Zoot Woman

Owing as much to Hall & Oates and Roxy Music as the Pet Shop Boys, the stylish electro-pop trio Zoot Woman features producer Stuart Price (who also works as Les Rhythmes Digitales and Jacques Lu Cont) and brothers Johnny and Adam Blake (aka the remix duo Paper Faces). Fusing traditional instrumentation and techniques with retro electronics, the trio began working together in the mid-’90s, issuing a couple of singles for Wall of Sound before Price switched his focus to Les Rhythmes Digitales. Price and the Blakes reunited to release the It's Automatic single in 2000 and the full-length Living in a Magazine — a concept album about the 21st century’s media-saturated culture — the following year. Zoot Woman delivered their darker, more organic-sounding self-titled second album, which spawned the singles “Grey Day” and “Taken It All,” in 2003. In 2008, the group formed the label ZWR to release 2009′s Things Are What They Used to Be, which drew from the trio’s deep love of ’80s synth-pop as well as harder-edged, electroclash-inspired sounds. For 2014’s Star Climbing, the trio returned to a lighter, more atmospheric pop sound exemplified by the lead track “Don’t Tear Yourself Apart.” ~ Heather Phares