Albums of the Year 2013 #11 - Little Boots - Nocturnes

In an ideal world Breaking More Waves annual Ones to Watch feature would work like this:

1. We name an artist as One to Watch for a particular year.

2. The artist in question releases an album in the following 12 months.

3. We name the album as one of our favourites in the albums of the year list feature.

Back in 2008, we named Little Boots as One to Watch in 2009. That year she released Hands. It didn’t feature on our end of year list.

It’s taken until 2013 for a Little Boots album (her second) to get there. Better late than never.

Having parted ways with her record label Victoria Hesketh returned to the neon lit dance floors for Nocturnes. There she found the songs to create a highly sophisticated dance pop album. Nocturnes is an album of hypnotic grooves, catchy hooks and enough variety to maintain its momentum, yet it always feels wholly consistent as a piece of work. In short it's rather good.

From the dark pulses and throbs of Motorway (listen to it on headphones for full effect) to the closing slinky euphoric call of Satellite, Nocturnes is an album to put on when you want to feel alive. You don’t need the strobes and dry ice of the dancefloor to enjoy it though, it’s perfect for those hairbrush in hand, bedroom mirror moments as well. 

For those who wrote off Little Boots after the initial hype and who haven’t heard Nocturnes, we highly recommend you reacquaint yourself with Miss Hesketh. Another victory for good pop in the war over bad pop. Our eleventh favourite of 2013.

Little Boots - Satellite (Video)