Hey everyone - welcome back at the discotheque!
April 21st 2009: Thomas Bangalter steps up to the decks at Cinespace in Los Angeles for Busy P's 34th birthday party. Behind him is the latter, and DJ Mehdi stands to the right.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
It's been a little while since the last post on the blog (wow, I'm saying that far too often these days!) - but seeing as summer is now well and truly upon us (it's a sweltering twenty-six degrees outside as I write this - how I'm not dead or melting in a puddle I find remarkable...) - I now have a whole bunch of time to post, so buckle your damn seat belts, because I have a whole lot to say!
This time a year ago, I was up in Scotland with my family on holiday - and if you've been keeping up with the blog for a fairly long time, then you might have noticed that today officially marks one year since I declared that bloghouse - the late 2000s internet movement that came alongside French house's second major wave, the electro house explosion and the indie sleaze aesthetic - should come back, and boy, it sure has!
While I'd like to say that in no way was my post on the blog-era the major catalyst for the return of the era, as it's been going for a few years by this point - I do feel that in the last year, there's been a whole bunch of progress - and that's what this post is aiming to detail, so without further ado, let's begin (but not without a few explanations first!
What is bloghouse?
For those that are unaware of the term - 'bloghouse' refers to a six year, global, internet-fueled movement that took place from 2006 to 2012, largely aided by lots and lots of music blogs, platforms such as MySpace and early YouTube, and various independent journalists who reported on several sides of the scene, such as Mark Hunter (known to many as the Cobra Snake) and Glenjamn.
Like I said above - this period ended up becoming extremely well known for a whole bunch of different reasons, namely the return of French house thanks to Daft Punk's legendary final world tour - which inspired a whole generation of artists such as The Phantom's Revenge, Louis La Roche, Vanguard, Knightlife, Go Go Bizkitt! and Kartell amongst many, many others - the electro boom which was spearheaded by acts such as Boys Noize (and his legendary, self-titled label which launched the careers of Strip Steve, D.I.M. and Les Petits Pilous) - and of course, the red-hot Ed Banger Records, which became a global phenomenon during the era and possibly the most iconic French electronic music crew of the late 2000s - the resurgence of legendary DJs such as Canadian hip-hop legend A-Trak, DJ Falcon and Patrick Alavi - and also plenty of new talents that stepped up from both sides of the fence - including Radio 1 residents Jaymo and Andy George, Darius, Madeon and Proxy.
October 7th 2010: Vanguard play to a packed Clwb Ifor Bach in the middle of their headline set for BBC Radio 1's United Nations event in Cardiff.
So, why is this happening?
Last year, I discovered this entire scene at an extremely quick pace - and to add, I met a whole bunch of people that were also super into this era of house music - so naturally, after a few months of trawling through the internet, looking for lost tracks, obscure bangers and finding a whole bunch of blogs, me and all of my friends in French house and electro decided that summer that we were going to try our best to help in the growing resurgence for the movement - which culminated in a short, but sweet post on the blog - which I used as a grandiose statement of intent.
Since then, it's been an extremely busy twelve months - and while I could go on for days and days about everything awesome that's been happening - here is (a very small) selection of some of my personal highlights from what I consider to be the first major year of the bloghouse revival.
The release of Wire One and SHPESHFTR's brand new single Feel Something!
This will be covered in much greater detail in the first part of the next major promotion post - but the brand new single from two of bloghouse's finest current talents - Canadian electro king SHPESHFTR and Detroit's very own Wire One - serves as a pivotal moment for the revival. As to be expected from one of the scene's finest duos, this new single is undoubtedly their best work - and it's a smoking, and frankly epic excursion into the late 2000s electro house sound - and seeing the two of them thrive over the last year creating some of the finest music I've ever had the chance to review and listen to has been such a massive treat - from Wire's excellent release for Purple and his stunning EP Qualia, to SHPESHFTR's slew of dizzying, yet metal remixes for the likes of Danny Brown, LCD Soundsystem and Fcukers and his incredible new singles which have, quite rightfully, blew up on SoundCloud - if there's any doubt in your head that bloghouse is back? I'd highly suggest you give them both a follow.
Lots of previously lost Vanguard tracks were recovered and discovered!
While this pick might seem a little bit underground - there's a few particular reasons why I've chosen this to go as one of my top highlights. For the uninitiated - Vanguard was the two-man project of Tomos and dJJ - and they quickly rose to fame in late 2009 / early 2010 after being championed by BBC Radio 1 several times, releasing an EP for Kris Menace's label Work it Baby and above all - releasing a whole bunch of amazing filter house material that still leaves new fans in awe.
Between July and August, a massive selection of what were 'lost' tracks were recovered and put online after Tomos - one half of the duo (the guy on the right, if you're curious...) sent them to two of my good friends, Opierm and Luv4Loop. In the batch, there were demos from their debut EP, iconic flips of classics from Foals and Fred Falke, and several quirky tracks that were released onto MySpace in 2008 / early 2009. In short, this is definitely something to be excited about. Peep the Vanguard archive below!
The Dare has been taking over the world lately!
If there's one person that comes to mind when you think of the indie sleaze revival - then I can almost guarantee that New-York based producer, DJ and frequent smoker The Dare will pop up. He's had an extremely busy year - he's done official remixes for the likes of Justice and Wet Leg, played in numerous clubs as part of his 'Freakquencies' club night which he's been running for years - and he most recently released a killer EP back in August through Republic which was a fixture of the summer - especially the lead single 'Tambourine' - a sweet, yet bangin' club tool which is fun, while remaining effortlessly stylish. Seeing as he's become one of the pivotal figures in the revival of the moment, and considering all of his great new material - I knew that he had to come back onto the blog for this retrospective!
.jpg)
The release of Creux La Nuit's blog-era compilation CLNSpace!
I feel like me mentioning this album really isn't a surprise at all. Released halfway through October last year - Creux La Nuit's compilation album paying tribute to the era (in sound and also name, which I'm sure you didn't guess?) is one of my favourite releases for lots of different reasons. It's an exceptionally diverse body of work from the finest collective of artists I know - there's tons of club jams, blog-era sounding bangers that would have made waves on Discodust or Illicxtronix in 2008 and also some chilled out cuts that ooze with warmth - mixing the styles of several late 2000s legends and blending them all together to make a super sweet record, while calling back to past eras of filter house to keep everything in check. Everyone at CLN loves the blog-era from both sides of the fence (electro and disco!) - so this feels like a very natural compilation, and everything flowed amazingly during production (but I don't think my track holds up as well compared to the likes of La Bourbelette or Nuliebe, haha!)
While it was initially available on MediaFire exclusively in 320 MP3 (yeah, we really tried to make this authentic!) you can now find it on Bandcamp.
.jpg)
Let's talk about Denmark's biggest up and coming blog-era talent Poetically!
I first discovered Poetically in August 2025 upon the release of their then new single 'Bye Bye Love' - which later ended up on the cracking compilation album Queer Oddities, released through Montaime - and I was instantly floored. I fell in love with their productions for their punchy, choppy sound, heavy reliance on distortion with a punk-edge thrown in there for good measure, and most importantly, I loved how rebellious and epic Poetically's music was right from the get go - so they ended up finding a new fan that day.
Since then, they've released some amazing singles, such as the end of year classic Oh So Pretty, and the incredible, extremely dark weapon Turn Yourself To Gold, which consistently flips from a slamming, electro clash influenced banger into an insane metal workout (which I found pretty insane upon first listen!) - so if their recent work is anything to go by - I'm not surprised if they're going to be selling out clubs and venues everywhere in the next few years. Go and get poetic!
.jpg)
Karma by The Phantom's Revenge was found!
Similar to the Vanguard feature in a way, although to some this might seem relatively small in nature compared to some of the other features - finding one of the oldest (and previously lost) tracks from one of French house's biggest legends back in September was quite the trip. After I found some (rather old) proof on Rate Your Music and last.fm that this track actually existed - the blog's resident Canadian disco king Laberge went and asked the man himself if the track was anywhere - and to our surprise, he gladly delivered, and the result is pretty damn sweet. It's a fairly simplistic flip of Dance Yourself Dizzy by Liquid Gold, but, as per usual from the Phantom, it absolutely bumps, and is an essential listen for anyone who's looking to go deeper into the man's extensive, and brilliant catalogue!
You can find it on YouTube.
Broken Embraces has been taking the world by storm right now!
To end out this section of the post - I wanted to talk very briefly about Broken Embraces, the electro house producer that pretty much everyone who reads the blog knows about now. Hailing from Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay - across the last year, this guy has made some of the most daring, frankly nuts and bonkers electro house that's rough, loud and mad enough to turn any dead dance floor into a heavy, raging mosh-pit full of headbanging fans. He's remixed the likes of Uffie, CSS, Death Grips, Groupthink and Foals - and his original tracks, despite being far and few - are absolutely ridiculous, with his album of unreleased cuts being a huge hidden gem - and his incredible single Unrest, which was a staple on the blog in winter - has earned praise from Deathgasp, Le Sorv and SHPESHFTR to date.
Go and follow his SoundCloud!
So, where now?
What I've just been talking about is only a tiny, tiny fraction of everything that occurred this year - there's been a whole bunch of material from Tiga and Boys Noize (most notably, his collaborative project with American band Nine Inch Nails!) - a whole bunch of parties, a major Justice tour and of course, releases from many underground talents in the scene and an increase in blog-era fans worldwide, bolstered by various pop projects such as Charli XCX's Brat.
Seeing as it would likely take me forever to list out every single thing - I'm going to shoutout a whole bunch of people that I think you should check out who are pushing for the blog-era to come back!
I'd like to give it up for a whole bunch of the Montaime crew, first and foremost - who have recently been moving in a French electro direction - notable examples include head honcho FIBRE, of course, Poetically, who was mentioned above - and Boise-based producer DASH30 - who's been producing a whole bunch of incredible beats that sound like they would have been signed to Ed Banger, Kitsune or BNR within a finger snap.
Secondly, I'd like to shoutout a whole bunch of the OMEAC crew who are on fire at the moment - in particular, Artemis Morte who's just released his sophomore album 'Tender Is The Flesh' - and Monte Hills, who's just released the great Kayleigh A. Blossom Album - alongside a whole bunch of the finest electro talents I know - namely Cathedralis, Peri L'Flamme and Hollowire (who's also part of CLN!)
Thirdly, I'd like to give some love to all of the people I know in the French house and future funk scenes that are sprinkling the sounds of this amazing time into their work - namely Moe Shop, a whole bunch of Creux La Nuit (but I feel like that's a given...) - CyanBlue, CrystalForce and Nickster - and finally, I'd like to say a huge thanks to all of the LEGENDS that have caught onto the revival - this includes Laberge, Ghosts of Venice, Le Phunk, Louis La Roche, LeBatman and Digitalfoxglove - amongst many others, so thank you!
April 8th 2010: A flyer for the 'Into The AM' club night at V2O in California - on the bill is Treasure Fingers, Kill The Noise and La Zebra!
There you have it, everyone!
I hope you've enjoyed reading today's post - this is my first one in a little while as I said above - and I've been very busy lately, so I apologize if this post is a little bit basic or unlike the usual stuff - go easy on me, I'm trying to ease back into the swing of things!
As always, be sure to support all of the artists featured today, and keep enjoying your stay at the discotheque.
Comments
Post a Comment