Promiscuity And Tired Has Beens - It's Singled Out!!!

Perhaps the biggest surprise about Brighton’s Cagedbaby (aka Tom Gandey) is that he looks more like a throwback from Grandaddy or Soundtrack Of Our Lives than the neon-eyelinered pop star you’d expect. For with ’16 Lovers’ he gives us an irresistible slab of funky-as-**** electro-pop that harks back to the eighties glories of The Human League, Prince and the likes. Half dance act/half New Romantic then, despite borrowing a lot, the man melds it all together perfectly. Sprinkle on top some hilarious cross-gendered lyrics “I know you love it when I’m dressed in drag”, and you’re on to a guaranteed winner.

Following the well-received mini-album ‘AOK’ late last year, Southampton trio Fleeing New York are back in spectacular form with this stunning double a-side single. A perfect marriage of boy-girl vocals throughout (image Stephen Malkmus dueting with Kim Deal), opener ‘Up Up Up Up’ may have unavoidable nods towards The Pixies and even The Kills, but Christ comparisons don’t get much better than that! Buoyed by a yelping, stuttery chorus and soaring hooks at the finale it’s all effortlessly brilliant stuff. True ‘At Night’ may fail to reach the same dizzy peaks, but the simple, driving chords and infectious vocals still make for a top tune. Proof then that Fleeing New York are hopefully on the up.

Unashamedly bubbly, poppy and pretty irksome, oh yes we’re on familiar territory with Kaiser Chiefs’ third single proper ‘Everyday I Love You Less and Less’. An amusing anti-love song of disaffection for the other half delivered with sardonic wit by that ginger clown Ricky Wilson, true it’s sure-fire top ten bound but surely the big worry now for the Chiefs is they’ve exhausted their album of decent singles. Not quite the infectious tour-de-force that is ‘Oh My God’ and lacking the comical Leeds dialect a la ‘I Predict a Riot’, ‘Everyday…’ is undeniably a slight step backwards for the lads. Sorry, and excuse the pun Kaisers, everyday we like you less and less.

‘Goodnight Goodnight’ is another burst of feel good musings from those affable Canadians Hot Hot Heat. Confirming the band have hardly cracked into new boundaries with their latest LP ‘Elevator’, as a piece of catchy guitar-driven pop, within two minutes the single does exactly what it says on the tin – and hey it does it with plenty of aplomb. If we switched to pedantic mode we could say the tracks lacks substance and the squeaky cleanliness of it all wavers on the wrong side of irritating… true this may grind you down over the whole album, but as a single it works well. 

Shit! Turin Brakes have gone techno – rhythmic, pulsating beats and soaring electronic bleeps give way to sneering vocals… well only joking, but what did you expect? In keeping with the ongoing theme this week of bands sticking to the same, tired, but commercially lucrative formula, with ‘Fishing For A Dream’ TBs give us another folk-tinged warbler, with plush acoustic guitars and an archetypal wavering falsetto. Really it could have been directly lifted from either of their first two albums. So yes it’s nice and pleasant, in fact the kind of stuff you’d happily hum along to while shopping for garden furniture at you local department store, but really as a record it’s a bit of a yawn-fest.

‘When I Come Back Around’ is insane, hyper-eclectic fodder from Warp’s finest Jamie Lidell. Spliced digital beats, weird synth noises and Lidell’s funkadelic, and ever-so-slightly erratic vocals make this one head **** of a tune – which, hey, is never a bad thing. Importantly, despite being incredibly offbeat there’s a hell of a lot of soul in Jamie’s voice that cements the track coherently together, well slightly. Really, he renders middle England’s very own favourite, Jamie Cullum, seem like a prepubescent choir boy. Mad, unhinged and free and all the better for it, imagine The Neptunes on acid and you’ll have the idea.

For anyone desperate to earn a quick dollar, here’s a fools guide to making a cast-iron chart hit: simply sample an immediately recognizable vocal loop, then splice it with buoyant and zany dance beats, and Bob’s your uncle you’re laughing your way to the bank. It’s what those break-beat pioneers the Audio Bullys have done with ‘Shot You Down’, sampling that eerie Nancy Sinatra tune from Kill Bill. Perhaps what distances this from the countless other sample-based tracks is that this revolves around two killer tracks that are ace in their own right. Still, it’ll probably all wear a bit thin after a week.   

Like ‘Krafty’ before it ‘Jetstream’ sees New Order utilising their strong points yet again. As usual it’s unfeasibly summery and happy with a bouncy electronic vibe- yet despite its unwavering derivativeness it’s absolutely impossible to knock this sumptuous tune. Better still with superstar DJ and producer Stuart Price (aka Jaques Lu Cont… aka The Thin White Duke) at the helm and Scissor Sisters’ Ana Matronic sharing vocal duties there’s a certain slickness and depth to the track. We’ll look forward to the next cloned New Order instalment with moist anticipation.

Never trust a band named after their frontman, there’s bound to be underlying egotistic issues somewhere. Signed to the usually cutting-edge Fierce Panda, with its ivory tinkling, swooning atmospherics and whiney vocals Gledhill’s (after frontman David Gledhill) vacuous ditty ‘Resurrect Me’ sadly draws parallels to Keane, Embrace and the likes. As usual with this kind of thing it’s innocuous enough, but there’s nothing distinctive about it to distance it from the crowds of bands in the criminally over-crowded indie-rock scene. For anyone who need to dig their teeth into something more substantial to get their kicks, don’t touch this with a barge pole.

A double A-sided single of two very different halves, Temposhark’s opening track ‘Invisible Ink’ is a stunning understated opus that outshines ‘Little White Lie’ infinitely. On the opener, sparse, soft utterances are merged crunching electronica before a ghostly chorus reverberates radiantly from the speakers. Slow, with a burning intensity and centred on the poignant line “Don’t leave the world without making them think”, give this song long enough and it will gently work its way into your psyche and stay there. Harder and stompier ‘Little What Lie’ is a decent track in its own right, but compared to the stunning opener it’s left in the shade.   

With ‘Heartstopper’, the second single from her ‘Fisherman’s Woman’ album, stunning 27-year-old Icelandic nymph Emiliana Torrini gives us another beguiling, if a tad unexciting, number. As always her lush, Bjork-esque utterances perfectly compliment the delicate, unhurried instrumentals in an inextricably easy listening song. On the flip side fellow country dwellers Mum give it an ambient electronica re-working that would sit snugly on a Balearic chill-out album. So it’s all probably best listened to to sooth a mashed head after a night of debauchery and excess, then.

Turkey Of The Week: Steadily, record by record Oasis are becoming more like a parody of themselves - to coin a phrase almost their own tribute band, and ‘Lyla’ is no exception. The song that Noel vehemently claims he didn’t want to release, really it’s not good enough to make a B-side never mind the debut album track. For those of you who’ve been on Mars for the last month, what we get is a fairly catchy, highly repetitive chorus with Liam’s fast-deteriorating voice holding up reasonably well, oh and then there’s an obligatory Noel guitar solo. True it’s not too bad, but it’s far from great. But hell, what does it matter what we say, they’ve still sold-out boundless stadiums and are sure to sell millions of records to fans desperately trying to cling onto their former glories. Damn those mono-browed brothers!