After their 2003 debut, Permission to Land, and its massive single, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” rocketed them to international success, the band only released one more LP: 2005’s One Way to Ticket to Hell and Back. Personal demons and creative tensions within the band mounted, and Justin in particular battled significant drug and alcohol issues. Over the next several years, the members diverted into side projects including Dan and Ed’s Stone Gods and Justin’s Hot Leg, and Justin’s production work for other artists such as Foxy Shazam.

Lo and behold, the wheel of time turned its attention back toward the group that re-launched Cheap Trick riffs and Freddie Mercury falsettos into the contemporary rock ‘n’ roll atmosphere. The Darkness accepted an offer to play last year’s Download Festival, and subsequently embarked on a full-fledged European and UK tour and found they once again had the itch to write and record together. Their third, as-yet-untitled album will be released worldwide this spring, and fans can expect globe-trotting live dates to follow.

With the band tuning up behind him, Justin explains to Kenny Herzog why it’s as if no time has passed, and how he and the Darkness found their way back from hell.

In the seven years since Hell and Back, everything about the music industry seems to have shifted. What’s the strangest or most intimidating change you’ve observed since reuniting?

When we first formed in 2000, the goal was — get signed to a major label or even an independent label. Everybody just wanted to get signed. You move to London, you start a band, and that’s the goal. You figure the hard work is done once you get signed.

We found no one wanted to sign this flamboyant rock band that did dramatic monologues and wore unusual costumes. We kind of did things ourselves, kind of like the first of the new breed of big, successful DIY people in the UK. We were selling out big theaters and doing it all unsigned, and we were sort of heroes of that kind of ethos at that time. Then, we went and signed to a major label. [Laughs]

Justin Hawkins of The Darkness. Download Festival, UK, 2011. Photo: Steve Thorne/Redferns/Getty

I think none of us could resist it anymore. It was such a traditional ambition of ours that we had to do it, and we all know what happened next. And then everything changed.

I think we were one of the last newish rock bands to sell a lot of actual records and vinyl records too. In terms of what’s intimidating, none of it is.

Even though every part of the music industry has fallen away and no one can really survive anymore, the songwriting is still really lucrative and exciting and just a great aspect of the industry to be involved in, and we’ve all been really lucky with that. I genuinely think that if you’ve got the right material, you’ve got nothing to fear. I think we’ve got the songs, so we’re lucky.

A lot of bands that have stuck around this past decade have adapted to trendier styles and techniques to stay relevant, like Auto-Tine. Did you consider any of that when you got back in the studio?

To be honest, I’m offended by Auto-Tuning. I think it sounds awful. Obviously, it’s nice to think there’s a machine out there that can make your voice sound like it’s singing the correct note and singing it true. I actually think it’s nicer to hear a vocalist sing sharp. I think it’s the difference between old Whitney Houston and new Whitney Houston.

There are other differences too, but from a purely sonic level, Auto-Tune has killed that. There’s nothing exciting about listening to a computer sing.

So you wouldn’t go the same route as Korn and record an entire album as a dubstep mash-up?

I have no idea what dubstep is. [Laughs] Is that like reggae music or something?

It’s essentially a harsh, downbeat electronic subgenre that’s become du jour these days.

Well, we thought about experimenting with dubstep, and then we rejected the idea as preposterous. [Laughs] I would rather eat my own head than do a dubstep mash-up…. People always make the assumption that rock bands who reform—and usually it’s a correct one—it’s because they want to be successful.

Obviously, a little success would be nice, but not of the expense of the art. There are people in the world who do dubstep mash-ups really well, I’m sure. I don’t think the Darkness is one of them. [Laughs]

Did you start hearing any new sounds during your hiatus from the Darkness that might pop up on the new record?

Not really. I think we all had different musical journeys, but that’s been a theme of the Darkness from day one. We all see things very differently, and that’s what makes it what it is. That’s reflective in our respective work away from the project. It’s very obvious what we all bring to it. We’re just bringing it more, there’s more of it.

Justin Hawkins of The Darkness in California on the band's US tour, Feb. 21, 2012. Photo: C Flanigan/FilmMagic/Getty

Does this reformation feel more like an extension of what you started than a traditional “comeback”?

I would call it phase two of a three-phase plan…. Just putting in a super amount of time to make everything sound the way it should.

Once the album is out, will the tour span around the globe beyond the US and Europe?

We’ll go wherever we wanted. [Laughs] We’re very happy to travel. There’s a lot of stuff being planned, but we never find out about it until it’s done and dusted…. It’s gonna be nice to just be able to play and have people eventually know the words to the new stuff.

But some of the new stuff that we’ve road-tested has been very instant anyway. With the advent of YouTube, it of course is a warts-and-all thing, but at least you get to hear the songs.

Is it stressful to think about delivering a Darkness-sized show to smaller venues in places like the US?

No, it’s the other way around actually. When we first kicked off, we were a stadium band in our minds and hearts, and we were squeezing as much of that attitude into a pub show as we possibly could. And eventually we became an arena band, and it was still a struggle to try and squeeze it in.

At every point we do as much as we can, and that’s the challenge and it’s what we’ve always done. We want the room to be bulging, spiritually and sound-wise.

Given the volatile, opinionated blogging climate, are you concerned with the critical reception the album and tour will receive?

To be honest, people were always cynical and snarky about The Darkness. We do something that’s uplifting and positive, and the very thing that it brings out is snarkiness. We’ve always come up against that, and we’ve won every time because nobody’s more snarky than we are.

When it comes to the writing process of our material, we are ruthless. People get personally hurt by the critique that we unleash on ourselves, and that’s how we know that the stuff we do is fucking bullet-proof.

The Darkness at the Metal Hammer Golden God Awards 2011, UK. Photo: Danny Martindale/WireImage/Getty

So you’re probably better prepared for the critical climate than most bands starting now.

We are the current critical climate, we’re a microcosm of it. We’re so harsh that it makes what happens around the band critically completely irrelevant, just like it always did. It isn’t going to affect what we do.

People are going to be have to be quite defiant to see past all that snarkiness to actually enjoy what we do, but once they do, they find it really rewarding.

And that’s how we make fans: Putting on a good show, singing wholesome songs from the heart, and people love it. We’re not about snarkiness and the rest of the world is. That’s what we do differently I guess.

Why do you think people often don’t have a good sense of humor about music?

I don’t know. I used to worry about that kind of stuff, and I used to feel sorry for people like that, but now I don’t care. [Laughs] I used to say I don’t care, but now I genuinely don’t care. I think people secretly like it. I think it’s like a guilty pleasure.

Show me a person that doesn’t like an awesome riff turned up loud while you’re driving fast with your elbow out of the window of your car, and I’ll show you somebody who’s lying. I’ve done it in helicopters. I’ve done it in every vehicle I’ve been in: Slow, fast, high, low, water-bound, on land and in the sea. And I will live a long time.

What’s your 2012 version of rock-star excess?

Well, I have two dogs, two cats, a girlfriend, I live near my parents, I live near the ocean, live in a huge house, drive a fast car, listen to a lot of rock. It’s quite a good balance.

I suppose it’s everything in moderation, until I get a cat sanctuary, and then the balance shifts a little. I don’t think there’s too much in the way of debauchery and craziness. It’s all about the music.

And, it must be asked, do you still believe in a thing called love?

[Laughs] Yeah, more so than ever. Doesn’t everybody?

Congrats on all the votes. How does it feel to have so many adoring fans voting for you all night long?

I indeed would like to say thank you to all people who stayed awake and voted for us. It’s so great! Thank you once again. I almost feel as if I’m Eddie Murphy meeting Mick Jagger in 1983.

What is the Russian music scene like these days?

The Russian music scene is changing dynamically and went through drastic transformation over the last five years. Indiepop has started to emerge. The music which has been for many years well-known all over the world, which is performed in English and has no Russian roots, is becoming more popular. Moscow abounds in new young groups playing whatever and wherever. And club-kids are dancing Thursday through Monday morning, moving from one bar to another switching dancing floors. I am not sure whether they came of age and they’re allowed to drink!

Where do you guys fit in the scene? Is there a new wave revival in Russia, or are you guys weird?

They call us here the major national hipster group, comparing us to MGMT and Cut Copy. And in spite of my appreciation of these groups, I don’t see any similarities. It’s funny that in Russia today, hipsters are very popular up to the fact that recent anti-Putin rallies were called the “hipster revolution”. In a sort of sense, we are revolutionaries.

What inspired the story of the Tesla Boy in your first song?

The apartment I used to live in was in a building which we describe here as Stalin architecture style. These are huge solid buildings. My apartment was on the first floor, and the ground floor was occupied by a transformer vault which fed the whole place with electricity. A friend of mine once jokingly noticed that my music talent is somehow shaped by this fact and that I should read about Nikola Tesla, thus I studied his life story and wrote a song about a guy who lived above a transformer vault.

What made you guys decide to want to work together?

Three things brought us together – our fine musical taste, appearance, and love for vintage porno movies of the seventies.

What is it about the neon era you love so much?

I love urban chic, and love big cities, which cannot exist without neon lights. Neon lights are like candles in the cathedral, lighting the dark and warming up the soul.

Who did you guys listen to as a kid?

When a kid, I listened a lot of Stevie Wonder, James Brown. Later it was The Smiths, New Order, Depeche Mode. And a lot of jazz music when I was in jazz school.

What is your drink of choice?

Right now it is 14°F in Moscow and of course I prefer lemon black tea.

If you could hang out in a hot tub with three people, who would they be?

This is the hottest topic of late. I think it would be a girl whom I saw last week, and a girl whom I’ll see this week and Dr. Freud who would help me to find out what is all about.

What’s next for Tesla Boy?

We are working on the new album, soon I am leaving for London to finish up the album there, and then we are going on a tour.
And we’re coming to the States soon.

But there’s plenty more to Zaz, born Isabelle Geffroy, than that cliché’d image. She’s a thoughtful and energetic woman from a Paris scene where traditional chanson is just one in a brew of influences that includes African, Gypsy, electronica and jazz elements, among others, swirling around in the clubs and taverns of the Latin Quarter or the Halles district. In her own pathway to an entirely unexpected stardom she picked up a lot of those strands, layered them atop a provincial upbringing and came out with this sassy but lucid artistic persona, a little wide-eyed maybe, but far from naïve.

Recently Zaz came through New York City for a few shows, including one at the Globalfest international music showcase, attended by an industry crowd of concert promoters, managers, media and the like. The next day, in her hotel’s lobby lounge, Zaz chatted in French with MTV Iggy’s Siddhartha Mitter about her sudden burst to fame, her troubled early years, and making classic-sounding French songs in 2012.

At your show you were jumping around on stage, like you couldn’t stay still even when the music was quiet…

Oh yeah, that’s definitely me and my personality. Even more when I’m on stage. I’d probably gain by acting a little more stable, I’ve got a tendency to be scattered. I think as I get older it’ll get better. But yeah, especially when I’m nervous, that’s when I joke around and bounce around the most.

Photo Courtesy of Zaz

You were nervous? Really?

Yeah I was a little stressed, we weren’t in our usual configuration, it was just two guitars, a bass and me; we’d just come back from three weeks of vacation without playing, and on top of it here we are in New York, playing for an industry crowd. But it was cool, though. People knew the songs — that was fun.

Yeah, it’s this funny situation where you’ve become a superstar really fast in France and Europe, but here in the US people don’t really know you.

And I like that! It’s nice to not get recognized, it liberates me and does me good. Though   the last time here I was walking around and these two girls came running after me; they were Turkish. I’m doing pretty well in Turkey. But it’s true, last New Years Eve we were up in the Pyrenees mountains with friends, we partied and drank and I went down into the village, and everyone recognized me. And I was a little tipsy — well, a lot tipsy — and I realized I can’t do this, I’m a public figure now. And sometimes I don’t want to be approached or asked questions as Zaz. I just want to be Isabelle.

Speaking of which, where did the name Zaz come from? It’s kind of retro in itself, you think of the zazous, who were these French hipsters of the 1940s, or the children’s book Zazie dans le métro…

Actually I just started calling myself Zaz when I went up to Paris in 2006 — I needed a name for my MySpace page, and I didn’t want to be Isabelle Geoffroy, even though I love my name. A pal called me Zaz once, and I thought it was pretty. And it’s the first and last letters of the alphabet, the alpha and the omega, the eight, the serpent that eats its own tail — I like the notion of cycles, that everything that begins will end and something new will start. We’ll all die one day; we don’t know when.

Were you surprised at the way “Je veux” caught on and became this big summer hit in France?

Well, there’s been a lot of surprising things in my life. But that song, it sticks in your head, and that’s the principle of a hit, really. The words are really simple and they speak to everyone. Even in other countries people are getting it translated and learning French though it! It’s easy to learn. I think “Je veux” really fits with the mood of our times, people are really fed up with appearances, there’s no soul left. You feel it all the way into politics…

At one point on stage you commented that the left and the right are “kif-kif,” or “same difference” as we’d say here…

Yeah, there’s no left and right anymore. Well sure, there are left ideas that are not right ideas, but what we’re seeing isn’t politics, it’s just everyone out to get their little piece of power. Everything is fake, falsified. I’m a humanist above all, I want us to respect life, humanity. And that we do things in that direction, toward a common goal.

There’s a lot of tradition beneath your music — especially that whole French chanson tradition.

Yeah, it’s funny, because French songs are sort of what I listened to the least growing up. I used to listen to what my sister listened to, or other people. It was Guns n’ Roses, and Metallica, and then some techno, and in my training I listened to jazz, flamenco, African music… But when I got to Paris I worked for a while in a cabaret, Aux Trois Mailletz, and I’d be up in the piano bar singing with just a pianist, five hours in a row. And when you play in these places where there are a lot of tourists, they want French songs. So I had to expand my repertoire.

NEXT: “I must have been a woman of ill repute”

Comprised of producer Nobuyuki Sakuma and a woman simply known as Nah, their unique EP Dream Analysis is at once haltingly beautiful, grungy, and homemade disco fun.

Previously, Jesse Ruins dropped a 7-inch on Double Denim and filled it with harsh distortion. They eased up on Dream Analysis and straightened the beats to unfiltered two-four strikes. Washed in reverb and barely-audible vocals from Nah, the EP works as a soundscape, but also as pleasant, accessible pop. Occasionally it plunges into 90s dissonant basslines. Kind of like a basement-made M83.

Hear the title track, “Dream Analysis,” and get the rest on Captured Tracks.

Using an fluid finger picking style, Wong weaves intricate tapestries, carpeting everything in bright guitar tone. The songs on his latest release tumble after each other with structures and textures that imitate the natural world more than any particular genre of music. The guitar lines, layered one on top of the other, tangle like vines and babble like brooks and shimmer like light. It’s stimulating to listen to and bears repeated listening, but it’s also very easy to listen to. That’s a quietly potent combination.

You might feel as though there are hints of new wave, blue grass, rock, reggae, doo-wop, and/or surf hiding in the chiming guitar lines. But you might also feel like it’s your imagination, the way your mind plays tricks on you when you see a face in the clouds. And sometimes you might be right. This album is beautiful to listen to in the way that pop is easy on the ears, but also in the way that the sounds of the natural world still somehow soothe us more than anything.

The only thing jarring about it is the abrupt way the songs end. One minute Wong’s guitar is nattering away like a treeful of birds and the next there is silence. The listener skids off the edge of the Earth into nothing.  But in a sense this is what completes the album. You always have a sense that his song could have gone on forever if he hadn’t chosen a place to stop. It creates a beautiful sense of infinity.

The Berlin-based producer and singer has been piqueing ears since her very first single, “Drop The Other,” which used the palette of the heaviest beats to craft three-minute pop songs, albeit of the darkest kind. Kind of like Beyonce for the bass set.

We’ve been into her, okay, obsessed with her ever since then. She proved us right with her strong full-length debut last year, whose woozy beats and jagged melodies impressed on us the need to worship at the altar of Berghaim —  a topic that Emika touched on in our interview with her back in October. She talked about it in the context of sex swings, actually, but also about its musical magnetic force.

We caught her first trip to New York City a few months back for the full MTV Iggy treatment. Most DJs lose their power outside their club kingdoms, but Emika’s icy glamour shone under bright studio lights. It helped that she’s a little Marlene Dietrich, a lot sexy Amazon. Check it all out in our backstage photo shoot with the red-lipped siren.

For her exclusive MTV Iggy performance, Emika dominated the club sound system, pushing out the groove on her spaceship-dashboard-sized sampler. She shook us, literally, with her renditions of “3 Hours” and “Double-Edge.”

Check out her heart-thudding performance of “3 Hours,” the lead track on her self-titled debut:

In “Double Edge,” she shows us that a live performance of her second-ever single is not-to-miss:

Our ears were still throbbing when we caught up with her for a live interview, in which the UK-raised, Berlin-based artist of Czech heritage turns out to be a worldly ambassador for the dirty dubstep underground. Like all charismatic people, she has something to prove, and as she tells our Heather Holliday, part of that has to do with breaking into the male-dominated music industry.

“Very rarely does an in-house team accept me,” she said, speaking of performing at venues run mostly by men.

You can hear her tell you the story herself in our live interview, “Emika Cuts Through the Noise”:

But man or woman, when folks see her do her thing, they’ve got to acknowledge that she’s beating the boys at their own game. So if you can’t beat her, join her, which is what bass innovator Amon Tobin did last year — she opened for his global tour and rocked sold-out stages from London to LA.

She’s currently working on her latest album, which she promises will be legato. It might be mellow, but we’re confident that this dubstep diva will keep it in the key of bass.

In the meantime, Emika’s latest EP 3 Hours, featuring the title track and “Hit Me” off her LP, plus remixes by Jimmy Edgar and KiLon Tek, dropped last week. Her self-titled debut full-length, out this past October, is available on iTunes.

He likens his improvisational approach to weaving different kinds of fabric. His pedals are the controls to a small textile factory and his latest design is Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads out now on Thrill Jockey. It’s his third on his own and this time much of it was recorded live instead of on separate tracks, from whole cloth, as it were. The songs are illustrations of dreams, or maybe tapestries illustrating dreams. These things help to explain the uncannily organic quality of the album. Themes rise up an fade like mist, spill over into each other like rivers, and shimmer before vanishing like sunlight on water. It’s experimental pop that sounds inspired by the natural world, both within and without. Tracks fall somewhere between sound patterns and actual songs, even the ones with vocals such as “Diagonally Talking Echo.”

Wong’s methods are similar to experimental duo Lucky Dragons and other musicians with greater influence from the art world than rock, or even the eccentric composer and instrument inventor Harry Partch. But, unlike the madly cerebral Partch, Wong relies more on instinct and emotion for his experiments, and his compositions soothe the soul as much as stimulate the mind. In that sense, he’s more like his Canadian contemporaries in Braids, for whom a radical approach to traditional instruments somehow still resulted in something beautifully musical.

Like Braids, he’s also making music that’s worth getting excited about. It seems infinitely complex, with layers that reveal themselves with repeated listening. He may not fit the image of a guitar god as the concept exists in the popular imagination, but he may be just the kind to take us into the next century. Watch him play live in Japan and, with a little patience, you’ll see the heroism start to show.

The synthpop foursome’s electrifying sound hails from Moscow, Russia. Turning up the heat in a now-freezing cold city, the energy coming from a Tesla Boy live set is highly conductive, hearkening the 80s, but also the Aussie new wave revival a la Cut Copy and Bag Raiders.

Congratulations, Tesla Boy! Stay tuned for an exclusive interview with these retro rockers…

In the meantime, enjoy “Electric Lady” off Modern Thrills.

We captured the German musician’s pulse-pounding sound in an exclusive live performance at Dominion in New York. Bob your head to two tracks off her album, Emika.

For more Emika exclusives, check out the game-changing Berliner in our photo shoot!

The Berlin-based producer and singer has been piqueing ears since her very first single, “Drop The Other,” which used the palette of the heaviest beats to craft three-minute pop songs, albeit of the darkest kind. Kind of like Beyonce for the bass set.

We’ve been into her, okay, obsessed with her ever since then. She proved us right with her strong full-length debut last year, whose woozy beats and jagged melodies impressed on us the need to worship at the altar of Berghaim —  a topic that Emika touched on in our interview with her back in October. She talked about it in the context of sex swings, actually, but also about its musical magnetic force.

We caught her first trip to New York City a few months back for the full MTV Iggy treatment. Most DJs lose their power outside their club kingdoms, but Emika’s icy glamour shone under bright studio lights. It helped that she’s a little Marlene Dietrich, a lot sexy Amazon. Check it all out in our backstage photo shoot with the red-lipped siren.

For her exclusive MTV Iggy performance, Emika dominated the club sound system, pushing out the groove on her spaceship-dashboard-sized sampler. She shook us, literally, with her renditions of “3 Hours” and “Double-Edge.”

Check out her heart-thudding performance of “3 Hours,” the lead track on her self-titled debut:

In “Double Edge,” she shows us that a live performance of her second-ever single is not-to-miss:

Our ears were still throbbing when we caught up with her for a live interview, in which the UK-raised, Berlin-based artist of Czech heritage turns out to be a worldly ambassador for the dirty dubstep underground. Like all charismatic people, she has something to prove, and as she tells our Heather Holliday, part of that has to do with breaking into the male-dominated music industry.

“Very rarely does an in-house team accept me,” she said, speaking of performing at venues run mostly by men.

You can hear her tell you the story herself in our live interview, “Emika Cuts Through the Noise”:

But man or woman, when folks see her do her thing, they’ve got to acknowledge that she’s beating the boys at their own game. So if you can’t beat her, join her, which is what bass innovator Amon Tobin did last year — she opened for his global tour and rocked sold-out stages from London to LA.

She’s currently working on her latest album, which she promises will be legato. It might be mellow, but we’re confident that this dubstep diva will keep it in the key of bass.

In the meantime, Emika’s latest EP 3 Hours, featuring the title track and “Hit Me” off her LP, plus remixes by Jimmy Edgar and KiLon Tek, dropped last week. Her self-titled debut full-length, out this past October, is available on iTunes.

This is a round-up of five of the best global bands we found this week. You have until Monday night at 11:59 p.m. USA Eastern Standard Time to vote for your favorite new artist on MTV Iggy, using the bottom poll!

On Tuesday morning, the band with the most votes will be featured on the MTV Iggy homepage marquee along with a tell-all interview.

Good luck!

When Saints Go Machine

Photo Courtesy of Mads Perch

The output of When Saints Go Machine could have been an unholy alliance of spiritual and mechanical, a fusion jazz, four-on-the-floor Frankenstein. But thanks to what’s likely a serious case of group obsessive compulsive disorder, the four childhood friends of WSGM layered track upon track of samples, molding and shaping gothic turrets and buttresses into a cathedral of pristine sound at 120 bpm. Add vocalist Nikolaj’s heartbursting, falsetto melodies and what we’ve got here, music bloggerati, is some definitional electronic pop.

Clazzi

Photo Courtesy of Fluxus Records

The one thing that’s clear about DJ Clazzi, or Kim Sung Hoon, is that he makes unshakably cool progressive house. His first single “Love And Hate” has the icy sheen of new wave dance music, and with a laid-back confidence that screams auteur. These house beats were not laid by Kpop committee, but by one sui generis dude, one who worships Pink Floyd and has a healthy respect for the Pet Shop Boys. He might live in Seoul, but his artistic mindset has no address.

Androsace

Photo Courtesy of Androsace

Androsace is a force of nature that can mainly be found in Shanghai’s cramped underground rock clubs. The international coalition, made up of two Chinese members, an Italian, and a French guy, mines ’90s punk and alt-rock for raw materials. But the songs are not all ringers for ’90s college radio; the quartet has got the chops to evoke some of the most historic moments in guitar noise. This might be Alternative Nation nostalgia talking, but something about them sounds right on time.

Enshadowed

Photo Courtesy of Enshadowed

Formed in 1998, Enshadowed is younger, at least in metal-lifer terms, with two albums to their discography and one on the way. Billing themselves as “Hellenic anti-religious black metal,” their first two albums Messengers of the Darkest Dawn and Intensity marry death metal and black metal in a way that draws comparisons to Sweden’s Dark Funeral. They pour out distorted riffs and blast beats like unceasing freezing rain and the lyrical content focuses on the anti-religious more than the Hellenic. Fans of Glorior Belli and The Secret take note!

Tesla Boy

Photo Courtesy of Tesla Boy

Russia is the new neon, and Tesla Boy is at the forefront of arena-stuffing, retro synthpop. Fans of Anoraak (who they’ve actually remixed) will love their 2010 debut album Modern Thrills, which is filled with 80s disco funk and new wave fonts. Much of Tesla Boy’s charm stems from frontman Anton Sevidov, who, donning a pompadour and skunk stripes, composes the brunt of the tracks and moves like rubber onstage. Frankly, these guys are pretty high-voltage.

Voting Booth!

Yep, Russia is the new neon, and Tesla Boy is at the forefront of arena-stuffing, retro synthpop. Fans of Anoraak (who they’ve actually remixed) will love their 2010 debut album Modern Thrills, which is filled with 80s disco funk and new wave fonts.

Much of Tesla Boy’s charm stems from frontman Anton Sevidov, who, donning a pompadour and skunk stripes, composes the brunt of the tracks and moves like rubber onstage. The trained jazz pianist is no ingenue to the music industry, having spent an entire career producing pop goodies around the world — including tracks for the likes of Brazzaville (an indiepop group led by Beck’s sax player).

Tesla Boy started as a collaboration between Sevidov and bassist Dima Midborn. They named the band — now a foursome — after their own inaugural song about an electrically-conductive boy who, like some mythologized versions of the Tesla coil, can’t control his own superpowers.

Frankly these guys are pretty high-voltage, too. Watch Tesla Boy’s unofficial video for “Spirit of the Night.”

The Berlin-based diva got her start in the Bristol dubstep scene, but her music clearly took a left turn down a dark, ominous alley along the way. In our exclusive photo shoot, we captured the bass music mistress at work and play at New York City’s Dominion NY.

Want to know more about Emika? Read our interview about sex clubs, controlling your body, and male production nerds. Be careful though, her energy has been known to electrify those who get too close.

Trinidad and Tobago Carnival 2010, Credit: Getty Images

As of now, there are fourteen finalists in the groovy soca category and twelve in the faster power soca category. Who will win is anybody’s guess, but we can confirm that this year’s crop of soca singles could keep us wining all year. In the spirit of the season, we’ve rounded up a few of the hottest to help you get up to speed and into a fete frame of mind. Some are by contenders for the crown, while others just rule.

So, even if you are going to spend this weekend trudging around in the cold somewhere far away from the equator, you can have your own Carnival celebration by counting down these 10 wine-spiring tracks.

1. “Stress Away” – Kes the Band

KES the Band's Kees Dieffenthaller, Credit: Getty Images

We’ll start with the defending champions. Last year, Kes the Band’s “Wotless” made everyone go nuts and the group claimed the title in the groovy category.

This year, they just want you to relax with “Stress Away.” It’s been remixed by the famously laid back Snoop Dogg, so the track has an extra boost of star power in its favor.

2. “Pump Yuh Flag” – Machel Montano

Machel Montano, Credit: Getty Images

Montano, the defending monarch in the power category and an inarguable legend, is back this year with a selection of hits in the making. He’s going out for both the groovy and power titles this year, but his high energy tracks are the hardest to deny.

“Mr. Fete” is a catchy, effervescent number, but we’ve got our money on the truly frenetic riddim of “Pump Yuh Flag.” The video is pretty fun too:

3. “Surrender” – Farmer Nappy

We hate to say it, but longtime Machel Montano bandmember Farmer Nappy might just have the current monarch beat with “Surrender.”

The track has driving energy, pop appeal, and a seductive undertow. Farmer Nappy might not be a finalist, but he’s reigning over our headphones right now.

4.  “Duttyness” – Blaxx

Blaxx, Photo courtesy of Dexter Stewart

Blaxx brings a brash, larger-than-life energy to everything he does. He’s got quite a few fiery traxx, er, tracks out this year, but we’re hooked on “Duttyness” for its, well, duttyness.

5. “Bacchanalist” – Kerwin Du Bois

Groovy soca contender Kerwin Du Bois hits a classic sweet spot with this festive manifesto on the Antilles riddim. If you’re not sure what a bacchanalist is, the video will tell you everything you need to know:

6. “Attitude” – Destra Garcia

Destra Garcia, Credit: Getty Images

With the refrain “attitude and a big bag of wine,” Destra takes a tuneful turn on the Red Bull riddim with this track.

The soca heavy hitter and Caribbean style icon has certainly given our feet wings. We’re finding it hard to listen to “Attitude” and sit still at the same time.

7. “In Your Eyes” – Erphaan Alves

If your are standing in front of your significant other’s place and this is blasting from a boom box you are holding over your head, the relationship is half past doomed. And yet something about the swing in the tune and young Alves’s lilting vocals makes you want to pull someone close. The song and the video are all about mistrust and infidelity, which begs the question: What kind of crazy person would fool around on Erphaan Alves?

8.  “Born Ready” – Bunji Garlin

This infectious track will get you ready for the mas with its springy rhythm. As Bunji Garlin will tell you, he was “Born Ready.”

9. “Miss Behave” – Fay-Ann Lyons

“Miss Behave” is one of the most charming soca singles of the year. Fay-Ann Lyons promises she’s not going to get crazy at Carnival this year, even as the beat urges you to do exactly that.

10. “Vintage Wine” – Lady Gypsy

Just in case you got the idea that soca was a kid’s game, Lady Gypsy, AKA Fay-Ann Lyons’s mommy, is here to set you straight. With tongue only slightly in cheek, the 2010 monarch bemoans the pernicious dancehall influence on soca and shows all the young girls how you really wine. Interestingly, the video for Machel Montano’s “Vibes Cyah Done” is on a similar theme. But here’s Lady Gypsy:

So it’s with bittersweet feelings that I write this blog post, because part of the rush of putting out his brand-new track, “Pop Revolution,” is that he’s returning to the DR Congo. Having already spent nine months in a detention center when he first decided to stay in the United States, he’s going to get a fresh start on his immigration status by returning to his hometown for the time being.

New track "Pop Revolution" by Alec Lomami feat. Well$

We wish him all the best and we’re so sad to see him go. But like the charmer that he is, he’s leaving us with a bon voyage gift: a new track, out yesterday. His new hip-pop song “Pop Revolution,” was inspired both by his time hobnobbing with fellow Afropolitans in New York City, and the controversial Congolese elections earlier this month. Produced by Belgian producers SoulstarmuseeQ, and featuring teenage Congolese-American rapper Well$, the track is more urgent than his earlier work, with an eight-bit house groove that demands that you put your hands up.

The sartorially-gifted rapper also promised us that a CHLLNGR remix of “Kinshasa” is on the verge, and that April is the now the new drop date for his second EP, Melancholy Joyeuse – a release that’s been much delayed, although we can understand that he’s had some distractions lately.

Here’s to Alec Lomami, to Kinshasa, and to revolutionizing the world, one pop song at a time.

“Pop Revolution” by Alec Lomami:
Pop Revolution by Alec Lomami