Chvrches go postal, and five other songs you may have missed

Right then - it's been a hectic week. We put together more than a dozen BBC reports from the Venice Biennale in just 48 hours. You can see the main report here if you like a bit of contemporary art over your luncheon.

In the meantime, tons of great new music ended up on the internet. Here's the best of it.

1) CHVRCHES - Gun
This is utterly, utterly brilliant. The Glaswegian synth trio faltered a little with their last single, Recover, but Gun is as explosive as the title suggests. It starts innocently enough, with a shimmering little riff, but within 30 seconds the band have taken the safety off and unleashed a hail of choruses (I counted three).

"Hide, hide..." threatens Lauren over a rat-a-tat rhythm. "I will be a gun - and it's you I'll come for".

It's a blast. It should go to number one with a bullet. You can't muzzle this band. [that's quite enough of that - tortured metaphor ed]





2) Jagwar Ma - Man I Need
As Popjustice has noted, 2013 is the year of the longsong takeover, which was set in motion by Justin Timberlake's Mirrors. Jagwar Ma upped the ante with their last single, The Throw - a seven-minute Screamadelic house epic that won them celebrity fans like Noel Gallagher and The xx.

This follow-up goes even further, nudging 10 minutes on the album version - a psychotropic sound rush only a few seagulls short of The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows. The video edit is more manageable if you're in a hurry.





3) Katy B - What Love Is Made Of
I have no idea why this upbeat, sexy club track requires a downbeat, sexless video that rips off The Fast And The Furious, but that's what it's got. Weird.




4) Money - Bluebell Fields
Read the reviews of this debut single from Manchester quartet Money and one word keeps cropping up: "Lovely". To put it another way, critics love them but they're hard to pin down. You know when you break an egg into a bowl to make an omlette and a tiny bit of shell falls in, and every time you try to fish it out, the bugger gets pulled back in by a gloopy string of albumen? That's what describing this band is like. Look at the knots This Is Fake DIY ties itself into in their write-up. It's probably best just to let the music speak for itself.




5) Diana Vickers - Cinderella
I have a lot of time for Diana Vickers, a pop singer who's not content to settle for formulaic production-line nonsense. Remember the totally deranged whooping on My Wicked Heart?

Her new single isn't quite so brave (Vicko's playing it safe as she relaunches her career on a new label) and the Cinderella metaphor is particularly awful: "For you, I would lose both of my shoes". But it's a solid effort with a catchy chorus and Diana looks lovely in the video, so who's complaining?




6) Miguel - Adorn (live on Jools)
Sadly, Miguel doesn't try to kick any of the audience in the face during this BBC Two performance. Nice coat, though.

That's it for this week... See you on Monday.

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