1940

Parisienne duo Vox Low have been one of my top discoveries of this year. In this song they use a vocal sample- 'It's 1940 in this room'- and build around it with some proper tension and release. Not entirely dance, but not really rock either. Something else.

What did 1940 offer the world? The fall of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, the occupation of Paris, war between the Soviet Union and Finland, the evacuation at Dunkirk, the establishment of the Vichy regime, Italy joining the war as an Axis power, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz including the flattening of Coventry and fifty seven consecutive nights bombing, Allied bombing of Hamburg, rationing, the re-armament of the USA in full swing with the first peacetime draft into the army, the Nazi proposal of the Madagascar Plan, race riots in Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles, the murder of Leon Trotsky, the deaths of Neville Chamberlain and F Scott Fitzgerald, the suspension of the Olympic Games and the Nobel prizes...

It's 1940 In This Room