New Music Friday: Timberlake, Dua Lipa and the rest...

THERE'S SOME NEW MUSIC. AND IT'S FRIDAY. IT MUST BE NEW MUSIC FRIDAY.

Here are a few brand new "jams" to spread on your musical toast.

1) Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop The Feeling
Perfectly acceptable stop-gap between "proper" albums. Not his finest work.

Also, anyone who's ever sat awkwardly in a room while an artist cues up their new material will know how unrealistic the video is.




2) Dua Lipa - Hotter Than Hell
This is a song about "a really horrible relationship - one that went off the rails," Dua told me earlier this year. Don't worry, though, this isn't a gruelling trudge through her emotional wreckage. No, it's a total banger.

Note the "unusual choice for the YouTube "hero image".




3) Jake Bugg - Love, Hope and Misery
This is really good. Like a Paolo Nutini ballad, only more nasal.




4) James Blake - Radio Silence
After appearing on Beyonce's Lemonade, James Blake has Beyonced his own album, and this is my favourite track (initially, at least).

Meanwhile, there's a big interview with James over on The Guardian today, which features one of the most name-dropping paragraphs in pop history.

It reads: "Madonna called his music 'the kind of thing that makes me jealous', and told him so over the phone while he was in the studio with Kanye West, who has publicly called him 'Kanye’s favourite artist'. Joni Mitchell, one of his heroes, gave him career advice after a show. He has been covered by Lorde and sampled by Drake. Listen to artists including Jack Garratt, Låpsley and FKA twigs, or the melancholy, nocturnal end of hip-hop, and you hear echoes of Blake everywhere."

James's response to all of this? "That's nice."




5) Gallant - Bourbon
"I love in cold blood," is a fantastic lyric. The whole song is fantastic, to be honest.




6) Ariana Grande - Into You
Ariana's new album is shaping up to be very good indeed.




7) Charli XCX - Explode
This is taken from the Angry Birds movie, but don't hold that against it. Charli's best work often comes on movie soundtracks - Boom Clap, Kingdom, etc, etc.




8) Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dark Necessities
This has a really dramatic slow building intro, then Flea jumps in with a trademark slap-thonk bassline and it's business as usual.

Anthony Kiedis' most ridiculous lyric this time round: "You're like ice cream for an astronaut".




9) Skepta - Man
"Upset because your wife is a fan / She done with the little boy / Now she wants to be with a man."

Skepta is on show-stopping form right across his new album, Konnichiwa. Not for the faint-hearted.

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A few good remixes

Apropos of nothing, here's a quintet of songs from the world of popular music in brand new remix fashion.

They may prove useful for your next work out / soul-crushing commute.

1) Britney Spears - Work Bitch (Monsieur Adi Remix)
Falling just on the right side of ludicrous, this reimagines Work Bitch as the score to a Michael Bay film. Must have cost a fortune.




2) Haim - Forever (Patrick Hagenaar Remix)
One of Haim's best singles, Forever is getting a re-release to give their album a Christmas push. That means a new set of emixes, of which this is the most suitable for a "crazy party" montage in Hollyoaks.




3) Destiny's Chils - Bills Bills Bills (James Blake / Harmonix mix)
This isn't so much a remix as an act of vandalism - but "the internet" seems to like it, so what do I know?




4) Kanye West - Bound 2 (Solidisco Remix)
With shades of Daft Punk, New York's Solidisco turn Bound 2 into a sparkling house track. Bravely, they completely erase Kanye from the mix, leaving only Charlie Wilson's amazing hook and the "uh-huh honey" sample from Brenda Lee's country classic Sweet Nothings.




5) Chvrches - Lies (Tourist Remix)
This is fascinating, if only to hear what Chvrches sound like when you lock up their synthesizers. The answer? Still magnificent.

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People win prizes, pt 293

Last night, James Blake won the Mercury Prize for best album of the year; and Chvrches won the Popjustice Prize for best single of the year. Understandably, they were both quite pleased.

.@Popjustice Woooo!! Thanks to everyone who voted/argued!!! A new career high point. #HappyChvrches #TwentyQuid pic.twitter.com/VUv9DEuXJu

— CHVRCHES (@CHVRCHES) October 30, 2013

But a lot of people who aren't James Blake and Chvrches are annoyed. They wanted other artists to win instead. Artists like the Arctic Monkeys or Disclosure or The Saturdays (!) but mainly David "Zavid" Bowie. Somehow, though, I doubt David is weeping into his chamomile tea this morning (he's too busy playing with his life-sized David Bowie puppets and making prank calls to Iggy Pop).

Personally, I reckon both sets of judges got it right.

What we have here are two odd-but-brilliant records that could only have been made in the UK. Both artists needed a helping hand to reach a wider audience and, crucially, they're both as good on stage as they are on record (one YouTube commentator argues that Blake's live vocals are "a mixture between a unicorn and Jesus").

If you read this blog regularly, you've probably heard them before. But just in case you clicked the wrong link on Google this morning, here's what you've been missing.

James Blake - Retrograde (live)


Chvrches - The Mother We Share (live)

BONUS: Putting this post together, I stumbled across another live performance of The Mother We Share, which completely tears the song apart and rebuilds it from the ground up. It's utterly beautiful.

Chvrches - The Mother We Share (Billboard session)

Pop music is amazing, isn't it?

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Katy Perry's entire Prism album, and six other songs you may have missed

It's Friday, so it must be time for the customary round-up of new songs from the last seven days. This week's line-up looks like this:

1) Katy Perry - Prism
Officially out on Monday, Katy Perry's uploaded her third album to SoundCloud in its entirety, in a bid to combat the people who leaked it yesterday.

The release also coincides with the first swathe of reviews. They're mostly positive - but The Guardian, with depressing predictability, has written a sneering critique of the album's lyrics.

Alexis Petridis's article is based on the flimsy premise that, when Billboard called Prism "Katy Perry's most spiritual album to date", it was somehow suggesting she had consulted Deepak Chopra and M Scott Peck to create the most insightful and revelatory excavation of the human psyche ever to appear in popular song.

Thankfully, the co-writers are mostly Swedish (to paraphrase Petridis, the liner notes read like an IKEA catalogue) and the lyrics are, for the most part, totally unimportant. And, although nothing quite strikes you like Roar, it's a thundering collection of melodic pop.

Recommended tracks: Legendary Lovers, Walking On Air, Unconditionally.





3) Little Mix - Move (Alias Remix)
Good song. Good remix. Job done.





3) Eminem - Rap God
So this is what it sounds like to be reinvigorated. Eminem, on a six-minute lyrical rampage, proclaims "I'm beginning to feel like a Rap God," and actually sounds more deserving of the title than Kanye "Yeezus" West.

Lyrical gems include: "Got a fat knot from that rap profit / Made a living and a killing off it / Ever since Bill Clinton was still in office / With Monica Lewinsky feeling on his nut-sack / I’m an MC still as honest / But as rude and as indecent as all hell".

Phew.





4) James Blake ft Chance The Rapper - Life Round Here
From the video's YouTube description: "The video, shot entirely in black and white, tracks Blake and Chance as they cruise in a lowrider through an eerie forest inhabited by stallions and Somalian pirates." How can you resist?




5) Rebecca Ferguson - I Hope
"Interesting fact": The most-read article I wrote on the BBC News Website last year was this interview with Rebecca Ferguson. It wasn't spectacularly insightful, or even well-written. The public just have a huge reserve of affection for the Liverpudlian singer.

They're going to lap up her new single, I Hope, which arrives after an ugly and protracted spat with her former managers. Launching with a rollicking drum roll, you kind of hope it'll see Rebecca spitting with fury, like Rolling In The Deep vintage Adele.

She doesn't, of course, but the song is an urgent and uplifting and an instant classic.




6) Lady Gaga ft R Kelly - Do What U Want
This is only a 30-second clip but it restores my faith in Gaga's ability to write a straightforward pop song. The best ArtPop preview to date, not that that's saying much.




7) Bruno Mars - Gorilla
The Indian press is up in arms about this video, in which Slumdog Millionaire actress Freida Pinto stars as a stripper (SPOILER: Bruno Mars is seen "cavorting" with her at the end).

Pinto's representatives even issued a statement in her defence to the Hindustan Times, which protests: "Freida’s look in Gorilla is quite a departure from what we otherwise see. Apparently, when she was approached with this opportunity, she knew that this would be a reincarnation of sorts for her and she was quite thrilled to do it, being the risk taker that she is".

It's no Blurred Lines - there's a storyline to explain the raunchy bits - but I still wouldn't watch it at work, unless your boss is particularly easy-going.

And that's your lot. Have a great weekend.

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Here is that James Blake video in full

In which James Blake falls from space in an egg and rides a motorbike to a spooky cabin in the woods.

It's no Mork and Mindy, but the song's lovely.

James Blake - Retrograde

Retrograde is available now on iTunes.

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James Blake is back! And five other songs you may have missed

Hello and welcome to a semi-regular round-up of the music I listened to, made note of, then ran out of time to write about over the last seven days. This week's all-star line-up includes...


1) James Blake - Retrograde
Strap on your dancing boots, because James Blake is BACK with a colossal, David Guetta-produced, arms aloft, handclaps ahoy, tequila-slamming, Ibiza sunrise, dance pop barnstormer.

Oh, alright then. It's a delicate and introspective electro whisper, which sets its tempo by the rise and fall of the tide. But it's so beautiful, we can forgive him anything. The song's called Retrograde, and the video premieres on YouTube this Sunday. Until then, here's Mr Blake introducing the track on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show last night.




2) Hurts - This Song Is Currently Unavailable In Your Territory
It's hard not to laugh at Hurts' comeback single, which is so studiously po-faced it might as well be a Jake Bugg promo photo. Still, the song's really grown on me since it debuted a couple of weeks ago. If you think of it as a good Depeche Mode album track around the Songs Of Faith And Devotion era, it's actually quite enjoyable.

The band uploaded the video to their YouTube account earlier this week, then inexplicably removed it 12 hours later. It's probably a statement about the transience of modern culture or something. But you can recreate the video by closing your eyes, listening to the song via this link, and imagining what it's like working the nightshift at Asda.

3) Josephine - Portrait
I went to see Jospehine play in London on Wednesday when everyone else was at Kraftwerk. I think I got the better deal. Possessed of a deep, gorgeous soul voice that's equal parts Dusty Springfield, Fela Kuti and Tracy Chapman, it's impossible to spot she's from Manchester... Until she talks to the audience, which she does at length, with the same brand of inclusive wit as fellow Mancunian Guy Garvey.

Her new single, Portrait, is currently on Radio 2's playlist, but she's been too busy touring with Paloma Faith to make a video. Instead, here's a Jools Holland performance from last year.



4) Blank Maps - Everything Ends
Blank Maps are a Newcastle band with aspirations to make your lip wobble in a Coldplay style. To be honest, they're not my cup of tea (it turns out cups of tea are my cup of tea) but I'm posting the video because it's the directorial debut of m'verygoodfriend and photographical genius Ms Briggsy. The silhouetted B&W section is one of the best set-ups I've seen in a music video this year.




5) Rhye - Open
Rhye are Canadian / Danish duo who've been described "Sade produced by The xx". This is the opening track to their debut album, Woman, which is out next month. A spacious, thoughtful ballad, it's punctuated by a muted brass phrase that could have been lifted straight from Dionne Warwick's Walk On By. Simply beautiful.




6) The Lumineers - Stubborn Love
It occurred to me last night that I don't know a single person with a Mumford And Sons record. Who buys this stuff? Is everyone secretly hiding their love of banjos? And is it going to lead to a terrifying 2014 revival for The Levellers?

Whatever the answer, The Lumineers have been riding Mumfords' slipstream straight into the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. It's hard to begrudge them the success with songs as perfectly crafted as Stubborn Love. Fair warning, though: The video's a bit of a weepie.

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James Blake covers Joni Mitchell

For all the hype and expectation, James Blake's eponymous album didn't exactly fly off the shelves this year. In fact, it doesn't even figure in the Official Chart Company's Top 20 best-selling debuts of the year, where James was beaten by the likes of X Factor reject Mary Byrne and popular "Last Dance" hitmaker Clare Maguire.

My guess is that the James Blake sound (bleepy bloopy mumble glitch stutter bleep long pause hold-a-piano-chord-for-two minutes vocoder bloop mumble whisper) was never destined to spread beyond a very select audience. Certainly, the album suffered from incredibly bad word-of-mouth reviews from people who'd been beguiled by his angelic, but atypically straightforward, cover of Feist's Limit To Your Love. Conversely, everyone who took a punt on his live show fell deeply, irreversibly in love.

Now, the album has been - bravely - reissued in a deluxe two-disc edition and, presumably in an attempt to lure back some of those disillusioned fans, Blake has recorded another cover. This time it's Joni Mitchell's A Case Of You, one of the finest, weepiest love songs ever written.

He's actually been playing the song live for some time and the studio version seems to date back to last year, as it's sampled on several of his album tracks.

For the song's first official release, Blake has put together a video starring Rebecca Hall, of "looking incredibly hot in Vicky Cristina Barcelona" fame. And here it is...

James Blake - A Case Of You


Here's the original, from 1971's incredible Blue album, for comparison.

Joni Mitchell - A Case Of You

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This man has an above-average voice

What you're looking at is a picture of Sir James of Blakenstock, sitting behind his keyboard, getting ready to play a session in the BBC 6 Music kitchen. Tidy, isn't it?

About two seconds after this photo was taken, James politely reminded us that, since all of his music is electronic, we wouldn't hear anything if we remained standing around next to him. So we went to an adjacent room, where we could hear the output of the mixing desk, and peered at him through a plexiglass door.

I don't know about you, but I've never seen anything quite so captivating through a sheet of plexiglass in my life. And I've stood at a bus stop with Moira Stewart, so I'm pretty jaded when it comes to plexiglass-celebrity interfaces.

Why? Because the most amazing sound comes out of this boy's mouth. Pure, soulful, tender. A rare, rare thing of delicate beauty. No wonder his music is so sparse - there is literally no need to embellish the vocals. If you haven't seen him play live, I beseech you to do so as soon as possible.

The 6 Music session is available on the station's website for the next 6 days. Alternatively, you can use the player below to listen to James's performance from last night's Zane Lowe programme. The subtlety is ruined somewhat by the crazy-ass compression Radio 1 run over their entire output, but you'll get the general idea.

James Blake Maida Vale session

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James Blake is out of focus

When this film came back from the developers, he must have been furious.

James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream

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Anticipation builds for James and James

They may not be able to afford a decent photographer, but these two men are being tipped for big things in 2011.

On the left we have Mr James Blake. I've written about him a couple of times (here and here) and yesterday, his forthcoming, self-titled debut album leaked online. Polydor instantly issued a "we will hunt you down and beat you with a cricket ball in a sock" warning to everyone who'd received a watermarked copy of the record. And also to some people who hadn't, just in case.

Still, leaks are a sure sign of feverish anticipation - and not without reason, because James Blake is officially "a good thing". His roots are in dubstep, but he has much broader horizons. Incorporating soulful vocals, twisted samples, and bowel-tickling bass, his songs are at once abstract and full of emotion.

I haven't downloaded the leaked record because I am an honest person (and also because my PC has gone nuts). But here's a video of him performing album track The Wilhelm Scream at the Royal Northern College of Music last week. It's sublime.

James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream

The man on the right is another dubstep-but-not-dubstep artist called James... He is 27-year-old Jamie Woon, a Brit-school graduate whose mum used to sing backing vocals for Stock Aitken and Waterman.

His oeuvre is dusky, sepia-toned electronica, and his current single is the gorgeously sedative Night Air.

Jamie Woon - Night Air

Isn't it nice to see the return of intelligent, emotional dance music?

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New music: James Blake - Limit To Your Love

With the likes of Katy B and Magnetic Man hitting the top 10, Dubstep seems to have come of age. Which means your woofers are going to get the work-out of their lives over the next 12 months (fnar, etc).

The next act on the poise of breaking through is 21-year-old Londoner James Blake. A gifted piano player, raised on gospel and soul, he veers towards the melodic side of Dubstep - using the genre's convulsive basslines as an unsettling counterpoint to his rich, sonorous vocals.

I first mentioned him back in June when he released an ambient dance track based around a sample from Kelis' Caught Out There. Now he's revealed his first "proper" single, a disquieting, stripped-back version of Feist's Limit To Your Love.

It comes with a video by Martin De Thurah (Will Young's Changes, The Editors' Bullets), who is more than a little influenced by the films of Steven Spielberg. Thankfully, this means Close Encounters and Jurassic Park, rather than Hook.

Warning: The crumbling bass on the following video may cause headphone-wearers to involuntarily evacuate their bowels.


James Blake - Limit To Your Love

The single comes out on Atlas Records in November.

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New music of a bleepy sampledelic variety

James Blake has been called "one of the most talented and imaginative members of dubstep's second wave", but don't let that put you off. His new single, CMYK, is a laid-back groove with vocal samples from Kelis and a hypnotic, swirling keyboard riff (unless the bleepy noises remind you of the machine that goes ping in a hospital emergency room, in which case it might induce palpitations).

James Blake - CMYK

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