Good afternoon music fans. Today I’m bringing my thoughts on Digitalism, with some new music, an unreleased gem, and a stone cold classic.
Some of you might be new to Digitalism so let’s start with the basics. Digitalism is a German electro duo formed of Jens Moelle and İsmail Tüfekçi. In 2007 they released the album Idealism, which contains one of my favourite tracks of all time, Pogo. Few tracks bring my teenage years back to life as much as this one.
Fast forward to 2026 and they have released their fifth full length album, Optimism. (I wrote about their fourth, JPEG, here.) I saw them tour Optimism at EartH last weekend and it sounded awesome.
Their sound may have lost a bit of the impact and freshness that it had in the peak noughties electro era, but there’s no question that at their best they can bring an infectious, feel-good electro sound that few can match. On this album, tracks like Golden and Starburst invite comparisons to Daft Punk or Justice – which I know is a huge claim, but one that they can live up to.
A stand out track from the album for me is Sirens. It marks a stylistic shift for the duo. The album version is crying out for some vocals to be laid down on top of it. In fact, they put the track out there on the internet for people to rap over and CentralCee has had a crack. This is relatively normal in the world of rap, but unusual in electronic music. In London they performed an unreleased version, which was totally electric and I’m sure will feature on an extended release at some point. At least, I hope it does.
But then there is yet another side to Digitalism. Some of their music is undeniably cringe. The kind of stuff that would have you scrambling for the volume if it came out of your speakers at a house party. Listen to House Alarm or City of Love and you will see what I mean. “After the party – the afterparty”. “We get lost in the city of love. We get hot in the city of love” etc. etc. Eesh. And so for that I’ve got two potential explanations. The first is that they fancy themselves as Hamburg’s answer to LCD Soundsystem and are executing in a brutally naïve ‘English as a second language’ kind of way. The second explanation is that they are much more self-aware – playing in an ironic, self-mocking way for comic effect. Maybe this explanation is more palatable, but personally I don’t need my electronic music to be funny. I was once told that if you don’t take yourself seriously then no-one else will. But maybe that’s just me having a sense of humour failure.
At the end of the day maybe Digitalism are just trying to make electro music that will make you smile. And I guess the world could do with a bit of that right now.
I’d love to know your thoughts. Send me a message with your take.
