While reading comments on the video to one of Annie’s newer songs, I noticed a reference by one commenter to U.K. artist Ronika.  While I normally don’t tend to follow up on these sorts of comments, the mention of the retro leanings and production caught my eye, so I began to look into her, and was pleasantly surprised with the results.

Unlike Annie, whose more retro tracks seem to pull from late ’80s or the early ’90s for inspiration, Ronika turns the clock back further, garnering plenty of comparisons to Madonna’s early days. In one of her strongest tracks, “Automatic,” above, she even samples Chic members’ Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards’ 1982 production “Together” by the group Odyssey, offering a more authentic take from that era.

Her videos routinely have an old-school VHS vibe, and her looks go perfectly with the other footage culled for the videos, such as the video for “Forget Yourself,” above.  The songs themselves are catchy, and it’s all the more impressive that she’s a one woman shop – she writes, sings, produces and releases the tracks herself.  That means she to a degree flies under the radar (why people like myself are discovering her two years later), but her music, although released relatively infrequently, is consistently good, so it’s something with which I can live.

If you’re into modern productions with a nod to the past, Ronika’s a great artist to check out.