It is common knowledge that music blogs used be the main source of exciting new dance music. Used to be? Well, in these times of post-distortion disco, formerly lead by Justice and the Ed Banger camp, the 'Blog House' sound that was once rather easy to pinpoint split up in dozens of directions. Some went down the Nu Disco route following Aeroplane, some went underground to experiment with heavy bass and dubstep, countless people tried to follow the romantic and dreamy 1980s vibe of Valerie, many picked up the reduced techno sound dominated by big drums and squeaking bleeps made famous by Dutch producers like Afrojack and a couple of guys are obviously still living under a rock and are still hailing distortion. All of these approaches got something in common: apart from the original producers and very few exceptions, the resulting output is boring as hell.
Thus I find it harder to discover actually interesting unheard electronic music on and off the blogs these days. But luckily, there are exceptions to the rule. Enter Monarchy. Little is known about them, apart from the fact that they are (once again) based in London and we're dealing with two guys who are definitely not new to the game. Both their debut track 'Gold In The Fire' and the all new 'Black The Colour Of My Heart' are flash-frozen, blistering cold electro-pop snow crystals, reminiscent of Junior Boys laced with the great gestures of epic songwriting. Digital arctic soundscapes layered with catchy vocals, falsetto and vocoders, sounding as if they were recorded at a place like Ice Station Zebra, where every spoken syllable immediately turns into a fading cloud of ice particles.
Obviously, Monarchy already found a fair amount of fans, including Neon Gold Records, one of the top incubators for upcoming pop sensations, who will release their debut single in February 2010. Listen to the demo version of 'Gold In The Fire' after the jump!
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