"Lost" Ellie Goulding track surfaces

I don't understand the craze for Supermarket exclusives on entertainment products.

Does anyone who casually picks up The Avengers DVD in Sainsbury's really think: "Hey, I just got an exclusive 90-minute documentary I'll never watch. In your face, Asda!"

I'm sure there's some sort of financial kickback for the distributors, or that Sainsbury's have calculated they can sell an extra 2,050 bags of Doritos to sweaty Joss Whedon fanboys. But, to me, it takes the sheen off a triple-A mega-budget movie when it's languishing in a battered cardboard stand next to a display of "value" sausages.

But it's not just films that suffer - it's happening with music, too. Did you know Ellie Goulding's recent album, Halcyon, contained an extra track if you bought it in Tesco? No. Why would you? And who in their right mind would go out of their way to find a Tesco that stocked the album in order to obtain a solitary song that, let's face it, was going to be on BitTorrent the day it was released, anyway?

The sad thing is, Stay Awake is one of the best songs on the record. Produced by French dance genius Madeon, it's a roaring blast of late-night euphoria, with Ellie doing what Ellie does best - injecting genuine warmth into the frigid digitalism of Dubstep.

Thankfully, Stay Awake has finally been given a "proper" release on Beatport - so you can download it from the comfort of your internet, without being seduced into buying a cabbage.

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New music: Flume - Holdin' On

"You're a hip-shakin' momma, I love you."

So says Flume, aka 21-year-old Harley Streten, an Australian producer who owes his career to a box of Sugar Puffs*.

As he explained to Oz website Everguide: "I discovered this little music-making program in a cereal box when I was around 10 or 11-years-old. I installed it on my computer and mucked around on it, and ever since then I've been getting better programs. I started making music as a hobby, but within the last two years it’s become my job".

It's a job he's pretty good at - Flume's debut album kept One Direction off the top of the iTunes Chart in Australia last year. His first UK single, Holdin' On, is now getting some love over at Radio One.

Built around a doctored sample from Otis Redding's I Can't Turn You Loose (the one from the infamous mall scene in The Blues Brothers), it dials down exuberance of the original, making Redding sound like he's about to explode with lust. It's really quite something.

Flume - Holdin' On

* Actually, it was a box of Nutri-Grain, but who's going to let facts get in the way of a good story? If it's good enough for Boris Johnson, it's good enough for me.

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Naughty but nice

When you combine the genius producer behind Emeli Sande's album, and the soul voice of the moment you know you're in for a treat. And the new single from Naughty Boy and Sam Smith, La La La, doesn't disappoint.

A dreamstep soul track with an irristible swagger, it orbits around around a naive vocal sample - much like Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega. But here the "la la la" refrain is woven into the narrative, as Smith lashes out at an irritating, preachy friend (or politician?) "I'm covering my ears like a kid. Your words mean nothing. I go La La La".

The song is the second release from Naughty Boy's upcoming Hotel Cabana project - the first being Wonder featuring Emeli Sande. On the basis of those two tracks alone, I'd wager it'll be one of the standout UK soul albums of 2013.

Naughty Boy ft Sam Smith - La La La

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Particularly good Chloe Howl remix

If you remix Chloe Howl's name, you get "Oh Hell, Cow".

If you remix Chloe Howl's new single, Rumour, you get this:



Good, huh?

Chloe's first EP is available as a free download on her Official Website. It contains the original version of Rumour, the sweary-and-brilliant No Strings, and a ballad. What more could you want? Videos for all three? Oh, ok then.

Chloe Howl - Rumour EP

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New music from Haim, Jessie Ware and MKS

Ring the "guaranteed Discopop blog post" alarm - there's new music on the internet by Haim (incredible), Jessie Ware (amazing) and MKS (let's just wait and see what the album's like).

1) Haim - Falling (Psychemagik remix)
Oh Haim, with your slick Californian rock guitars and your haircuts like Alanis Morisette circa 1995, how could we love you more? I'll tell you how: With a corking remix. And this remix is so corking, Moet and Chandon are going to take it round the bike sheds and get it pregnant.




2) Jessie Ware - Pom Pom Pom Special Delivery
OK, Jessie Ware's new single is really called Imagine It Was Us - but some cretin at Radio One has ruined it by making a man shout "Pom Pom Pom Special Delivery" all over the top of it. Suitable for the new Skrillex single, perhaps, but it completely kills Ware's slinky 80s groove (produced by Julio Bashmore, who's clearly been listening to Cherelle's Saturday Love).

If this aural spam makes you dismember your ears and hide them under a cushion, fear not: We'll get to hear the unspoiled song in a week or two. At her last London show, Ware revealed that Imagine It Was Us was coming out as a single. She filmed the video 10 days ago, "with choreography and everything". Until them: Pom Pom Pom Special fucking Delivery.



3) Phoenix ft MKS - Entertainment (Blood Orange remix)
I mentioned Phoenix's excellent new single in a previous new music round-up. Now it has added backing vocals from Mutya Keisha and Siobhan, making it approximately 2,563% better. It may be another service station on the road to fresh material from the old new new old Sugababes, but it's a service station with luscious harmonies hiding amongst the sausage rolls. Magnificent.

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs get Sacrilegious

Fashion model Lily Cole stars in the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs video, Sacrilege, which starts off as a creepy riff on Wicker Man, before revealing a vaguely NSFW twist. Excellent stuff, and brilliantly shot by Megaforce - the director behind this very, very silly Dairy Milk advert.

As DangerxZonex says in the YouTube comments: "They're not even in the video :/ but it was a good video"

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege

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