning experience that was over too soon, and exceeded my expectations. In an age when many 80s new wave and synthpop icons are trying to recapture their now-middle aged audience, the Pet Shop Boys have confidently kept doing their own thing. Listening to this well-chosen retrospective of their considerable catalog in a span of 90 minutes was truly impressive!

Lumineux Noir, the new album from the Greek synthpop girl duo Marsheaux, is a delight to listen to and is one of the top synthpop recordings of 2009, in my opinion. This masterpiece is filled with bright, energetic and memorable pop- and club-oriented songs that are perfect for a sunny summer day.

On this new album, Sophie and Marianthi – the two Greek goddesses who are Marsheaux  –  experiment a bit more with club friendly beats, guitars and the electronic toy-like Casiotone. The album features the girls’ trademark ethereal, seductive vocals, which often venture into beautiful harmonies. The song arrangements display a nice variety, sometimes sparse and other times lush, but never overproduced or campy. Marsheaux’s simple, irresistible melodies and lyrics continued to play in my head for hours after listening to Lumineux Noir — a tribute to Sophie’s and Marianthi’s remarkable songwriting skills.

As suggested by its paradoxical name Lumineux Noir, isn’t all sweetness and light electro-pop.  The album also has its darker touches: The closing track on Lumineux Noir is a very cool, brooding song called Sorrow about love and loss that appears to be inspired by Depeche Mode.

It’s hard to pick a few favorite tracks to recommend to you, because this is such a strong album from beginning to end. If I had to do so, I would say that the songs I like the best are So Far, Exit, Stand By, Loss of Heaven and Sorrow.

In short, two thumbs way up for Lumineux Noir! The album is available on iTunes and from a variety of online music outlets. You can keep up with all of the latest Marsheaux developments on the group’s Facebook page.