Lonelady - Bunkerpop - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Bolstered by a Wrangler remix, this latest instalment of the LoneLady takeover is almost as limb-ticklingly good as previous single Groove It Out. Reactions to the Manchester performer's more minimal and groovy hip-funk have been justifiably positive and Bunkerpop doesn't disappoint. Maybe she's invented a new genre right here. Whatever, she's found her muse, her groove and her rhythm and looks set to be one to watch in 2015. Bunkerpop is a nipple-twister of a track.
Blur - Go Out - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Their first single for a few years sees them deliver a stoned out, atonal indie-jangle ramble through the backstreets of their 13 album or that hideous Music Is My Radar single. I like the harmonies in the chorus, I'm partial to the chopping and slashing of Coxon's cast-iron guitars, even a little bit taken by the bang-crash drums. However, when all these elements are gradually welded together by Albarn's world-weary vocalising, Go Out sounds like an almighty mess - an almighty mess that admittedly improves with every play but is way short of previous triumphs.
Is Tropical - On My Way - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
My my my, how they've grown up for their next assault on our eardrums. Well, not so much an assault as a caress - Is Tropical have discovered the perfect balance of emotive trilling and funereal electronic beats, coupled with an eerie echoey choral backdrop and a mind-mangling climax. The first of five intertwined 10" singles, eventually making up the band's next album, On My Way is glorious. It's flipside Crawl is also niftier, shiftier but nowhere near as elegant or elegiac.
Edyth - Bare I - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Five tracks, all bearing the hallmarks of 21st-century glitch, cut and paste electronica yet somehow as challenging and beautiful as Burial, Autechre, Boards Of Canada or Lone. French imprint Fake Music has been handed the enviable mission of bestowing Edyth's superb EP upon us and by the powers of streaming, it's happened. A double 12" would be better but I guess we'll have to wait for that. Meanwhile, immerse your ears in the hypnotic bass-rumble of Herbal Blend or the glistening sub-stepping Crystxls and then tell me the world isn't going to be alright.
Vessels - Echo In - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Mesmerising return from Leeds' oft-overlooked uncategorized electronic outfit which pre-empts their fourth album, due out next week. Taking its cue from slo-mo dubstep, Echo In sees the trio hotfooting it towards a nightclub where they mix Pink Floyd, Burial and Plaid together and come up with the likes of this. Merely the tip of the album's iceberg, Echo In is nonetheless engaging and promising as well as being decidedly more dance-orientated than usual.
Freebass - You Don't Know This About Me (Outernationale Remix) - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Roughly five years ago, three (in)famous bassists (Mani, Peter Hook and Andy Rourke) formed the short-lived Freebass. So short-lived in fact that within the time it takes to boil the kettle, they'd split up again just prior to their one-and-only album got its release. It was a bit of a stinker in places and needed a decent producer to steer the trio in the right direction. Somewhat late Outernationale, aka producer Derek Miller, has knocked out a vast improvement on a track that appeared on the band's Two World's Collide EP. Featuring Tim Burgess on vocals, Outernationale's take involves a thumping big beat, some neat melody changes and a comparatively more memorable hook than the original ever had. Issued on Soundcloud.
Everything Everything - Distant Past - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
I'm gonna keep my thunder underground, proclaims singer Jonathan Higgs, and who can blame him, especially when he's also got two thumbs across the rubicon and blood dripping down my sunken monkey-chin. Eee, it's a tough life being in EE. It's even tougher out here mate, pondering whether Distant Past is past its sell-by date or the work of sublime genius. All the usual trademarks are here - oblique meaningful lyrics liberally machine-gunned across a backdrop of fidgety rhythms and swooping harmonies, all of which makes it business as unusual. We need bonkers pop like this and Everything Everything remain something of an antidote to the dull fops and squealing divas plaguing the airwaves at present.
Kodaline - The One - ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
The kind of music that will delight fans of Keane, Snow Patrol or Coldplay's more easy-listening endeavours, The One has been hand-reared for playback during the next time England lose at the World Cup finals or someone walks out of some sucker's life on a TV drama. Maybe in Doctors, when the slightly unhinged younger doctor gets caught taking a crap on the practice manager's scanner and attempts to recreate a Kirlian-style image by sitting on its lid. Then gets fired. That moment when he looks back at the camera. Yeah, that moment. The One is the soundtrack to closure. Basically soft-rock with a glint in the eye.
Dosage - Adonis - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
An upcoming name in the bass-music scene, Londoner Dosage takes old-school 2-step garage sensibilities and converts the whole shebang into an infectious, minimalist hoedown that reminds these ears of Ramsey and Fen, MJ Cole or Dem 2 (their Destiny classic is surely the blueprint for the excellent Titan or Europa). Crisp rhythms, some sub-bass, wubs a-go-go and pretty melodies thoughout, Adonis is a cracking introduction to the autonomous Artifice label deserves props for bringing the bass. And then some.
The Beach - Thieves - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Is it me or is every bloody male singer possessed of a wavering pair of tonsils a la Sam Smith or Ed Sheeran at the moment? Thankfully this mysterious Londoner doesn't venture too far into bed-wetting territory with Thieves, but does have one hand stroking earnest songwriter's chin whilst positioning other hand firmly across brow in hard-bitten sad-face storyline drama. Thieves is by turns quiet and elegiac, loud and preposterous, echoey, eerie, atmospheric, harmonious, great, crap and a sure-fire hit. Eventually. It has everything a modern music could possibly wish for including epic strings, a faster-paced hoe-down bit (I half expect Emeli Sande to chirrup at this point) and then another quiet section during which fans bored with Tom Odell or Passenger will gleefully tell you that The Beach is/are the next big thing.
Bolstered by a Wrangler remix, this latest instalment of the LoneLady takeover is almost as limb-ticklingly good as previous single Groove It Out. Reactions to the Manchester performer's more minimal and groovy hip-funk have been justifiably positive and Bunkerpop doesn't disappoint. Maybe she's invented a new genre right here. Whatever, she's found her muse, her groove and her rhythm and looks set to be one to watch in 2015. Bunkerpop is a nipple-twister of a track.
Blur - Go Out - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Their first single for a few years sees them deliver a stoned out, atonal indie-jangle ramble through the backstreets of their 13 album or that hideous Music Is My Radar single. I like the harmonies in the chorus, I'm partial to the chopping and slashing of Coxon's cast-iron guitars, even a little bit taken by the bang-crash drums. However, when all these elements are gradually welded together by Albarn's world-weary vocalising, Go Out sounds like an almighty mess - an almighty mess that admittedly improves with every play but is way short of previous triumphs.
Is Tropical - On My Way - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
My my my, how they've grown up for their next assault on our eardrums. Well, not so much an assault as a caress - Is Tropical have discovered the perfect balance of emotive trilling and funereal electronic beats, coupled with an eerie echoey choral backdrop and a mind-mangling climax. The first of five intertwined 10" singles, eventually making up the band's next album, On My Way is glorious. It's flipside Crawl is also niftier, shiftier but nowhere near as elegant or elegiac.
Edyth - Bare I - ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Five tracks, all bearing the hallmarks of 21st-century glitch, cut and paste electronica yet somehow as challenging and beautiful as Burial, Autechre, Boards Of Canada or Lone. French imprint Fake Music has been handed the enviable mission of bestowing Edyth's superb EP upon us and by the powers of streaming, it's happened. A double 12" would be better but I guess we'll have to wait for that. Meanwhile, immerse your ears in the hypnotic bass-rumble of Herbal Blend or the glistening sub-stepping Crystxls and then tell me the world isn't going to be alright.
Vessels - Echo In - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Mesmerising return from Leeds' oft-overlooked uncategorized electronic outfit which pre-empts their fourth album, due out next week. Taking its cue from slo-mo dubstep, Echo In sees the trio hotfooting it towards a nightclub where they mix Pink Floyd, Burial and Plaid together and come up with the likes of this. Merely the tip of the album's iceberg, Echo In is nonetheless engaging and promising as well as being decidedly more dance-orientated than usual.
Freebass - You Don't Know This About Me (Outernationale Remix) - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Roughly five years ago, three (in)famous bassists (Mani, Peter Hook and Andy Rourke) formed the short-lived Freebass. So short-lived in fact that within the time it takes to boil the kettle, they'd split up again just prior to their one-and-only album got its release. It was a bit of a stinker in places and needed a decent producer to steer the trio in the right direction. Somewhat late Outernationale, aka producer Derek Miller, has knocked out a vast improvement on a track that appeared on the band's Two World's Collide EP. Featuring Tim Burgess on vocals, Outernationale's take involves a thumping big beat, some neat melody changes and a comparatively more memorable hook than the original ever had. Issued on Soundcloud.
Everything Everything - Distant Past - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
I'm gonna keep my thunder underground, proclaims singer Jonathan Higgs, and who can blame him, especially when he's also got two thumbs across the rubicon and blood dripping down my sunken monkey-chin. Eee, it's a tough life being in EE. It's even tougher out here mate, pondering whether Distant Past is past its sell-by date or the work of sublime genius. All the usual trademarks are here - oblique meaningful lyrics liberally machine-gunned across a backdrop of fidgety rhythms and swooping harmonies, all of which makes it business as unusual. We need bonkers pop like this and Everything Everything remain something of an antidote to the dull fops and squealing divas plaguing the airwaves at present.
Kodaline - The One - ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
The kind of music that will delight fans of Keane, Snow Patrol or Coldplay's more easy-listening endeavours, The One has been hand-reared for playback during the next time England lose at the World Cup finals or someone walks out of some sucker's life on a TV drama. Maybe in Doctors, when the slightly unhinged younger doctor gets caught taking a crap on the practice manager's scanner and attempts to recreate a Kirlian-style image by sitting on its lid. Then gets fired. That moment when he looks back at the camera. Yeah, that moment. The One is the soundtrack to closure. Basically soft-rock with a glint in the eye.
Dosage - Adonis - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
An upcoming name in the bass-music scene, Londoner Dosage takes old-school 2-step garage sensibilities and converts the whole shebang into an infectious, minimalist hoedown that reminds these ears of Ramsey and Fen, MJ Cole or Dem 2 (their Destiny classic is surely the blueprint for the excellent Titan or Europa). Crisp rhythms, some sub-bass, wubs a-go-go and pretty melodies thoughout, Adonis is a cracking introduction to the autonomous Artifice label deserves props for bringing the bass. And then some.
The Beach - Thieves - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Is it me or is every bloody male singer possessed of a wavering pair of tonsils a la Sam Smith or Ed Sheeran at the moment? Thankfully this mysterious Londoner doesn't venture too far into bed-wetting territory with Thieves, but does have one hand stroking earnest songwriter's chin whilst positioning other hand firmly across brow in hard-bitten sad-face storyline drama. Thieves is by turns quiet and elegiac, loud and preposterous, echoey, eerie, atmospheric, harmonious, great, crap and a sure-fire hit. Eventually. It has everything a modern music could possibly wish for including epic strings, a faster-paced hoe-down bit (I half expect Emeli Sande to chirrup at this point) and then another quiet section during which fans bored with Tom Odell or Passenger will gleefully tell you that The Beach is/are the next big thing.