Chk Chk Chk !!! - Ooo - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Recent album As If out-hipped Hot Chip by some margin and this slice of funk-pop is possibly one of the highlights. Reminiscent of Gus Gus' super VIP single from This Is Normal, it's a walk-the-walk disco-friendly bouncer that reveals a somewhat lighter and more playful side to the Californians' usual hotpot of humpin' club sounds. On the flip is Bam City, a slower murkier groove that reminds me of Wolfgang Press and Talking Heads, also from said album. Catchier than flu but far more pleasurable.
Public Service Broadcasting - Sputnik EP - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Easily the most expansive and ethereal track on the duo's warmly-received Race For Space opus, Sputnik sounds strange when squashed down into four minutes. But fabulous it still is and on this EP, four remixers are given the opportunity to tickle your fancy with new interpretations, alongside new track Korolev and a radio edit of the title-track. Petar Dundov offers up a spruced-up dance mix that doesn't deviate from the album version to any huge degree, Eagles and Butterflies demonstrates his deeper, dubbier take on things (not unlike his own attractive Abstract album) and Blond:ish takes full advantage of having a spare 12 minutes in his schedule to piece together an ambient-house version. On the CD, you get an additional transformation from Plugger who strips the whole thing back to turn the whole thing into a fidgety glacial techno remix that isn't unlike Yello. That rare thing - an EP of remixes that add, subtract and multiply from the original piece, in a good way.
David Bowie - Blackstar - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Continuing the avant-garde theme set out by the surreal single Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) issued last year, Blackstar is a forlorn off-kilter jazzy hymn that continues Bowie's obsession with atmospherics, beats, religious imagery, worship and unsettling harmonies before the whole thing steadies itself to resume the story in glorious technicolor for another five minutes. Visitors to Planet Earth please note - if you really feel the urge to discover how us humans have been making music on this side of the planet for the past 50 years or so, you could do worse than pillage Bowie's enviable catalogue. It's Major Tom for the apocalypse age.
Kiasmos - Swept EP - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Four-tracker issued on Erased Tapes demonstrating just how utterly commanding Arnalds and Rasmussen can be when at the helm of their immersive and beautiful duetting project. Lead track Drawn utilises cyclical keys and a hefty bassline that recalls Pantha du Prince, while Gaunt is just that - very Frahm, very Jon Hopkins and very minimal and deep with a mournful melody that is as crushingly gorgeous as it is simple. Swept in both versions is by far the most club-friendly with the original winning out for me. A seriously good EP.
Camille Doughty - Elijah Rock - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Cracking gospel 7" issued on Honest Jon's that is so funky, so soulful and so cool, it hurts. Released ahead of a forthcoming collection entitled Christians Catch Hell (very little info on HJ's website, sadly), Elijah Rock could have been an Aretha standard in another life - here the relatively unknown Doughty uses her beguiling lungs and tonsils with pin-sharp efficiency. The flip features the righteous Jesus Will Be With Me by The Singing Sons of Washington DC and is almost as marvellous.
Boca 45 - Soul On Top - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Part of a new series of releases curated by the peeps behind South West good-time clubbing funkateers Jelly Jazz, this inaugural 7" is the nuts. Harking back to the happy days of early Skint releases with a hint of California Soul sprinkled on the top, Soul On Top features soulful New Zealander Louis Baker belting out a mesmerising vocal on top of a crunchy nut corn break that could have come straight from the streets of Chicago, rather than Bristol. Limited to 250 copies, this'll sell out in minutes.
Adian Coker - Time Out of Mind - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
North London's non-grimey but gritty spitter Coker unleashes his debut EP. After clocking up two really decent online albums, there were moments when the rapper might have slipped under the recognition radar but a couple of years later he's struck back with six tracks of varying success. Been There is the bass-heavy banger, a wordplay borne from out of the likes of Roots Manuva and Klashnekoff rather than Tempah, Stryder et al, while previous single Gospel is a head-nodder that features some smooth crooning from one Raheem Bakare. We On and Pure are other highlights that demonstrate Coker's resolute belief in slower hip-hop beats (rather than some of the chip-tunes coming out of London right now) while Get Money seriously rocks, full stop. The eventual third album should be a beaut if he stays away from the industry's greedy high-rollers.
Fink - Pilgrim (Paula Temple Vocal Remix) - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
You'd normally associate R&S's Paula Temple with mind-mangling electro remixes that scare animals at forty thousand paces but on Fink's reflective single Pilgrim, this remix is atmospheric and haunting rather than punishing and brutal. That is until two minutes in when Temple unleashes the merest threat of some feedback meltdown before the remaining four minutes settles down into a dubbed-up, blissed-out symphony that refuses to cease without some sort of digitalised climax.
New Order - Tutti Frutti (Hot Chip Remix) - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Clocking in at just under 12 minutes, Hot Chip incorporate a little of their own minimalist magic, some beat elements of Bam Bam's Where's Your Child? and a spot of Chemical Brothers' Go to turn this into a sprawling epic designed for the head and feet. Less chunkier on the funk than the album version or its extended box-set only partner, this remix is lovely in parts but is lacking in the out and out discofied good feeling of the original.
The Ocean Party - Black Blood - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Melbourne's post-punk and sub-pop The Ocean Party are about to unleash their fifth album Light Weight onto a largely unsuspecting public over here. Back home though, comparisons to The Triffids ensure that this likeable troupe grab some plaudits. Black Blood certainly boasts a similar lineage to the late David McComb's much-loved band but to that I'll add The Church and The Stress of Leisure (the quieter moments). There's a hint of jangle here, even an air of DIY about their sunny portrayal of pop at its most basic. We're not talking raw pop-rock, we're very much thigh-deep in intricate hooks and mellow front-porch strumming that boasts some mildly psychedelic keyboard and West Coast harmonies as the song builds to a climax.
Baby Blood - Figurine - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Crystalline beats, stretched filtered vocals and ethereal keyboard hooks - if this description turns you on you'll love the mysterious masked Baby Blood who hovers between FKA Twigs, Zomby and London Grammar sound-wise. Otherwise known as Denmark's Lucy Love (nope, I'm nonethewiser), Baby Blood's attention to rhythmic detail is to be admired although the song itself has little in the way of a plot. Ideal music for those already bored with Holly Herndon et al.
Aurora - Half The World Away - ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Ghastly twee rebotch of an Oasis song that's already previously outstayed its welcome as the theme to The Royle Family. But with a new generation watching the telly, John Lewis has seen fit to soundtrack an admittedly feel-good Christmas advert with a version that recalls other girl-fronted acoustic covers of recent years (remember Ellie Goulding's Your Song from 2010, ugh). If you ate too many packets of marshmallows during the holidays, you'd sound like this too.
Coldplay - Adventure of a Lifetime - ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Chris Martin's back with the glowsticks for this song taken from the band's 2016 long-player, billed as their last ever album. This will no doubt mean great news for many haters out there but Coldplay aren't the worst, believe me. Conversely, Adventure of a Lifetime isn't their best. The riff at the beginning is memorable and the track shuffles along like LCD Soundsystem up until the point Martin warbles his way through something that sounds a bit too Bruno Mars for these ears. And then there's a horrible 'drop' before that riff reappears and a number 1 beckons.
Recent album As If out-hipped Hot Chip by some margin and this slice of funk-pop is possibly one of the highlights. Reminiscent of Gus Gus' super VIP single from This Is Normal, it's a walk-the-walk disco-friendly bouncer that reveals a somewhat lighter and more playful side to the Californians' usual hotpot of humpin' club sounds. On the flip is Bam City, a slower murkier groove that reminds me of Wolfgang Press and Talking Heads, also from said album. Catchier than flu but far more pleasurable.
Public Service Broadcasting - Sputnik EP - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Easily the most expansive and ethereal track on the duo's warmly-received Race For Space opus, Sputnik sounds strange when squashed down into four minutes. But fabulous it still is and on this EP, four remixers are given the opportunity to tickle your fancy with new interpretations, alongside new track Korolev and a radio edit of the title-track. Petar Dundov offers up a spruced-up dance mix that doesn't deviate from the album version to any huge degree, Eagles and Butterflies demonstrates his deeper, dubbier take on things (not unlike his own attractive Abstract album) and Blond:ish takes full advantage of having a spare 12 minutes in his schedule to piece together an ambient-house version. On the CD, you get an additional transformation from Plugger who strips the whole thing back to turn the whole thing into a fidgety glacial techno remix that isn't unlike Yello. That rare thing - an EP of remixes that add, subtract and multiply from the original piece, in a good way.
David Bowie - Blackstar - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Continuing the avant-garde theme set out by the surreal single Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) issued last year, Blackstar is a forlorn off-kilter jazzy hymn that continues Bowie's obsession with atmospherics, beats, religious imagery, worship and unsettling harmonies before the whole thing steadies itself to resume the story in glorious technicolor for another five minutes. Visitors to Planet Earth please note - if you really feel the urge to discover how us humans have been making music on this side of the planet for the past 50 years or so, you could do worse than pillage Bowie's enviable catalogue. It's Major Tom for the apocalypse age.
Kiasmos - Swept EP - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Four-tracker issued on Erased Tapes demonstrating just how utterly commanding Arnalds and Rasmussen can be when at the helm of their immersive and beautiful duetting project. Lead track Drawn utilises cyclical keys and a hefty bassline that recalls Pantha du Prince, while Gaunt is just that - very Frahm, very Jon Hopkins and very minimal and deep with a mournful melody that is as crushingly gorgeous as it is simple. Swept in both versions is by far the most club-friendly with the original winning out for me. A seriously good EP.
Camille Doughty - Elijah Rock - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Cracking gospel 7" issued on Honest Jon's that is so funky, so soulful and so cool, it hurts. Released ahead of a forthcoming collection entitled Christians Catch Hell (very little info on HJ's website, sadly), Elijah Rock could have been an Aretha standard in another life - here the relatively unknown Doughty uses her beguiling lungs and tonsils with pin-sharp efficiency. The flip features the righteous Jesus Will Be With Me by The Singing Sons of Washington DC and is almost as marvellous.
Boca 45 - Soul On Top - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Part of a new series of releases curated by the peeps behind South West good-time clubbing funkateers Jelly Jazz, this inaugural 7" is the nuts. Harking back to the happy days of early Skint releases with a hint of California Soul sprinkled on the top, Soul On Top features soulful New Zealander Louis Baker belting out a mesmerising vocal on top of a crunchy nut corn break that could have come straight from the streets of Chicago, rather than Bristol. Limited to 250 copies, this'll sell out in minutes.
Adian Coker - Time Out of Mind - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
North London's non-grimey but gritty spitter Coker unleashes his debut EP. After clocking up two really decent online albums, there were moments when the rapper might have slipped under the recognition radar but a couple of years later he's struck back with six tracks of varying success. Been There is the bass-heavy banger, a wordplay borne from out of the likes of Roots Manuva and Klashnekoff rather than Tempah, Stryder et al, while previous single Gospel is a head-nodder that features some smooth crooning from one Raheem Bakare. We On and Pure are other highlights that demonstrate Coker's resolute belief in slower hip-hop beats (rather than some of the chip-tunes coming out of London right now) while Get Money seriously rocks, full stop. The eventual third album should be a beaut if he stays away from the industry's greedy high-rollers.
Fink - Pilgrim (Paula Temple Vocal Remix) - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
You'd normally associate R&S's Paula Temple with mind-mangling electro remixes that scare animals at forty thousand paces but on Fink's reflective single Pilgrim, this remix is atmospheric and haunting rather than punishing and brutal. That is until two minutes in when Temple unleashes the merest threat of some feedback meltdown before the remaining four minutes settles down into a dubbed-up, blissed-out symphony that refuses to cease without some sort of digitalised climax.
New Order - Tutti Frutti (Hot Chip Remix) - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Clocking in at just under 12 minutes, Hot Chip incorporate a little of their own minimalist magic, some beat elements of Bam Bam's Where's Your Child? and a spot of Chemical Brothers' Go to turn this into a sprawling epic designed for the head and feet. Less chunkier on the funk than the album version or its extended box-set only partner, this remix is lovely in parts but is lacking in the out and out discofied good feeling of the original.
The Ocean Party - Black Blood - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Melbourne's post-punk and sub-pop The Ocean Party are about to unleash their fifth album Light Weight onto a largely unsuspecting public over here. Back home though, comparisons to The Triffids ensure that this likeable troupe grab some plaudits. Black Blood certainly boasts a similar lineage to the late David McComb's much-loved band but to that I'll add The Church and The Stress of Leisure (the quieter moments). There's a hint of jangle here, even an air of DIY about their sunny portrayal of pop at its most basic. We're not talking raw pop-rock, we're very much thigh-deep in intricate hooks and mellow front-porch strumming that boasts some mildly psychedelic keyboard and West Coast harmonies as the song builds to a climax.
Baby Blood - Figurine - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Crystalline beats, stretched filtered vocals and ethereal keyboard hooks - if this description turns you on you'll love the mysterious masked Baby Blood who hovers between FKA Twigs, Zomby and London Grammar sound-wise. Otherwise known as Denmark's Lucy Love (nope, I'm nonethewiser), Baby Blood's attention to rhythmic detail is to be admired although the song itself has little in the way of a plot. Ideal music for those already bored with Holly Herndon et al.
Aurora - Half The World Away - ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Ghastly twee rebotch of an Oasis song that's already previously outstayed its welcome as the theme to The Royle Family. But with a new generation watching the telly, John Lewis has seen fit to soundtrack an admittedly feel-good Christmas advert with a version that recalls other girl-fronted acoustic covers of recent years (remember Ellie Goulding's Your Song from 2010, ugh). If you ate too many packets of marshmallows during the holidays, you'd sound like this too.
Coldplay - Adventure of a Lifetime - ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Chris Martin's back with the glowsticks for this song taken from the band's 2016 long-player, billed as their last ever album. This will no doubt mean great news for many haters out there but Coldplay aren't the worst, believe me. Conversely, Adventure of a Lifetime isn't their best. The riff at the beginning is memorable and the track shuffles along like LCD Soundsystem up until the point Martin warbles his way through something that sounds a bit too Bruno Mars for these ears. And then there's a horrible 'drop' before that riff reappears and a number 1 beckons.