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…
Even though the Easter holidays are well and truly behind us, perhaps we should spare one last thought for the King Of Kings who supposedly died for our sins and then rose from the dead…No? Yes? Well dark-hued electronica duo Diamond Version, aided by the high-priest of dance pop, Neil Tennant, have spared you the trouble with their brilliant deconstructed-techno take on the old gospel hymn, Were You There?, which asks “Were you there when they crucified our Lord”? Where you?
While Canadian oddball Stephen McBean commits to words and music his (acid) flashbacks of 1987 and The Second Summer Of Love through this garage-punk stomper of the same name, you probably need to rewind a further decade or so to fully appreciate the origins of this new tune. Pink Mountaintops’ newly premiered track, a prelude to the release of their forthcoming album, Get Back (out 28 April) reverberates with echoes of The Clash’s holler-and-swagger righteousness.
Recently signed to ATP and with a debut album in the pipeline, London electronica trio Eaux sound like Fuck Buttons on a comedown: all glacially moving synths and snowdrift vocals. Despite their studio being in close proximity to the old Throbbing Gristle house in Hackney, the trio share very little in common with the pioneers of industrial ritualism, aside from their penchant for eerie-cave drones, which abound on forthcoming single Head.
Multinational prog-pop outfit Hejira return in the wake of their critically acclaimed debut Prayer Before Birth with a quietly intense double A-side release in the shape of Echoes and Dancing Around Control. The latter continues where their debut left off, with its darkly sumptuous production values, creeping hooks and almost-airless chamber intimacy.
Beat-making magpies Faze Action, the brainchild of brothers Simon and Robin Lee, have unleashed a taster of their eagerly awaited LP Body Of One, (out April 28). Rock and disco collide on the darkly funky Prisoner Of Your Love, which similarly to the Pink Mountaintops track above sounds a lot like The Clash – but more like when Joe Strummer and co were busying themselves pissing off punks with their dancier leanings.
