Hervé feat. Ronika - How Can I Live Without You (Make It Right) (Video)

We’ve posted about Ronika before on Breaking More Waves. Here’s another post. This multiple posts thing makes us suspect that we are signing up to the Ronika fan club.

Earlier this year we mentioned that Ronika is not the tallest of pop stars, but as we all know that never did Kylie Minogue any harm, or Nik Kershaw for that matter. (Go look him up kids - your pop music knowledge isn’t complete until you’ve heard Wouldn’t It Be Good, I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me and have memorized all of the words to The Riddle. Just avoid Radio Musicola where tricky Nik went for a Level 42 style funk work out and forgot to write a decent song)

Now here is another important and exclusive fact about Ronika that we recently discovered when she supported Little Boots at Xoyo in London. Ready ? OK, here we go….

EVEN THOUGH RONIKA DANCED HER ARSE OFF ON STAGE SHE STILL SMELT VERY GOOD AFTERWARDS

This we can only conclude is because the best pop stars never sweat. Sweating is left to dirty smelly indie bands. When we saw Shed Seven in Amsterdam once their lead singer smelt of wee. We also once shook hands with a member of The Klaxons after a show in Portsmouth and there was a distinct stench of unpleasant body odour coming from his direction. Interestingly we once stood next to Simon from Blue at a funeral reception in Ironbridge, Shropshire and he smelt exquisitely good.

How Breaking More Waves gets so close to these pop and indie types and gets a good sniff is a closely guarded secret. But for now enjoy Ronika jamming with Hervé on this very 90’s old school track called How Can I Live Without You (Make It Right), which alas isn’t available in smellovision.

Hervé feat. Ronika - How Can I Live Without You (Make It Right) (Video)

Ronika - Automatic (Video)

The last time we featured Ronika on the blog we made some comments about the heights of pop stars and suggested that she is pretty tiny. We have since been corrected and can now 100% confirm that Ronika is in fact a very tall lady standing a long way away.

So whilst we’re waiting for her to get closer, why not take a look at her new (ish) video. It was actually released on March 27, which was a whole two weeks ago, so consider us a huge failure in terms of being an on-the-case new music blogger, but the way we figure it is that this video has had just over 3000 views so far - that leaves over 7 billion potential viewers worldwide waiting to be informed about Ronika’s incredible surfing ability that you will see demonstrated in the film.

This blog is called Breaking More Waves. The title is something to do with our location near the sea and our love of it plus the ebb and flow of the tide of music that surfs, breaks and sometimes crashes. This video was absolutely made for this blog. It even shares our same hi-tech hi-art visual design concepts that make this blog and this video one of the most revolutionary and visually stunning you will ever see. Honestly.

Ronika plays the Old Blue Last in Shoreditch, London tonight and supports Little Boots live return at Xoyo, London on the 4th May. 

Ronika - Automatic (Video)

Ronika - Automatic

Today we probe into the unchartered waters of that which according to the rules of pop chapter 3 paragraph 4.2 should never be spoken of – pop stars heights. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, gasp as you learn that Prince is even smaller than you think at 5’ 1’’ yes he's almost as tiny as Kylie Minogue who just clocks in at 5’ 0’’. You can have a chortle at Gary Barlow from Take That who is 5’ 7” but he still towers over band mate Mark Owen who is a midget sized  5’ 5”.  One of the biggest rock stars in the world Bono is a mere 5’ 7” which probably explains why he likes wearing those high leather cowboy boots whilst poor old Thom Yorke of Radiohead is no better, being only very slightly over 5’5”. No wonder he always sounds so miserable – he can hardly reach the top shelf in WH Smith's. In fact it’s difficult to find a really tall pop star at all although according to the height police Fish, once lead singer of Marillion is a real big man at a mighty 6’ 4”. Our point here is, they may look like giants on the telly, but a lot of pop and rock stars are quite vertically challenged.

Which means that today’s artist, Ronika should fit in very nicely. We’re not exactly sure of her height, but we can assure you she’s pretty small. But her music, a big old disco inferno of 80’s referencing club grooves is far from little. It’s big baby, as Tim Westwood would say. Automatic is her new single and it shakes and thrusts like a very horny version of Chic and Sister Sledge with just enough modern elements to keep it  out of the retro camp. Ronika’s setting the dance floor on fire with this one – get ready to strut your stuff in your hotpants.  It 'drops' as the cool kids would say on April 9th.

Ronika - Automatic

Ronika - Only Only (Video & Remix)

Are we about to have a roller-disco revival? Bestival 2011 featured a roller-disco stage and now Only Only the new single from the funkily perfect Ronika features some hip roller skate action in the video. Mixing up the syncopated electronic bass flavours of early 80’s US club disco with the boombox sounds of B-Boy Streetsound 80’s compilations and a heavy dose of Paul Hardcastle, the smartly executed remix from Fear of Tigers (streaming below) even threatens to topple the original with some aplomb – time to get that Adidas tracksuit and Gazelle trainers out again we think.

Any lady who states on her twitter strapline that “I only eat brains and caviar, SAXOPHONE SOLO,” sounds like the kind of person who would be a LOT OF FUN to hang out with. If she designed a nightclub that was anywhere near the visual aesthetic of her video and style, we’d be there like a shot, busting some moves - we'd even bring a lino mat for some bodypopping.

Only Only is the other part of a double A-sided single, the other song In The City we featured back in August here.

Ronika - Only Only (Fear of Tigers Remix)

Ronika - In The City

Recalling the early days of Madonna or a disco-down Kylie, Nottingham’s very own singer, songwriter, producer and remixer Ronika is readying her new double A sided single Only Only / In The City for release on September 26 through the Record Shop label.

In The City streams below.

This is all about the dancefloor but with pop sensibilities running through the gaps between the tiles. It’s as if somehow Ronika has been locked away in a late 80’s New York basement club and only just found a way to escape.

Rather like Willy Moon who we featured yesterday, Ronika’s material may be stuffed and signposted with obvious reference points, but there’s really nobody out there doing this at the moment. “I’m just trying to increase the body count of people who have been knocked dead by my music,” she says. Knocked dead sounds a little violent for our liking, but In The City will certainly get you into the groove.

Ronika - 02 In The City

The Saturday Surf #7

Take a ‘semi-ironic’ hipstamatic photo of the sea / waves / beach / surf (we’ve yet to feature girls in their swimwear – possibly the most chosen photo of any ‘cool’ blog out there), a little bit of text and a handful of tracks that didn’t quite make it onto the blog this week and what have you got? Yes, it’s Breaking More Waves Saturday Surf, a fundamentally lazy blog post. So without further ado, here are a small handful of songs that we didn’t want to get swept away in the on-going tide of incoming new music and so are bundling together in one buy one get three free posting at the end of the week.

How many times have we posted about Rizzle Kicks on the blog? Six actually. So let’s make it seven with this choppy and banging re-invention of Down with the Trumpets by Star Slinger. “If you feel like embedding it on your blog that would be wickedddd,” state Sylvester and Rizzle on their very own blog. Consider it done boys.

Down With The Trumpets (Star Slinger Remix) by Rizzle Kicks

Next is electronic pop chanteuse Florrie, who has written a fascinating blog post on how she funds what she does. It’s great to read an artist being so open about how and where the money comes from and is lost; for instance Florrie reveals that she loses approximately £450 for every gig she plays, yet still makes more money than she loses, mainly from synchronization rights. Taken from her new 6 track EP Experiments which is released on June 14, this song Experimenting with Rugs is probably the best thing she’s done so far. There’s also an incredibly stylish video for the song which you can see here.

Experimenting With Rugs by Florrie

For your further consideration, here's some synth pop that sounds like it's 100% designed for a Kitsune compilation. Sleepy Age, a three piece from New Zealand, fall just on the right side of seaside pier gaudiness with this song Decor, which has enough infectious synth riffs to accompany the hooky fantasy line of "girls look better in your head than they do in your bed."

Sleepy Age 'Decore'

Finally meet Ronika, from Nottingham, who is bringing back electronic-disco flavours last heard back in the mid-80’s – the influences seem to be debut album Madonna and even more specifically the song Who Found Who by Jellybean featuring Elisa Fiorillo – now there’s a classic we haven’t played for a few years. The track we're streaming Forget Yourself is her new single and is released on Monday. Right we’re off to dig out our old Shalamar LP’s.

Ronika - Forget Yourself