Video: Glass Candy - "Warm In The Winter"

Johnny Jewel and Ida No, otherwise known as the glam-fueled Italo-disco revivalists Glass Candy, have released one of the best singles of the year in the stunning "Warm In The Winter" 12". Jewel's synth work is blazingly fast—arpeggios cranked to the speed of light—and No's lyrics and singing are both joyously blissful and hilarious. Like it's title suggests, this is a dance track to cozy up with in the coming cold winter months when you need that extra dose of sunshine. And now the track has the appropriately sunny visuals to accompany it via footage from the Portland band's west coast tour this past summer. Watch it after the jump.

Buy the 12" directly from Italians Do It Better.

Glass Candy - "Warm In The Winter" (from Warm In The Winter 12")

Chromatics - "Kill For Love"

Chromatics, a band under the Johnny Jewel and Italians Do It Better umbrella, recently released the title-track from the group's forthcoming LP Kill For Love. The dark synth-fueled ballad "Kill For Love" is as hypnotic and day-dream-enducing as anything the Chromatics have released to date with singer Ruth Radelet's plain and unaffected vocals lying at the center of the magic. What's an additional treat here is the simple and upbeat rhythmic guitar lines, which add another layer of warmth and movement to the mix. The 13-track album will be released in January on 12" vinyl. Keep up to date with the release on the Italians Do It Better blog and the band on Facebook.

Stream the track and watch its video after the jump.

Drive :: Italians Do It Better // Valerie Collective

Like much of the rest of the world, I saw the movie Drive, and yes, I loved the music. While the movie had its flaws, the cinematography was unquestionably beautiful and director Nicolas Winding Refn’s choice of a synth and electro-pop driven soundtrack provided the perfect glossy sheen for the film's 80s-drenched palette. What was most surprising personally for me was the inclusion of two different Johnny Jewel projects—Desire and Chromatics. I've been a huge fan of Jewel for some time, and his Portland-based label Italians Do It Better has long been cranking out classic dance records, so this spotlight is particularly deserved. According to an interview with Box Office Magazine, it turns out Jewel was actually asked to put the entire soundtrack together himself—and he did, recording 3 hours of original music—but due to miscommunications, none of the new material was used. That music won't be going to waste though: Jewel will be releasing it as part of an imaginary film project called Symmetry via Italians Do It Better.

Video: Glass Candy - "Feeling Without Touching"

The Sweet Disco of Johnny Jewel

Portland, Oregon's Chromatics and Glass Candy are two effervescent and discoed-out projects started by Johnny Jewel, master of all things synth. Jewel, unlike the mass majority of contemporary recording artists, doesn't use a computer to make his sound. Instead, he operates with a couple of vintage synthesizers that create a strangely organic wall of intricately danceable and thoughtful funk.

Jewel, who works with his ex Ida No in Glass Candy and current sweetheart Ruth Radelet with the Chromatics, has now found a muse for his newest project. After two years of working on the production for Desire, Jewel came upon singer Megan Louise in Montreal—it was the voice he'd been looking for. The next day, he rented an apartment in the city.

The duo's sound is in line with Jewel's past work: an often adrift, spacy and bouncy balance of fuzzy and soft tones. The song "Dans Mes Reves" comes with a genre classification: "dreamwave." Genres tend to be narrow and oversimplified, but here, Jewel couldn't be any more unusually qualified.

Desire - "Dans Mes Reves"

Glass Candy - "Rolling Down The Hills"

Chromatics - "Running Up That Hill"

Buy: After Dark compilation