FYI: The Mura Masa album is dead good

Mura Masa releases his self-titled debut album today and, as the headline above suggests, it's got more smashes than a bottle bank.

If you're not familiar with his ouevre, here's a potted biog: Mura Masa is 21-year-old Alex Crossan. He comes from Guernesy, and named himself after 16th-century Japanese swordsmith Muramasa Sengo. Being raised on a "small, isolated haven" halfway between Britain and France meant he wasn't swayed by prevailing music trends, and so he delved into the weird and wonderful delights of world music, which means his own productions are peppered with non-Western sounds like Trinidadian steel drums, African kalimbas and Indonesian gamelan gongs. It's trop-house with a genuine understanding of its roots.

More importantly, he makes dance music that's infused with genuine emotion, via collaborations with fellow outsiders Damon Albarn and Charli XCX.

Here's a sample of what you can expect.

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Kelis returns - and the rest of #NewMusicFriday: 17 March 2017

Here we go again...

1) TCTS - Do It Like Me (ft Kelis & Sage The Gemini)
This is an absolute monster. Kelis, as usual, turns everything she touches to gold.




2) Clean Bandit ft Zara Larsson - Symphony
Speaking of Kelis, this lifts the lyrical conceit of her 2010 song ("before you, my whole life was acapella, now a symphony's the only thing to sing") and runs with it. Being Clean Bandit, there are plenty of symphonic strings to hammer the metaphor home.

Not destined to dominate the charts like Rockabye, but a barnstorming pop song nonetheless.




3) Feist - Pleasure
"I was raw and so were the takes," says Feist of her new album, Pleasure. "Our desire was to record that state without guile or go-to's and to pin the songs down with conviction and our straight up human bodies."

It cetainly comes across in this single - which is simultaneously scratchy, lo-fi and utterly thrilling. Like all the best songs, it starts as a lullaby and ends like a riot.




4) Tinashe - Flame
Things haven't really taken off for Kentucky's Tinashe Jorgenson Kachingwe so far - but this song deserves an audience. "Tell me that you've still got a flame for me and we can let it burn," she trills over a discarded Carly Rae Jepsen beat. Recommended.




5) Kasabian - You're In Love With A Psycho
This made me do a big, affectionate chuckle on the tube this morning. The lyrics are deliberately preposterous ("I'm like the taste of macaroni on a seafood stick"???) but it's nice to have Kasabian back.




6) Pond - The Weather
If Kasabian have you in the mood for a bit of psych-rock, this dreamy, kaleidoscopic track from Perth's Pond fits the bill nicely. It will not surprise you to learn it was produced by Tame Impala's Kevin Parker.




7) Mura Masa ft Charli XCX - 1 Night
Neither artist's greatest moment, but a perfectly serviceable indie-pop jam for Side B of your latest mixtape.




8) Fenne Lily - What's Good?
Self-taught songstress Fenne Lily impresses on this achingly beautiful ballad: "Tell me why good things die," she pleads, her vocals quivering over a lonely, plucked guitar. "Stay the night - because I need this more than I knew. More than I'd like to". Heartbreaking.





9) Machine Gun Kelly feat G-Eazy and Kehlani - Good Life
As mindless and insubstantial as the film it soundtracks (Fate of the Furious), this will undoubtedly be a huge hit.




10) Linkin Park - Battle Symphony
I'm still mystified by Linkin Park's attempt to become OneRepublic. I mean, they do it well - but to what end?

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Mura Masa's new single is a glorious gallimaufry of musical invention

There's such a surfeit of gleeful invention in Mura Masa's new single that it's hard not to smile.

Premiered as Annie Mac's Hottest Record last night, What If I Go, it wrong-foots you at every turn. It starts off with an old-skool analogue drum loop, which segues into a steel-drum loop and Bonzai's soulful, fluttering vocals. Four footstomps count in the chorus, á la The Supremes Baby Love, then everything goes slightly wonky. It's smashing and, what's more, it holds together as a coherent song.

Discussing the track on Radio 1, Mura Masa (aka Alex Crossan) said the song was originally written on a train a year ago, then polished off at home after he and Bonzai came back from a skiing holiday (lucky for some, etc, etc). He called it "the next development" in his sound, adding: "It's not necessarily about trying to make pop music, but I do want to bring more of an accessibility to weird electronica."

The musician said work was continuing on his debut album - "I’m trying my hardest to make it really good" - which is shaping up for release at the end of the summer.

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Must listen: Mura Masa - Love For That (ft Shura)

It's not often that a penny whistle solo is followed by the exhortation: "London, let me see your lighters" - but it's that sort of quirky detail that makes Mura Masa and Shura's first collaboration such a gem.

A luscious ballad, brushed with strings and a pitter-patter of percussion, it was written "in a few hours" while "watching Winnie The Pooh videos and eating curry," the duo told Annie Mac, who premiered the song last night.

If that's true, imagine what they could have achieved if they'd really been concentrating.

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