Sorting through the week’s new singles and songs that have surfaced online over the last seven days, Jamie Skey (@jamie_skey) presents five songs you need to hear this week…
Devin Townsend is one of metal’s most prolific mad scientists. Hevy Dev, as he’s known in the trade, fired out four albums alone this year (if you count the bonus disc of his country-rock project Casualties Of Cool’s self-titled LP), including Z2, the nominal sequel to 2007’s barmy and ballistic Ziltoid The Ominiscent, from whence the the operatic and black-hole-probing blitz of March Of The Poozers came. If you like your metal freighted with bizarre, cartoonish tangents, strap in and prepare to orbit Townsend’s exhilaratingly insane universe.
UK riff monsters Hawk Eyes are readying themselves for the release of their second LP, Everything Is Fine, whose title is somewhat of a misnomer judging by the bleakly relentless pummel of Die Trying.
Electronic composer Dan Deacon used to helm barmy jaunts into computerised experimentation but now conjures organic synth music that almost makes him kissing cousins with MGMT, as evidenced by the euphoric melodicism of Feel The Lightning.
American-French singer Allyson Ezell, like Bjork and St Vincent before her, takes the concept of pop and dashes it on the rocks, letting the remaining fragments drift out to her beguiling sea of cool melodies, churning synths and sparse beats, like on Ladmine, taken from her new album Beat This Drum.
Finnish purveyors of dark electronica Phantom have won themselves fans in fellow beat-making big shots like The xx and Bonobo by virtue of their crepuscular, jazz-tinged trip-hop, of which Shadows is a fine, disarming example.
