It’s not common that I receive good and intriguing pitches from artists and lables, i.e. promo texts that makes me flinch and urge me to find out more. Some month ago I received a good one, though, from Nick Ellis and the Noise, who just had released their debut single, “Delorean”:

My name is Nick Ellis. I’ve made a drum machine with the producer Max Martin, and now I’m using it to make music with my pals in Nick Ellis and the Noise.

We play synth pop and sounds like a mix of Depeche Mode and Beverly Hills Cop.

(translated from Swedish)

I listened to the song and sure there was retro sounding pop from the eighties. To me it doesn’t remind me too much of  Depeche Mode or Beverly Hills Cop, but definitely of a mix of English and American synth pop from the middle of the eighties, with an emphasis on the American part.

A few days ago, they also released a second single, “Breaking Apart”, which you can listen to on their site or on Spotify.

And what about this drum machine, which obviously Max Martin also was involved in? It turns out that Nick Ellis, who’s real name is Niklas Möller, was the designer of one of the most popular software drum machines today,  Addictive Drums, and is also one of the founders of the company behind the product, XLN Audio.

Here’s the first single, “Delorean”, as a sound track and as a video:

Delorean