Last month, local group roboteyes released their self-titled debut EP, including four original tracks and two remixes. The album is the product of almost two years’ experimentation by local musicians Ryan Ford and Kate LeDeuce (with the assistance of Matt Servo and Marty Kerslake), including almost full a year of recording and mixing the album. Both Ford and LeDeuce have been known on the local music scene for some time, Ford as a rock musician, and LeDeuce primarily as a country singer. This makes it all the more surprising that roboteyes is an authentic, bouncy hit of ’80s new wave and synth pop.

Powered by a couple of thrift store synthesizers and propelled by a deep and abiding love of dance music and bubblegum pop, this album really is a bit of a nostalgia trip. Roboteyes mention David Bowie and Devo among their influences, and from the start of “Break My Heart,” the album’s first track and first single (which has actually been getting some airplay on CBC Radio), those influences are undeniable. It’s there in the album’s upbeat rhythms, in the impressively polished, clean production, in the retro synth and drum machines they use, and the general sense of fun that pervades the album.

LeDeuce, on lead vocals, has a strong, theatrical, and quite adaptable voice. It’s not hard to imagine her vocals on a song like the peppy “Supernatural” as coming from a pop starlet in leg warmers performing on a shopping mall stage sometime in 1986 (and I mean that in the best way possible). She, and the whole band, are also able to find moments of restraint and vulnerability in their music, like the album’s closer, “You and Me,” a more introspective, quiet number about loneliness.

The album also includes two remixes. Foxes in Fiction provide a beautifully sparse, airy version of “You And Me” that strips away the vocals and reduces the instrumentation to dreamy atmospherics, all while holding onto much of the sad heart of the song. Meanwhile, Infrared Riding Hood go the opposite direction for their remix of “Supernatural,” giving the song an aggressive, industrial, but indisputably danceable makeover.

Roboteyes’ debut album, roboteyes, is available now on Bandcamp as a pay-what-you-want download. Physical copies are for sale at Sympathy For The Rebel in Peterborough and at roboteyes shows.

If you’re in Toronto on April 2, roboteyes will be opening for The Protomen at The Hoxton (more info). They’re also planning more shows in Peterborough, coming up soon. Keep an eye on Electric City Live for listings.

Images courtesy roboteyes.