MONKOORA - PALE SLOPES

Monkoora is the newest addition to Glasgow's Hot Gem Tunes, a label regular readers will know is home to some of the finest electronic music you can hear at the moment. Monkoora, a solo project of 22 year old Glasgow based multi instrumentalist Julie Crawford, is a blend of experimental sounds, ambient textures and soaring, haunting vocals all of which combine to make Pale Slopes, her debut mini album, a fascinating and quite enchanting release.

What immediately strikes you about Pale Slopes are the vocals. Throughout the record, they stand out, ethereal, powerful and incredibly striking. The brilliant opener Hiding Behind Horizons is a sparse electronic track with an organ drone running through it but layered over that are vocal line upon vocal line, intertwining with each other, creating a dark yet uplifting track that starts proceedings off wonderfully.

The standout track for me is the magnificent Catch With A Crystal Ball. Imagine Kate Bush fronting Yazoo instead of Alison Moyet - this track is what you'd get. It sounds just like that and, upon hearing it, you wonder why no-one has ever done that sort of thing before. It's certainly what you might call the album's poppiest moment and it's a track you want to hear. There are many styles whose influences you can detect on Pale Slopes. For example, To Run mixes a tribal type beat with angular detuned synths and Cocteau Twins like vocals, while Polly Anne Morris moves towards experimental electronica. The closing Dawn Mastered has the clearest vocals here ("I want to feel this heat/Again and again/With all of my friends"), emerging like a burst of sun through the haze of the preceding tracks, ending the album majestically.

For a label as young as Hot Gem Tunes, high standards have already been set and those standards have to be lived up to. Pale Slopes does just that and if this mini album is an example of what Monkoora is capable of, this is an artist to watch.

Pale Slopes by Monkoora is out now on Hot Gem Tunes and is available digitally on Boomkat, Juno and ITunes. Monkoora's debut live show will be at The Old Hairdresser's, Glasgow on 15 June

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SALLY DIGE - HARD TO PLEASE

Continuing their theme of releasing nothing but outstanding records, Glasgow's Night School Records have just released Hard To Please, the debut album by Sally Dige, a Berlin based Canadian musician. The album is a collection of first class electropop and is quickly becoming one of my albums of the year.

Opener and title track Hard To Please sets the standard quickly with an A Broken Frame era Depeche Mode feel, especially with its Leave In Silence like baseline. Diego's vocals are captivating, both on this track and throughout and they match the music perfectly. Immaculate Deception follows and whilst I realise this is both (1) and obvious and (2) a tedious comparison, Depeche Mode spring to mind again with the track having a distinct Speak & Spell vibe, albeit one with Siouxsie on vocals if you can imagine such a thing. Trust me, it's a very good thing indeed. So Far Away has a harder sound with Pretty Hate Machine style beats and harder, less obviously poppy synths, before the superb Doppleganger finishes off Side 1 beautifully with a wonderful piece of cold wave synthpop. I say Side 1 because I managed to get my hands on one of the limited edition clear vinyl releases as you can see below

Side 2 continues where Side 1 left off with the Yazoo like Losing You. Don't let the comparisons to the early synth genius Depeche and Yazoo make you think this album is a retro sounding 80's thing by the way; that's just not the case. It takes influence from that era no doubt, but it retains a modern feel throughout. Your Girl and A Certain Beauty follow, the former following a Cocteau Twins path, the latter a more gothic one and both are a joy to the ears. The album closes with the dark Dance Of Delusion which reminds me of The Cure in the Faith and Pornography days and that can only be a positive.

Hard To Please is an album that is bound to appeal not only to fans of synthpop but also to anyone who enjoys artists who manage to combine a feel of experimentation with electronic pop which is never an easy balance to strike. Given that this is her debut album, and given that she strikes that balance so impressively, Sally Dige is an artist that I know I'm going to be keeping a close eye on. You should too.

Sally Dige Hard To Please is released on Night School Records and is available on vinyl and cd. GO to http://nightschoolrecords.com to find out more