I recommend Nim http://nim-lang.org/ (the website docs don't look too good at the moment, but this has been fixed for the next version that will be out in a few days).

Nim is an incredibly good language that compiles to C, is fast, and has very easy bindings creation to any C library you want. For me, it's the best of both worlds between a Python look (indented, clean) and a fast typed compiled language that helps you instead of hindering you.

You might be interested in checking it out.