Conor Oberst - Kick - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
There are those who go all gooey and dewy-eyed at the very mention of Oberst's name or that of his treasured band Bright Eyes. I'm a shoulder-shrugger personally, although Kick is agreeable enough - musically reminiscent of M Ward, Beck and, well, Bright Eyes. Oberst touches on visiting shrinks, scandal in the country-store and a whole load of riffs, hooks and lots of lyrical conundrums. Yep, good start. New album soon, by the way.
Autechre - SYptixed - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Released as part of online entity Bleep's 10th birthday (raises glass), this abstract slice of ear-artillery and thud-step is possibly Autechre's best and memorable piece of work since the wonderful Anti EP - yep, that good. Less left-field than of late, SYptixed sports a typically oblique title and sounds less like it was produced using Brian Eno's oblique strategy cards than say Oversteps or recent EP L-Event and more like the Booth and Brown of old. Very nice.
Ed Sheeran - Sing - ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
I don't get this devotion of the Sheeran phenomena. It's not even a phenomena. It's our version of Bruno Mars, isn't it? Anyway, Sing isn't a proper single in the truest sense of the word, merely a clutch of lyrical couplets, one or two 'woooahs' and cod-rapping that is aiming to set the tone for the singer's second album, X (due in June). I've forgotten this already.
The Elwins - Sittin Pretty - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Ontario's jingle-jangle meisters are readying themselves for a British onslaught with a tour, new album and this re-issued song from their debut album And I Thank You. Designed to sweeten you all up in time for their sophomore set (as yet untitled), Sittin Pretty is harmless indie-pop fluff that reminded me of Melee or Semisonic, perhaps today's The Heartbreaks or yesterday's The Coral creep into the mix as well. Whatever, I'm not sure we care about stuff like this anymore unless it's got the name Real Estate stamped on the sleeve, which it hasn't. It's worth your while though, so at least give it a listen.
Squarepusher v Z-MACHINES - Music For Robots - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Following on from jazz-guitarist Pat Metheny's Orchestrion experimentation with 'real' instruments triggered by pulses and pneumatics, ground-breaking Warp artist Tom Jenkinson takes the idea a step further with robot-generated electronica. Designed and performed for a Japanese project and played by three robots (the Z-MACHINES), the premise seems simple - hand over composition to other-worldly beings and, er, let them get on with it. And they certainly have with intriguing results. Some works, some doesn't (royally) and in less capable hands the whole idea might have been a disaster. Musically we're talking cyclical jazz-rock (Sad Robot Goes Funny), improvised piano and drums (Remote Amber) and Metheny AND Reich-like spasms of guitar, drums and keys (Dissolver) with the barest of melody until the pretty closer You Endless.
Lone - Aurora Northern Quarter - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
There's denying it - young Lone (alias Matt Cutler) has carved out something of a niche producing spacey digital ambience, pausing occasionally to ramp up the beats and interest clubbers. For the most part, his canon is a thoughtful and mellow one of which the new Aurora Northern Quarter is a perfect example. Reminiscent of R&S' exciting '90s output (Model 500, Ken Ishii), current squeezes (Space Dimension Controller, Vondelpark) and early issues on sister-label Apollo, ANQ sounds like the ushering in of long booze-soaked summer nights and the resultant vodka coma. In a great way.
Echo and the Bunnymen - Lovers on the Run - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
According to mighty-mouthed singer Ian McCulloch, EATB's next album (from which this is presumably taken) is 'their best ever'. He's said that about every bleeding album but, on the strength of Lovers On The Run, all string-laden and minor-key laden chorus, I might have to give him the benefit of the doubt. It could almost come from Ocean Rain in fact, although production-wise there's a nagging lack of the widescreen about it - it needs another layer of something but I can't figure out what. More strings? guitars? a bassline? bigger drums? What it doesn't need is a better chorus - it's a winner. Now pass me the album.
Max Jury - Christian Eyes - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Part of an EP entitled Something In The Air, Christian Eyes is a slow-paced atmospheric doodle that slots nicely into the Keane or Snow Patrol territory so beloved of many a songwriter these days. Yet no-one has successfully knocked these two outfits from their thrones as credible soft-rockers so why do others keep trying? Actually to be fair, Jury turns out a decent tune in the main just not a very exciting or enthralling one. Nice voice though and there's a chance that his obvious songwriting abilities will get recognised over here.
Real Estate - Crime - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Back in the land of pleasant jingle-jangle acts, Real Estate do it better than most with the second single from their super Atlas album issued earlier this year. Crime doesn't quite have the charm of Talking Backwards, nor the catchy chorus, but it does have the 'open-top-car' about it which, when faced with the British weather, isn't the most practical music to have on the radio but certainly the most enjoyable.
Little Dragon - Paris - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
Another act who have passed me by, musically not literally (I mean, I have heard lots by them), Gothenburg's electro-pop quintet hang subtle fly-away melodies on a wall of superfluous studio trickery that either excites you or it doesn't. Paris is an improvement to these ears - fidgety pop-soul to soothe the brain after a hard day at the rock face, it can't be a bad thing to specialise in. But I just wish there was something riveting to report about a tune designed to represent their fourth (fourth!) album due out later in May. It's like drinking a pleasing cup of camomile tea.
James - Moving On - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Taken from new album La Petite Mort, Moving On will do little to stop the James haters from labelling them as the Northern U2, and why should it? James haven't put much of a foot wrong in their thirty year history and don't appear to be doing so now - so, business as usual then. Songs about sex, death, destruction and sex again seem to drive Tim Booth onwards and this is no exception. Moving On ranks alongside Tomorrow, Sometimes or Born of Frustration as a memorable sad-face James classic, rather than Sit Down or Laid. Likeable stuff.
Bob Mould - I Don't Know You Anymore - ★★★★★★★★★☆
If I Can't Change Your Mind, See A Little Light, Could You Be The One, The Descent, Makes No Sense At All, Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely and now I Don't Know You Anymore - will Mould ever stop writing the best power-pop records in the world ever? Let's hope not. He's in his early fifties but can still turn a tune on a fiver and come out even more credible than before. Never mind Frank Black and even Kurt Cobain - Husker Du and now Bob Mould were THE purveyors of great riffin' rock and roll done '3-minute' stylee. Single of the week.
The Hosts - Give Your Love To Her - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Sounding like Cherry Ghost having a romp with the Manics (circa Everything Must Go) or British Sea Power (anything), The Hosts first uploaded this Soundcloud around a year ago. Finally, as a precursor to their Fierce Panda debut-album Softly Softly, this perky pop banger gets a proper release in its own right. It's a belter and in a better world kids, this would be a hit rather than being consigned to BBC 6 Music's B-list (probably). This IS pop.
Slim Thug - Pokin Out - ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
What isn't pop is this watery RnB schlock. Fuck me with a mouldy brick, has the hip-hop community run out of ideas so badly that one of them has seen fit to 'pimp' Joe Jackson's lovely Steppin' Out? Just for the sole purpose of creating yet another weary finger-swaggling slice of self-importance for the benefit of 'featuring' several other talentless c*ckspurts and making mo' money? It's like Public Enemy, KRS-One, Guru and Talib Kweli have been wasting their time building up a legacy. This makes Jedward sound like Led Zep. Truly, truly poor.
Maximo Park - Midnight on the Hill - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
I remember the days when a new Maximo Park single would burst forth from the radio-speaker like a proud parent with a screaming child. Like that same parent a decade on, Paul Smith and crew have grown up, matured and slowed things down a bit to create a song that sports a thoughtful video but little else in the listening department. Rugged without being raw, Maximo Park are in that strange place occupied by bands who have switched labels (from Warp to PIAS) and eschewed the opportunity to make it sound like a fresh start.
Joakim - On The Beach - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
Where Slim Thug et al went wrong with Pokin Out, apart from making it, could serve as a lesson in parody. Joakim, on the other hand, has admirably tackled Neil Young's On The Beach by stripping out the tension of the original and replacing it with vocodered vocals that will either have you leaping with infantile glee or reaching for your nearest sawn-off. I'm teetering between the two. Yes it's a different enough cover-version to earn a doff of the cap and a 'good try, here's an orange. Now play with the other children'. No it's a disgrace that this ever passed the quality-control peeps at the label and Young should sue. Meanwhile, the similarity to Moby and the overall lack of warmth leaves me wishing it was summer already. Gah.
There are those who go all gooey and dewy-eyed at the very mention of Oberst's name or that of his treasured band Bright Eyes. I'm a shoulder-shrugger personally, although Kick is agreeable enough - musically reminiscent of M Ward, Beck and, well, Bright Eyes. Oberst touches on visiting shrinks, scandal in the country-store and a whole load of riffs, hooks and lots of lyrical conundrums. Yep, good start. New album soon, by the way.
Autechre - SYptixed - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Released as part of online entity Bleep's 10th birthday (raises glass), this abstract slice of ear-artillery and thud-step is possibly Autechre's best and memorable piece of work since the wonderful Anti EP - yep, that good. Less left-field than of late, SYptixed sports a typically oblique title and sounds less like it was produced using Brian Eno's oblique strategy cards than say Oversteps or recent EP L-Event and more like the Booth and Brown of old. Very nice.
Ed Sheeran - Sing - ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
I don't get this devotion of the Sheeran phenomena. It's not even a phenomena. It's our version of Bruno Mars, isn't it? Anyway, Sing isn't a proper single in the truest sense of the word, merely a clutch of lyrical couplets, one or two 'woooahs' and cod-rapping that is aiming to set the tone for the singer's second album, X (due in June). I've forgotten this already.
The Elwins - Sittin Pretty - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Ontario's jingle-jangle meisters are readying themselves for a British onslaught with a tour, new album and this re-issued song from their debut album And I Thank You. Designed to sweeten you all up in time for their sophomore set (as yet untitled), Sittin Pretty is harmless indie-pop fluff that reminded me of Melee or Semisonic, perhaps today's The Heartbreaks or yesterday's The Coral creep into the mix as well. Whatever, I'm not sure we care about stuff like this anymore unless it's got the name Real Estate stamped on the sleeve, which it hasn't. It's worth your while though, so at least give it a listen.
Squarepusher v Z-MACHINES - Music For Robots - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Following on from jazz-guitarist Pat Metheny's Orchestrion experimentation with 'real' instruments triggered by pulses and pneumatics, ground-breaking Warp artist Tom Jenkinson takes the idea a step further with robot-generated electronica. Designed and performed for a Japanese project and played by three robots (the Z-MACHINES), the premise seems simple - hand over composition to other-worldly beings and, er, let them get on with it. And they certainly have with intriguing results. Some works, some doesn't (royally) and in less capable hands the whole idea might have been a disaster. Musically we're talking cyclical jazz-rock (Sad Robot Goes Funny), improvised piano and drums (Remote Amber) and Metheny AND Reich-like spasms of guitar, drums and keys (Dissolver) with the barest of melody until the pretty closer You Endless.
Lone - Aurora Northern Quarter - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
There's denying it - young Lone (alias Matt Cutler) has carved out something of a niche producing spacey digital ambience, pausing occasionally to ramp up the beats and interest clubbers. For the most part, his canon is a thoughtful and mellow one of which the new Aurora Northern Quarter is a perfect example. Reminiscent of R&S' exciting '90s output (Model 500, Ken Ishii), current squeezes (Space Dimension Controller, Vondelpark) and early issues on sister-label Apollo, ANQ sounds like the ushering in of long booze-soaked summer nights and the resultant vodka coma. In a great way.
Echo and the Bunnymen - Lovers on the Run - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
According to mighty-mouthed singer Ian McCulloch, EATB's next album (from which this is presumably taken) is 'their best ever'. He's said that about every bleeding album but, on the strength of Lovers On The Run, all string-laden and minor-key laden chorus, I might have to give him the benefit of the doubt. It could almost come from Ocean Rain in fact, although production-wise there's a nagging lack of the widescreen about it - it needs another layer of something but I can't figure out what. More strings? guitars? a bassline? bigger drums? What it doesn't need is a better chorus - it's a winner. Now pass me the album.
Max Jury - Christian Eyes - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Part of an EP entitled Something In The Air, Christian Eyes is a slow-paced atmospheric doodle that slots nicely into the Keane or Snow Patrol territory so beloved of many a songwriter these days. Yet no-one has successfully knocked these two outfits from their thrones as credible soft-rockers so why do others keep trying? Actually to be fair, Jury turns out a decent tune in the main just not a very exciting or enthralling one. Nice voice though and there's a chance that his obvious songwriting abilities will get recognised over here.
Real Estate - Crime - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Back in the land of pleasant jingle-jangle acts, Real Estate do it better than most with the second single from their super Atlas album issued earlier this year. Crime doesn't quite have the charm of Talking Backwards, nor the catchy chorus, but it does have the 'open-top-car' about it which, when faced with the British weather, isn't the most practical music to have on the radio but certainly the most enjoyable.
Little Dragon - Paris - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
Another act who have passed me by, musically not literally (I mean, I have heard lots by them), Gothenburg's electro-pop quintet hang subtle fly-away melodies on a wall of superfluous studio trickery that either excites you or it doesn't. Paris is an improvement to these ears - fidgety pop-soul to soothe the brain after a hard day at the rock face, it can't be a bad thing to specialise in. But I just wish there was something riveting to report about a tune designed to represent their fourth (fourth!) album due out later in May. It's like drinking a pleasing cup of camomile tea.
James - Moving On - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Taken from new album La Petite Mort, Moving On will do little to stop the James haters from labelling them as the Northern U2, and why should it? James haven't put much of a foot wrong in their thirty year history and don't appear to be doing so now - so, business as usual then. Songs about sex, death, destruction and sex again seem to drive Tim Booth onwards and this is no exception. Moving On ranks alongside Tomorrow, Sometimes or Born of Frustration as a memorable sad-face James classic, rather than Sit Down or Laid. Likeable stuff.
Bob Mould - I Don't Know You Anymore - ★★★★★★★★★☆
If I Can't Change Your Mind, See A Little Light, Could You Be The One, The Descent, Makes No Sense At All, Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely and now I Don't Know You Anymore - will Mould ever stop writing the best power-pop records in the world ever? Let's hope not. He's in his early fifties but can still turn a tune on a fiver and come out even more credible than before. Never mind Frank Black and even Kurt Cobain - Husker Du and now Bob Mould were THE purveyors of great riffin' rock and roll done '3-minute' stylee. Single of the week.
The Hosts - Give Your Love To Her - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Sounding like Cherry Ghost having a romp with the Manics (circa Everything Must Go) or British Sea Power (anything), The Hosts first uploaded this Soundcloud around a year ago. Finally, as a precursor to their Fierce Panda debut-album Softly Softly, this perky pop banger gets a proper release in its own right. It's a belter and in a better world kids, this would be a hit rather than being consigned to BBC 6 Music's B-list (probably). This IS pop.
Slim Thug - Pokin Out - ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
What isn't pop is this watery RnB schlock. Fuck me with a mouldy brick, has the hip-hop community run out of ideas so badly that one of them has seen fit to 'pimp' Joe Jackson's lovely Steppin' Out? Just for the sole purpose of creating yet another weary finger-swaggling slice of self-importance for the benefit of 'featuring' several other talentless c*ckspurts and making mo' money? It's like Public Enemy, KRS-One, Guru and Talib Kweli have been wasting their time building up a legacy. This makes Jedward sound like Led Zep. Truly, truly poor.
Maximo Park - Midnight on the Hill - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
I remember the days when a new Maximo Park single would burst forth from the radio-speaker like a proud parent with a screaming child. Like that same parent a decade on, Paul Smith and crew have grown up, matured and slowed things down a bit to create a song that sports a thoughtful video but little else in the listening department. Rugged without being raw, Maximo Park are in that strange place occupied by bands who have switched labels (from Warp to PIAS) and eschewed the opportunity to make it sound like a fresh start.
Joakim - On The Beach - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
Where Slim Thug et al went wrong with Pokin Out, apart from making it, could serve as a lesson in parody. Joakim, on the other hand, has admirably tackled Neil Young's On The Beach by stripping out the tension of the original and replacing it with vocodered vocals that will either have you leaping with infantile glee or reaching for your nearest sawn-off. I'm teetering between the two. Yes it's a different enough cover-version to earn a doff of the cap and a 'good try, here's an orange. Now play with the other children'. No it's a disgrace that this ever passed the quality-control peeps at the label and Young should sue. Meanwhile, the similarity to Moby and the overall lack of warmth leaves me wishing it was summer already. Gah.