Jim Kroft - Through My Weakness - Jackalope Recordings
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
There's something of the Simon and Garfunkel about Kroft's latest strumtastic single, as well as the standard euphoric build-up into each chorus. I have to say - he's surpassed himself here. Sharper, livelier than The Jailer (itself a decent tune), it deserves to be all over 6 Music or the like. Quietly battling against all odds (major-label deal fell flat through no fault of his own), Kroft sounds ready to spread out from his adopted Berlin and take on the rest of Europe and his native UK. Listen up.
Kylie Minogue - Into The Blue - Parlophone
★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
'Yeah tonight I'm runnin' free...' trills our Kylie on this, her first outing for Jay-Z's Roc Nation empire. Thankfully she hasn't sunk to new depths by grinding her mimsy suggestively against some geezer's morning glory (unlike others on Roc), although a few British news-rags seem obsessed with her choice of dress and flash of leg rather than the song itself which is full-on disco-pop. The sort of pop that can appear on the radio or in a clothes shop somewhere in the world and be casually ignored - it's a bit anonymous, truth be told. Kylie, unlike Madonna, retains relevance (just) by sounding as up-to-date as Girls Aloud or Katy Perry.
U2 - Invisible - Island
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
It's free and it's for the Red charity in the fight against AIDS. And that really is all you need to know about this new U2 song that sounds like an old U2 song, but I'm not sure which. Interestingly, it's a damned sight better than the hogwash masquerading as the Mandela theme tune - that really was under par - and is an amalgam of Beautiful Day and Vertigo all wrapped up in a snappy little tune. Whilst it's highly fashionable to hate Bono and co for being narcissists and tax-dodgers (allegedly), U2 still retain a bit of credibility by still sounding better than half the bibblewits around at the moment. Mind you, so does next door's cat.
Pylo - The Woman EP - Naim Edge
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Along with U2, bands like Kings Of Leon and Snow Patrol have a lot to answer for when it comes to big, bullish stadium rock. Pylo mine a similar seam to the above, although on one track (Young) sound like Cactus World News, an '80s outfit who wrote truly lovely anthems back in the day but were sidelined for sounding like Bono's mates. Will the same fate befall Pylo? It's highly likely but not for that reason alone. Young is actually the key song here and possibly the band's best effort to date which, along with this EP's strident opener Simple Souls, wouldn't sound out of place in a venue with rows and rows of seats full of cheering fans. What I find annoying about Pylo is their pace of life and lack of urgency. Climbing Through The Sun and Woman drag along in an earnest enough way but they're sad, samey and not as good as the rest on here. I'm still not convinced but an album might be the answer.
The Heartbreaks - Hey Hey Lover - Nusic Sounds
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Eschewing the jingle-jangle beat-pop of old, The Heartbreaks have discovered Sonic Flower Groove-era Primal Scream, donned some suitable shirts and delivered something of a Paisley-adorned psychedelic onslaught that misses something of the naivety of their earlier work. But that's progress kids and if you're craving for the next big Byrds in your life, you could do far worse than invest in this reasonable blast of mid-fi guitar pop, sung in admittedly strained American accents that would be best left at home. Otherwise - hit!
Daniel Carlson - Eko - Folkwit
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
The psychedelia continues on the more relaxed Eko by American songwriter Carlson whose history encompasses Chicago, San Francisco, New York and '90s Britpop. There's a certain amount of Tears For Fears about this gentle reflective pop-folk whimsy, minus the dry wit perhaps, but with plenty of left-field and spacey effects throughout and as un-American a vocal as you could wish to have - Carlson sounds very 'English', in fact. Eko won't set the world on fire and it goes on a bit but it's a pleasing enough taster of his next album Me You You Me (due April).
Nessi - Hush Hush - Serve & Volley
★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Germany's Nessi has a new EP out called TwentyThreeYears from which this inoffensive ball of pop fluff is taken. She's clearly been listening to current British and American pop - there are lots of 'eh eh's and oh oh's, lashings of stop-start rhythms, a big build up and then - pooof - it rumbles on a bit more with some biscuit-tin drums straight out of Belinda Carlisle's back-catalogue. I found this a bit dreary.
Terry Emm - Starlight - Self-Released
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Y'know, Mr Emm has been knocking out better and better tunes for the past 18 months and this might just be his best yet. Maybe it's the strings but there's a bit of Ray Davies about Starlight, a gently whimsical reflective melody coaxed out of its little English shell by Terry's quizzical intonement - he's like a wide-eyed kid peering out into a harsh old world, searching for answers and after not finding them, promptly scribbling a song about it all - then recording it and missing his breakfast. Yeah, a decent step forward from Love But Never Lost then.
Klaxons - There Is No Other Time - Akashic Records
★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Is 'Nu-Rave' about to make a comeback? Who honestly gives a rat's ass. What did nu-rave actually mean anyway? Well, it meant that Klaxons earned a few quid out of it, enough to fund their next new material of which this is supposed to be a representation of. Imagine Everything Everything, Pet Shop Boys, Chic's Everybody Dance and London Grammar making another disco-pop record that stops, starts, stops, starts forever and a day and sounds so anonymous you'd be forgiven for thinking that something ironic was going on here. 'Everybody dance, do-doo-dee, clap your hands clap your hands' etc etc. No, not ironic - chronic.
Lakker - K'antu - R&S Records
★★★★★★★★★☆
So far ahead of a pretty bland pack this week is Belgium's most imaginative imprint with perhaps its best 12" release since Untold, Pariah, James Blake and Model 500 knocked out a quartet of beauties a couple of years back. A hybrid of Orbital's long-forgotten Semi-Detached track and the label's own techno gladiator Space Dimension Controller, K'antu is a minimal piece that's both beautifully produced and perfectly realized, aimed at both the headphones and the feet. Fidgety enough without being hipster glitch, the mysterious Lakker has crafted something of a masterpiece here, an unassuming tune that will rank as one of the label's greatest. Seriously, that good.
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
There's something of the Simon and Garfunkel about Kroft's latest strumtastic single, as well as the standard euphoric build-up into each chorus. I have to say - he's surpassed himself here. Sharper, livelier than The Jailer (itself a decent tune), it deserves to be all over 6 Music or the like. Quietly battling against all odds (major-label deal fell flat through no fault of his own), Kroft sounds ready to spread out from his adopted Berlin and take on the rest of Europe and his native UK. Listen up.
Kylie Minogue - Into The Blue - Parlophone
★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
'Yeah tonight I'm runnin' free...' trills our Kylie on this, her first outing for Jay-Z's Roc Nation empire. Thankfully she hasn't sunk to new depths by grinding her mimsy suggestively against some geezer's morning glory (unlike others on Roc), although a few British news-rags seem obsessed with her choice of dress and flash of leg rather than the song itself which is full-on disco-pop. The sort of pop that can appear on the radio or in a clothes shop somewhere in the world and be casually ignored - it's a bit anonymous, truth be told. Kylie, unlike Madonna, retains relevance (just) by sounding as up-to-date as Girls Aloud or Katy Perry.
U2 - Invisible - Island
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
It's free and it's for the Red charity in the fight against AIDS. And that really is all you need to know about this new U2 song that sounds like an old U2 song, but I'm not sure which. Interestingly, it's a damned sight better than the hogwash masquerading as the Mandela theme tune - that really was under par - and is an amalgam of Beautiful Day and Vertigo all wrapped up in a snappy little tune. Whilst it's highly fashionable to hate Bono and co for being narcissists and tax-dodgers (allegedly), U2 still retain a bit of credibility by still sounding better than half the bibblewits around at the moment. Mind you, so does next door's cat.
Pylo - The Woman EP - Naim Edge
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Along with U2, bands like Kings Of Leon and Snow Patrol have a lot to answer for when it comes to big, bullish stadium rock. Pylo mine a similar seam to the above, although on one track (Young) sound like Cactus World News, an '80s outfit who wrote truly lovely anthems back in the day but were sidelined for sounding like Bono's mates. Will the same fate befall Pylo? It's highly likely but not for that reason alone. Young is actually the key song here and possibly the band's best effort to date which, along with this EP's strident opener Simple Souls, wouldn't sound out of place in a venue with rows and rows of seats full of cheering fans. What I find annoying about Pylo is their pace of life and lack of urgency. Climbing Through The Sun and Woman drag along in an earnest enough way but they're sad, samey and not as good as the rest on here. I'm still not convinced but an album might be the answer.
The Heartbreaks - Hey Hey Lover - Nusic Sounds
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Eschewing the jingle-jangle beat-pop of old, The Heartbreaks have discovered Sonic Flower Groove-era Primal Scream, donned some suitable shirts and delivered something of a Paisley-adorned psychedelic onslaught that misses something of the naivety of their earlier work. But that's progress kids and if you're craving for the next big Byrds in your life, you could do far worse than invest in this reasonable blast of mid-fi guitar pop, sung in admittedly strained American accents that would be best left at home. Otherwise - hit!
Daniel Carlson - Eko - Folkwit
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
The psychedelia continues on the more relaxed Eko by American songwriter Carlson whose history encompasses Chicago, San Francisco, New York and '90s Britpop. There's a certain amount of Tears For Fears about this gentle reflective pop-folk whimsy, minus the dry wit perhaps, but with plenty of left-field and spacey effects throughout and as un-American a vocal as you could wish to have - Carlson sounds very 'English', in fact. Eko won't set the world on fire and it goes on a bit but it's a pleasing enough taster of his next album Me You You Me (due April).
Nessi - Hush Hush - Serve & Volley
★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Germany's Nessi has a new EP out called TwentyThreeYears from which this inoffensive ball of pop fluff is taken. She's clearly been listening to current British and American pop - there are lots of 'eh eh's and oh oh's, lashings of stop-start rhythms, a big build up and then - pooof - it rumbles on a bit more with some biscuit-tin drums straight out of Belinda Carlisle's back-catalogue. I found this a bit dreary.
Terry Emm - Starlight - Self-Released
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Y'know, Mr Emm has been knocking out better and better tunes for the past 18 months and this might just be his best yet. Maybe it's the strings but there's a bit of Ray Davies about Starlight, a gently whimsical reflective melody coaxed out of its little English shell by Terry's quizzical intonement - he's like a wide-eyed kid peering out into a harsh old world, searching for answers and after not finding them, promptly scribbling a song about it all - then recording it and missing his breakfast. Yeah, a decent step forward from Love But Never Lost then.
Klaxons - There Is No Other Time - Akashic Records
★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Is 'Nu-Rave' about to make a comeback? Who honestly gives a rat's ass. What did nu-rave actually mean anyway? Well, it meant that Klaxons earned a few quid out of it, enough to fund their next new material of which this is supposed to be a representation of. Imagine Everything Everything, Pet Shop Boys, Chic's Everybody Dance and London Grammar making another disco-pop record that stops, starts, stops, starts forever and a day and sounds so anonymous you'd be forgiven for thinking that something ironic was going on here. 'Everybody dance, do-doo-dee, clap your hands clap your hands' etc etc. No, not ironic - chronic.
Lakker - K'antu - R&S Records
★★★★★★★★★☆
So far ahead of a pretty bland pack this week is Belgium's most imaginative imprint with perhaps its best 12" release since Untold, Pariah, James Blake and Model 500 knocked out a quartet of beauties a couple of years back. A hybrid of Orbital's long-forgotten Semi-Detached track and the label's own techno gladiator Space Dimension Controller, K'antu is a minimal piece that's both beautifully produced and perfectly realized, aimed at both the headphones and the feet. Fidgety enough without being hipster glitch, the mysterious Lakker has crafted something of a masterpiece here, an unassuming tune that will rank as one of the label's greatest. Seriously, that good.