Brooklyn’s Amanda Warner makes dynamic electro-pop under the moniker MNDR, and she’s been building buzz with her project while also working with folks like Mark Ronson. “I Go Away”, a major highlight from the her debut EP, E.P.E., is filled with distinctive synths that melt all over a spare, echoing drum beat like a candy house left out in the hot sun. It’s a serious slow-dance pop confection, but Warner keeps a clear head lyrically. “I Go Away” initially sounds like a post-relationship-fallout slow burner, as she asks, “How did I get here/ Without feeling anything”. Soon, though, you realize that she isn’t calming down– she’s getting pumped up. “This is my anthem/ I know it like I know everything”, Warner softly declares, as if she’s getting ready to step out in front of the curtain, before letting out titular squeaks during a chorus that favorably evokes Santigold as the track builds to its cathartic peak.

Take a listen for yourself here.

MNDR @ Glasslands

MNDR @ Glasslands

MNDR @ Glasslands

MNDR @ Glasslands

I’m digging on a number of the NYC new kids on the block, if you will. If recalled correctly, together, they make up one of the largest chunks of beastly words. They are: Theophilus London, MNDR, Sleigh Bells and Zambri. Each are recording, some with full debut albums due out in 2010. Color us stoked.
–Sheena Beaston

Check Sheena Beaston’s complete list of BE[a]STS to Watch in 2010.

MNDR at her activity center

MNDR on the keys

See more photos on Metromix.

MNDR with lightshow in full effect

MNDR at Mercury Lounge

See more photos on Brooklyn Vegan.

One-woman Brooklyn-by-way-of-Oakland band MNDR is way, way more enjoyable — I am profoundly suspicious of anyone who self-identifies as “ghettotech,” but she’s brassy and volatile and cheeseball-anthemic in a not-unlike-Lady-Gaga sort of way. “OK, seriously, you can move to this music!” she thunders at a packed house too mesmerized by her light show to move. “This is techno!” Nonplussed, she soon moves on to the next track: “This is about being in love in China. And post-Bush globalization. This is not a joke. Everything I do is dead serious.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYdQUx-bx-Q

“I don’t want to make a record,” says Amanda Warner, a.k.a. the latest, hottest, most effervescent minimal-techno electro-pop project to hit Brooklyn. “I want every song to be a number one. I want it to be huge and the best thing I can make.” Warner came to Bushwick last winter by way of Oakland, California–but it was in her hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, that she learned to multitrack at the age of nine. “I’m a mega, mega gear nerd,” she admits. MNDR will release her debut album, a collection of singles produced by Peter Wade, in spring 2010. More info at mndrmndr.com — Lucy Madison

We just found this KEXP playlist, and the Reggae Got Soul riddim is also featured on this show. Big Up to Sharmaji of the Sub Swara crew for the link up!