Queen Of Hearts - Like A Drug

Today we want to alert you to the fact that earlier this week Queen of Hearts just threw a whole album up on iTunes (throwing it up makes it sound like she sicked it up, which she didn't, it's a lot better than a pool of vomit - which isn't much of a compliment, but stay with us on this one...). 

So the release was a bit like 'doing a Beyoncé' only without the same amount of ridiculous hype, as she’s not quite as famous. Ok, she’s nowhere near as famous, but that isn’t the point. The point is if we put Beyoncé and Queen of Hearts in a cell and had to choose just one of them to release to the public at large it would undoubtedly be Queen of Hearts. It might not be the most popular of choices, but we’re pretty sure once everyone had had a chance to listen to Cocoon (the title of Queen of Hearts album) they might thank us after all.

So in summary - Cocoon by Queen of Hearts is way better than a pool of vomit and Beyoncé.

From the album comes this new tune Like A Drug, which sounds perfect for a summer weekend, being a big 'let’s all dance in our swimwear under golden skies with our hands in the air and then go skinnydipping' rave-pop-anthem. Or at least that's what it sounds like to us.

Queen of Hearts - Like A Drug

Queen of Hearts - Wicked Game

The rules of pop chapter 4.6 state that when musicians change their hair style, sometimes things go badly wrong. The transition from the beautiful long flowing locks to the short crop, or vice versa, can often say so much about what’s going on in the space inside their head. That radical new barnet may well be the precursor to your favourite and respected indie-rock act announcing that their new album will be the progressive jazz record they’ve always really wanted to make.

So what about a change in hair colour? Do the rules apply there? We couldn't find anything in the pop rule book about that.

So, to test them out we invited Breaking More Waves blog crush electronic babe Queen of Hearts to go from dark to blonde and then make some new music.*

The results are now in.

What we get is the sound of Queen of Hearts taking the cold heartbroken stabs of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game and giving the song an icy electronic sound that fits perfectly with the sad and cynical lyrics of not believing in love anymore. It seems that at least in Queen of Hearts case we can throw our hair theories out of the window.

On this basis, when the Queen of Hearts album arrives later this year it’s unlikely to be full of improvisations worked out with a hoary, hairy heavy rock band. It seems that the queen is staying true to the beat of her synth heart.

 *Actually,we didn’t ask her at all, because if we did she’d have probably said no and for the purposes of this experiment we needed to know what’s in her head, not ours and therefore any change in hair colour has to be her own decision.

Queen of Hearts - Wicked Game

Queen Of Hearts - Neon (Video)

We’ve always liked Queen of Hearts as much for her visual aesthetic as her musical one. We simply couldn’t imagine this lady pulling on a once white, now grey, saggy pair of pants, a pair of ‘comfortable’ tracksuit bottoms and her boyfriend’s baggy T-Shirt and slouching round the house. But then that’s the beauty of pop music – it’s all about fantasy. It’s why Kylie will always be a better pop star than Tulisa for example – because with Tulisa we’ve seen too much. It’s also why even although we know Queen of Hearts real name we refuse to state it here – because it would lessen the fantasy.

Yesterday Queen of Hearts released her new video for Neon, and added a little to that fantasy – albeit a slightly weird and warped fantasy, but still a visually appealing one. So what can we make of it? Well, the Queen appears to be sitting in a demolition site and there are some dirty men prancing around. And a bath.

Now logic would dictate that eventually the dirty men would reach the bath, have a good scrub down and spruce up quite nicely into sprightly sexy young things. But no, the Queen herself does the bath thing. With her clothes on. She therefore becomes the second pop person to take a bath whilst fully clothed that we’ve featured on this blog– the first being Charli XCX (here). It’s like some very odd dream (or maybe we should call it a fantasy) but either way it’s visually pleasing and Neon remains a cracking song (see our original post on it here).

Queen of Hearts - Neon (Video)

Queen of Hearts - Tears In The Rain

If you took the title Tears InThe Rain what would you expect the song to sound like?

In our imagination it would be full of glistening synth sounds, feminine vocals that shimmer with a fragile strength, silver drips of electronics and a background crash of distant thunder. It seems that we’re not the only ones to think this way, because Tears In The Rain by Breaking More Waves favourite and One To Watch 2012 Queen of Hearts is exactly that. If you think electronic pop music is all about lack of emotion and banging hard on the dance floor shouting 'turn up the bass', think again. For this is an atmospheric corker of a song with a positive message about looking to the future and not letting fear get in the way, because it could all be gone tomorrow. “Staring through the darkness, we aim for paradise,” Queen of Hearts sings in what is quite possibly her most beautiful song to date.

Produced by Stefan Storm of Sound of Arrows, Tears In The Rain forms part of a double A side with Neon (featured here) and is released on the 14th May 2012 via ATG Records as a limited 7inch single and digitally with bonus tracks Forgive Me and No More.

Queen of Hearts - Neon

Queen of Hearts - The Neon Queen Mixtape

This is a first for Breaking More Waves. We’ve never featured a mixtape on the blog before and arguably we still haven’t. Let’s face facts, whilst this is undeniably a mix it is most certainly not a tape; it’s an on-line stream. At over 45 minutes it's also far too long to fit onto one side of a tape, unless it was a C120 cassette and everybody knows they were rubbish, always jamming and unraveling in your cassette player. However apparently we’re obliged to call it a mixtape and as it comes from one of our favourite electro-pop ladies Queen of Hearts we’d happily call it a mix hedgehog if she asked us to. 

So why finally feature a mix tape in what is coming up to our fourth full year of Breaking More Waves? 

There’s one simple reason; because it’s amazing. Really amazing. It’s almost as if someone has organised a disco with all of our favourite pop girls (alas excluding Nicola Roberts). Just look at that list below. There's Little Boots, Marina & The Diamonds, Jessie Ware, Icona Pop, Charli XCX and the Queen herself who sneaks in an exclusive track called What Is Love? at the end. Unfortunately it’s not a cover of the Howard Jones classic from the 80’s but we’ll take it anyway. This is the musical version of full on sweaty, sexy rumpy-pumpy for an hour. 

As if the Queen hasn’t been good enough to you already with just that mix there’s also a new Ghost Beach remix of Neon (we posted the original here), which is released to the retail world via ATG records on the 14th May.

It can’t get much better than this can it? Time for a dance. Here’s the tracklisting:

Queen of Hearts - Neon (Lightwaves Remix)
Little Boots - Every Night I Say A Prayer (Tensnake Remix)
Icona Pop - Manners (Kitsune Extended Mix)
Perseus - Seychelles
Queen of Hearts - Shoot the Bullet (Aluna George Remix)
Aluna George - You Know You Like It
Jessie Ware - Running (Disclosure Remix)
Charli XCX - Stay Away (T.Williams Dub)
Janet Jackson - The Pleasure Principal (Over The Top Remix)
Queen of Hearts - Where Are You Now? (StardonE Remix)
Sebastian - Arabest
Azealia Banks - Bambi
Marina & The Diamonds - Primadonna (Evian Christ Remix)
Eli & Fur - Sea of Stars
Queen of Hearts - What Is Love? *EXCLUSIVE*

Queen of Hearts - The Neon Queen Mixtape 

Queen of Hearts - Neon (Ghost Beach Remix)

Queen Of Hearts - Neon (Lightwaves Remix)

Here’s something about the way we run Breaking More Waves. We’ve talked about this before but sometimes things need reinforcement. We’re a fan blog. We’re not a blog that’s trying to earn money. We’re not about posting the latest buzz band with no thought just to get lots of hits and ‘likes’ on Facebook (we don’t even have Facebook). We’re not aspiring to anything else - a career in the music industry for example. We're not an industry insider. We’re just like you – a fan of music. Only we think (often mistakenly) that everyone should like the music we like. It’s why we write a blog – to tell people about that music. 

Some of that music is by unsigned artists, some by artists on indie labels, some of it on major labels.  If the artist is indie or major doesn’t concern us. We just like to tell you what we like, discuss it a little, maybe provide some context, analysis or description, have some fun with it, sometimes make a few analogies to sex, relationships and food, tell you how it makes us feel and that’s about it. Along the way through this blog we’ve made some great real life friends (not internet friends) had the opportunity to attend gigs and festivals without paying a penny (which still feels such an alien and almost unjustifiable concept to us), judged the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition, been featured in the national press and radio and even be called a ‘tastemaker’. Weird.

However, what this blog is and always will be about is being a fan of music.

It’s why when we find an artist we love we will post as many times as possible about them, in our own small way trying to support what they do and get their music out there. The artists that we write about often pretty much define Breaking More Waves.

Queen of Hearts is one such artist. We’re into double figures with the number of times we’ve featured her. We posted her new song Neon last week, it’s 100% ear sex and confirms that 2012 is the year of the queen.

Lightwaves is the DJ / production project of Jan Rosenfeld, the singer with Yes Giantess, who was another of our ear-sex bands (before they split).

Put Queen of Hearts and Lightwaves together and what do you have? Double ear-sex? Double penetration? It’s certainly the antidote to all of that banging each other into oblivion that we talked about last week. Lightwaves remix gives Neon a subtler but funky turn on the dancefloor, a post-coital embrace perhaps? It's free to download now.

Queen Of Hearts - Neon (Lightwaves Remix)

Queen Of Hearts - Neon

OK. Let’s take a deep breath. Keep calm everyone, because this is the new single by Queen of Hearts.

We’ve ‘embedded’ her quite a few times before on Breaking More Waves and even named her as one of our Ones to Watch for 2012.

Now the great jury of electro-pop has returned and has delivered its verdict on this new song.

*DRAMATIC X-FACTOR STYLE PAUSE.....

And they charge the queen with being guilty of producing the hottest, sexiest, vampiest, pulsing piece of electro pop of 2012 so far. A while back we described another electronic act Curxes as ‘the sound of robots f*cking’. Neon is the moment where the robots grow skin, grow that little bit softer, grow that little bit more sensual, but still want to bang each other into oblivion on the dance floor.

Although we’ve pretty much loved everything Queen Of Hearts has done to date, this is the best yet. Utterly amazing.

We’re going for a lay down, this is all getting too much.

Queen Of Hearts releases Neon on the 14th May alongside another song Tears In The Rain via ATG Records. Put it in your diary now.

Queen Of Hearts - Neon

Ones to Watch 2012 - #10 Queen of Hearts

If you’ve spent any time on Breaking More Waves blog over the last year the chances are you’ll have seen the name Queen of Hearts crop up a fair few times. Queen of Hearts is a new electronic pop artist who makes music similar to Sally Shapiro, Goldfrapp, Little Boots and Ladyhawke, referencing 80’s synth pop and italo disco but with a contemporary sheen thanks to working with producers such as Dreamtrack, Sound of Arrows, Fear of Tigers and Monarchy.

After receiving significant blog love this year (Breaking More Waves probably more so than any other blog out there, first posting about her in February 2011 and numerous times since) she finally released her debut EP Arrival this autumn.

Queen of Hearts has said that she writes songs about the important things in life – love, loss, heartbreak, betrayal. She has been growing a small but devoted fan base through gigs that involve elegant theatrical costumes, dancers and her ‘creatures’ – a number of rams skulls that adorn the stage. This left of centre showmanship gives an approach that reminds us of a more restrained small scale post-Gaga, without the overt near-nudity. In fact Queen of Hearts manages to be a very sexy performer whilst keeping her clothes fully on. Look at the picture above for the evidence.

Whilst her appeal may be a little too niche to have any mainstream appeal at this moment (although like Hurts did over the last two years it may be that she just needs time to find her true audience), if you like electronic music and believe that pop music should be about elevating you away from normality to a world of fantasy then Queen of Hearts is one for you to watch in 2012.

Freestyle (Diamond Cut Single Edit) by Queen Of Hearts

Black Star (Devils Gun Remix) by Queen Of Hearts

Queen of Hearts - Black Star

A couple of points - first, does anybody remember t.A.T.u? We loved t.A.T.u. Not only did they manage to get everyone a bit hot under the collar with their faux-lesbian antics and full on nudity / shooting pregnant women shock tactic videos but they were (possibly) the inspiration for the drunken capital letter mix up that is tUnE-yArDs.

Second ‘the kids’ love a bit of electronic heaviness don’t they? It really is the sound that defines our times.

So just imagine if you had a song that was just a little bit dubstep influenced and sounded just a little bit like t.A.T.u. That would be pretty incredible wouldn’t it? Well here it is. It’s called Black Star. It’s the chorus that makes us think of t.A.T.u – the high vocal part reminds us just a tiny bit of the hook from Not Gonna Get Us.

Produced by East London boys Olly and James who go under the name Devil’s Gun, Black Star is less pure pop than most of Queen of Hearts previous output, although the t.A.T.u moment (as we will now forever refer to it) burrows its way into the brain with some finesse. For those worried that the Queen has turned and is about to ‘go dubstep’ full-on, have no fear though. “No plans to do any dubstep. I'm synth pop through and through,” she noted on her facebook recently.

Black Star is taken from Queen of Hearts forthcoming debut EP – Arrival – due October 3. Enjoy it’s edgy, jostling and attractively lolloping ways below.

Black Star (Produced by Devils Gun) by Queen Of Hearts

Queen of Hearts - Spanish Sahara

If our love of Queen of Hearts music was a real relationship, we’d have probably got to that ‘starting to get to really know each other but not fully’ stage now. We’ve drunk enough of her tempting charms to fathom her, yet she remains exciting and still slightly mysterious – we still don’t even know her real name.

Now comes that moment of introducing this relationship to the world at large – because Queen of Hearts ‘arrives’ on the October 3 with her debut EP – Arrival. It's taken 9 months to nuture this baby since she first appeared on Breaking More Waves, but the most important ingredient of all things tasty is time. The EP will feature the previously blogged songs Freestyle and Where Are You Now, plus the unheard Black Star and Shoot the Bullet (the titles of which sound suspiciously like heavy rock anthems – although somehow this seems highly unlikely) plus this cover version of Foals best song – Spanish Sahara.

This version turns the sweaty indie boys moment of expansive calm into a sultry and very feminine piece of electronic pop music, which should bring this lustrous song to a whole new audience. For now it’s free to download by clicking the arrow below – why not do so and then introduce your friends to the Queen. Soon she could have more potential lovers than she could care to choose from.

Spanish Sahara (Produced by DREAMTRAK) by Queen Of Hearts

Queen of Hearts - Perfect Mistake

“I just eargasmed !” said someone on twitter today. The reason ? Read on…

Musical love was shared when Breaking More Waves new favourite pop queen Queen of Hearts teamed up with another member of the musical royal family - Monarchy. It’s as good as Will and Kate all over again. No, in fact it’s better. Because what we get here is another exquisite piece of sexy and sophisticated electro pop that has some musical similarities to the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure and Kylie in the verses before it drops a bigger more modern sounding chorus. Listen and you’ll hear that the synths actually swing from side to side in camp abandon.

If the young newlywed couple had heard Perfect Mistake before their betrothal and wedding planning days, maybe they’d have put this on the Buckingham Palace reception playlist alongside Ellie Goulding singing live. We’re pretty sure Prince Harry would have been pulling some shapes on the dancefloor to this one, maybe he would have even had an eargasm as well.

“It’s one of my favourite songs that I’ve ever written, and one that I think sits very nicely between the intensity of Freestyle and the wistfulness of Where Are You Now,” says the Queen. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

Perfect Mistake DEMO (Produced by Monarchy) by Queen Of Hearts

Johan Agebjorn & Ercola ft Queen of Hearts - The Last Day Of Summer

Here’s a track that we were originally going to post a few days ago, but we held off thinking / hoping that there would be a visual accompaniment at some point. Now there is. Directed by Stuart Hall (we assume it’s not the UK television and radio personality with the mad laugh) this video welcomes back our new favourite pop sensation Queen of Hearts.

Some facts about Queen of Hearts that you may or may not know.

1. When playing this video You Tube suggests that we should also watch the work of Sally Shapiro. In this case You Tube is right – there’s a similarity in vocal style and lush shimmery synth work (try Love in July for starters).

2. Queen of Hearts wears a lot of absolutely fabulous (please read the word fabulous in an abfab Joanna Lumley style) costumes in this video. It’s nice to see a girl that gets dressed up whatever the occasion, even if the clothes aren’t that practical for walking around the countryside. We imagine Queen of Hearts even does the washing up in a posh frock.

3. Johan Agebjörn, who Queen of Hearts has collaborated with here is a Swedish italo-disco producer and he has done a considerable amount of work with Sally Shapiro, which brings us back to fact number 1.

4. Pitchfork recently gave Agebjörn’s album Casablanca Nights 6.7 out of 10 (how do they decide it’s .7 not .6 or .8 can somebody let us know ?) They said of this song and of Queen of Hearts “It's too bad she doesn't appear more often.” We agree with this last statement.

5. Queen of Hearts debut live show at Madame Jo Jo’s in London was very well received by all accounts with people using words such as “impressive” and “amazing” for a performance that was sexily-dramatic, theatrical and as cool as f*ck.

6. Her majesty plays another show with a supporting cast 100% worthy of her royal patronage – the much Breaking More Waves blogged Paper Crows, the recently blogged Cave Painting and the sublime new folk princess Daughter - at Proud in London on the June 8. This gig comes with our full stamp of approval and we hope very much to be in attendance.

7.We appear to have ignored Ercola (also credited in the song) completely. Sorry.

8.Queen of Hearts is now most certainly our new favourite lady in electronic pop. Fact.

The Last Day Of Summer (Johan Agebjörn & Ercola featuring Queen of Hearts) by Queen Of Hearts

The Saturday Surf #3

It seems highly appropriate that the picture you see above was taken in Brighton, for right now that’s where we are soaking up the vast expanse of new music on offer at the Great Escape Festival 2011. A review (of sorts) will follow early next week.

Until we return, let’s dip our toes into a just a small handful of tracks that kissed our ears in the days between last Saturday and when we left for Brighton, but didn’t quite make it onto a full post on Breaking More Waves – and this time we unravel some new sexy synthtopia and computer love-making.

Earlier this week we introduced a new prince and princess of dark electronic music – the magnificent Curxes. Since we featured their music they’ve uploaded two new songs online. Here’s one of them. Creatures pays particular homage to Depeche Mode with its sinister synths and clanking industrial rhythms, but the vocals are strident female ones rather than the mournful baritone of Dave Gahan. It will be self-released on tenth June along with another song Jaws which you can hear on the bands Soundcloud.

Creatures by CURXES

Moving on from a prince and princess to the queen herself, Queen of Hearts is a Breaking More Waves favourite and this bootleg/rework of Daft Punk's End Of The Line from the Tron soundtrack not only cements and power floats our love for her but has us falling on our knees in front of her, begging for more like a fanboy.

Queen of Hearts v Daft Punk - The End Of Nothing by Queen Of Hearts

Our final track is a remix from mystery electronic pop mischiefs Just A Number 05272011. The internet continues to be full of speculation as to who / where / what the band are and holds its collective breath to see if anything of significance happens on the 27 May. Until then however they’ve sneaked out this remix of He Didn’t Want A Lovesong which just adds to the anticipation.

He Didn't Want A Lovesong (sff vms Remix) by Just a number 05272011

Queen Of Hearts - Where Are You Now (StardonE remix)

We love pop music. We love good pop music.

No correction we love great pop music.

Of course what is good or great is one hundred per cent arguable, but that’s fine because we’re always right aren’t we?

But irrespective of if it’s good or great or bad (hello Westlife and Olly Murs we know which camp you’re in and it doesn’t begin with g ) we can define pop music. It has something to do with making you want to dance, something to do with appealing to the masses, something to do with being crafted from production and technology over live performance and something which reflects the trends of the day. Or at least that’s what Wikipedia says so it must be right. Even we wouldn’t argue with the might of Wikipedia.

Something, or rather someone else that is very right is Queen of Hearts. She’s ticked all of our pop music boxes with a huge fat indelible ink pen so far. She does good, possibly great pop music. She also seems to have another quality essential to pop music – sexiness. Not sexy as in a ‘Ooops all my clothes have fallen off just as a photographer arrives in the room,’ sort of way, but in doing enough to keep us interested without ever revealing all both musically and visually.

Today Queen of Hearts reveals just a tiny bit more – it’s the musical version of the shoulder strap slipping down a little. It’s from romantic synth disco house producer StardonE and it’s a remix of the song Where Are You Now. It’s a Breaking More Waves exclusive and is free to download. That's kind of great isn't it?

Queen Of Hearts - Where Are You Now (StardonE remix) by Queen Of Hearts

Queen of Hearts - Where Are You Now?

Remember when you lost your virginity? It seemed to mean something at the time didn’t it? But actually it didn’t. Let’s face it – no one cared. Especially five years on. It’s a bit like that for new music bloggers; being the first to get a song listed on Hype Machine seems important for a nanosecond until you realise that nobody is interested except you.

Queen of Hearts was one such pop starlet in the making that Breaking More Waves did it with; that is getting listed first on Hype Machine, not losing our virginity to. However with Freestyle still throbbing inside us, it’s time to hear a new song. It’s an electro-friendly piece of pop music called Where Are You Now that makes us think a little of a more sensual Little Boots for some reason (where is she now ?). More melancholy sounding than Freestyle, it bridges the gap until her debut single The Last Day Of Summer, a collaboration with Agebjorn (Sally Shapiro) and Ercola (Annie) is released in May on Paper Bag. Besides working with those fine folks Queen of Hearts has been in the studio with the likes of Fear Of Tigers (Kylie), Dreamtrak and Diamond Cut, so a wonderblast of pop should be being dealt soon. We’re looking forward to it.

Where Are You Now? (Produced by Diamond Cut) by Queen Of Hearts

Queen of Hearts - Freestyle (Dreamtrak Remix)

There’s often criticism of bloggers getting lustily excited about an artist based on one or two songs and then the artist not living up to the hype built around them – but isn’t that part of the excitement of pop music ? Hasn't a song ever kissed your ears and left you shouting YES !!!!!! In font size 72. Isn’t that partly what great music should be about – grabbing your emotions with ballsy domination and making you feel something? Taking you away from your drab mundane existence and making you want to dance, sing, cry or f*ck? We think so.

Freestyle by Queen of Hearts pretty much makes us want to do all of those things. It’s the only song we’ve heard of hers, so we have no idea about the future. One night stand or long term partner, let’s not worry for the moment and just enjoy.

We’ve already been there with the teaser video, the song itself (which we’re a little surprised hasn’t been picked up by more bloggers, but that’s taste for you) and now here’s the remix. An extended dub version clocking in at 7 minutes, we’ll be spinning it at our first DJ set of the year in (of all places) Bognor Regis this weekend. Download it by clicking on the arrow and get excited.

Freestyle (DREAMTRAK Remix)

Queen of Hearts - Freestyle

“We shall watch with interest,” were our words last week when we first introduced a trailer video for Queen of Hearts. What we should have said of course was that we would listen with interest, because that’s what we’ve been doing today; listening, but with each listen more than just interest. If the truth be told we’ve been salivating at this debut song – Freestyle - with the kind of gormless grin on our face that is normally only achieved by vast quantities of illegal drugs. Not that in any way are we endorsing illegal drugs, remember kids they melt your brain.

Freestyle by Queen of Hearts is the mating call of space-disco electropop. It’s Giorgio Moroder, it’s Goldfrapp, it’s Blondie, it’s Donna Summer, this pulses in the sort of places that get the pulses racing in the sort of places where the pulses don’t normally race.

Freestyle is a prowling, breathy, sensuous beast of a tune and we’re happy to be ravished by it. Growl.

Freestyle (Produced by DREAMTRAK) by Queen Of Hearts

Queen of Hearts - New Waves

Now this looks interesting…..

Which we guess is the point of these teaser / trailer videos.

Hopefully when the full reveal happens Queen of Hearts will actually be interesting rather than just pretending to be for fifty seconds. Here’s some ‘stuff’ about her, stolen directly from her MySpace:

Queen of Hearts likes impossibly high shoes, cocktails, cats and French accents.

Queen of Hearts writes songs about the important things in life - love, loss, heartbreak, betrayal - and thinks that the best pop songs should make you dance and shed a tear or two.

Queen of Hearts writes songs that have one foot in the future and one in the past.

Queen of Hearts thinks pop shouldn't be a dirty word.

We fully endorse Queen of Hearts last statement. In fact we said exactly the same in 2008 here.

Queen of Hearts has been recording with Fear of Tigers and is apparently also doing something in a studio with Richard X. We assume that that something is producing music rather than eating yoghurt or juggling plates for example.

That for now is all we know of Queen of Hearts. We shall watch with interest.