Having blown away the recent SXSW Music Festival in Austin, two weeks ago, London-based electro-pop trio Chew Lips now have a new album to drive. Unicorn was produced by Dave Kosten (Bat for Lashes) and features impeccably-executed guitar pop that veers from grinding electro-grooves to fevered howls of beat-heavy R&B, all reflected in the first single, the popjestic, Karen.

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We love this remix by Cambridge’s electronic-pop sensation Passion Pit of Sweden’s Shout Out Louds’ first single, Fall Hard. Evidently so do Pitchfork who described it as being ‘synthed up’. Indeed! We have a free download in our Music Download section. Listen to the Passion Pit remix of Shout Out Louds and then download it!

We wrote about hot Swedish electro duo The Tough Alliance a little while back, so we thought it was time we had a chat with Eric Berglund, one half of the group. There’s a distinctive early UK rave sound coming through in some of New Chance. Was there much of that in Sweden when you were growing up ‘What’s UK rave? We don’t know much about genres and those kind of things’. You talk a lot about your shows being an interaction with the audience rather than you versus the crowd. Is there a tendency for bands to distance themselves whilst playing live? ‘Not as much as they’re controlling the situation and acting. We want a TTA performance to be a unique situation and something real, not a scripted show that’s the same wherever or whenever, whoever is there and whatever happens. We want it to be a part of reality’. You say you’ve never worked with anyone who isn’t a friend. What part of the friend dynamic are you reliant on to make music? ‘Love’. Would you consider working with other artists if an offer came in from someone whose work you respect, but who you don’t necessarily have a relationship with? ‘Dr Dre maybe, it feels like we had some relationship in a former life’. What were the reasons for breaking with Service and starting your own label? ‘We felt we had to be able to stand for everything about Service and when we didn’t feel like we could do that anymore we simply had to leave. Then after a while Sincerely Yours just happened by itself and we just played along’.

Listen to The Tough Alliance track, Something Special.