Strange Stubborn Proud –  ELYXR (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Electro-pop never goes out of fashion because pop, by its very nature never goes out of fashion. Some things never age, an addictive vibe and infectious groove a solid beat, if you have that, you can’t go far wrong. And whilst Strange Stubborn Proud certainly nods to a whole number of synth pop pioneers and those who they influenced – from Depeche Mode and New Order to Goldfrapp and Röyksopp – ELYXR make music for the here and now.

ELYXR is a musical meeting of minds and a wholly collaborative affair between Kasson Crooker (Symbion Project, Freezepop) and Kurt Harland Larson (Information Society) and wonderfully combines the best of 80’s referencing synth-pop and modern electronic music studio innovations. Strange Stubborn Proud is a glorious slice of Day-Glo, dance floor electronica and its mix of clinical perfection and human deftness combines to put a warm heart into a style which all too often revels in the detachment of machine made music.

Instead this is the sound of people making music with technology, rather than machine music fronted by humans, and so it pops and swaggers, struts and grooves in a way that much of the genre never did in the past, it also has something interesting to say, a moment of self analysis and soul searching exploration. Not something you would catch a mere machine doing.

Check out more from ELYXR – here