Sometimes a song comes along with its arms wide open and says, "c'mon then, bugalugs, give us a hug". This is one of those songs.
It's called 1,000 Soul Songs and it comes from Bristolian drum & bass pioneer DJ Die and a singer he calls Jennalope Gee, whose real name is Jenna Gibbons, and whom the rest of us are supposed to call Jenna G [Sort it out - nomenclature Ed].
Soulful, summery and sensuous, it'll take you back to 1995, when The Brand New Heavies and Eternal and Jamiroquai dominated the airwaves. The difference is (a) it's really good, and (b) the next song you hear won't be Oasis.
1,000 Soul Songs is already on the B-list at Radio 1 Xtra. By the time it gets released in June, expect it to have made the leap across to "proper" Radio 1. Hugs all round, then.
An email zapped into my inbox over the weekend from Canadian DJ M-Rock, who you might remember for the brilliant, heartfelt Beastie Boys megamix he created in tribute to Adam Yauch last year. He'd been listening to Daft Punk's new single and there was something he needed to get off his chest.
"The thing with the Daft Punk song," he wrote, "is, even though I love the risk they've taken, it doesn't totally knock the room down. I wanted to hear a funky brass band and a section of violinists bending their necks towards their instruments on top. I was picturing a band like this:"
(Flares ahoy: It's Chic in their 1970s heyday)
"So," added M-Rock, "that's what I did."
His funkatronic re-twizzle of Get Lucky is a swift kick to Daft Punk's disco balls. The horn stabs and sumptuous strings are beamed straight from Studio 54 - and the groove is authentic Chic, not studio geek. Above all, M-Rock obeys the first golden rule of music production: If the chorus isn't working, slap on a tambourine.
And here it is: Your sort of weekly round-up of songs that flew under the radar, until I recalibrated the radar. This issue's starlets are:
1) Psy - Gentleman (live performance)
Earlier this month, Psy performed Gentleman, his follow-up to / carbon copy of Gangnam Style, for 50,000 fans in South Korea. Judging by the footage, it was basically the Nuremberg Rally of novelty dance pop. Confusing and terrifying - much like the song's English translation.
2) Beyonce - Standing On The Sun
Beyonce is a mad genius. Why, she reckons, would you bother completing a song when the average attention span is only 90 seconds long. So we're just getting an album of snippets and excerpts, released online and paid for by H&M and Pepsi. It's modern, daring and risky. Beyonce's next release is called "Beep" and is just a recording of Beyonce saying "Beep" into a cup.
3) Armin Van Buuren feat Trevor Guthrie - This Is What It Feels Like
This sounded really good in the car with the sunroof down on Thursday morning. Listening to it again today, I'm worried it might be a little "Danny from The Script 'goes Ibiza'". What do you reckon?
4) Laura Marling - Once
"Once is enough to make you think twice / about laying your love out on the line." There's something beautiful about the simplicity of Laura Marling's lyrics. And this candid, unadorned performance from Jools Holland's show this week is the perfect complement. Heartbreaking.
5) Lana Del Rey - Young And Beautiful
At the other end of the scale is Lana Del Rey - arch, post-modern, difficult to pin down. Are we listening to the thoughts and fears of Lizzie McGuire or the gutter-dwelling Femme Fatale she's created? In the end, it doesn't matter: This song, taken from the Great Gatsby soundtrack, is every bit as devastating as Laura Marling's.
6) Hey Champ - Comet (ft BeuKes)
Chicago's Hey Champ describe themselves as "Pop Music For People Who Don't Like Pop Music" - a statement which basically screams, "we are preposterously stuck-up dickends". But if we jettisoned every pop star we found objectionable, the charts would be wall-to-wall Jessie Ware [wait a minute, you could be onto something here - Ed]. So, forget about the fact the band "met as outsiders at one of those tea and crumpet parties where everyone wears blazers and laughs through clenched teeth" and enjoy their Giogio Moroder-inspired Slow Disco classic in the making, Comet.
I don't know about you, but my most eagerly-anticipated albums of 2013 are the debuts by Disclosure and AlunaGeorge. Both bands are tugging furiously at the fraying seams of UK dance and soul, and the material they're unraveling is a whip-smart weave of chart-bound melodies and throbbing sonic experimentation.
The wait isn't quite over yet - Disclosure's album, Settle, is out in June and AlunaGeorge release Body Music a month later. Until then, we're left scrabbling for the tasty little morsels they've been scattering around the internet.
So here's hotpant enthusiast Eliza Doolittle duetting with Disclosure on the brand new track You & Me, followed by AlunaGeorge's first big TV appearance, performing their current single Attracting Flies on Jools Holland last night. Good work, everyone.
It's turning into a week of classic soul. Off the back of Janelle Monae's stunning comeback yesterday, here's New Orleans native Jackson Breit with a gorgeous, brassy R&B jam called It's On Tonight. Yes, he's pulling a "hilarious" goofy face in the photo, but this seductive groove is exactly what Justin Timberlake was aiming for with Suit And Tie, before he made it really boring.
As John Legend said last week, "the overwhelming majority of soul music is about the pursuit of intercourse," and this is no exception. "We could take it anywhere - there's an alley at the back if you want to take it there," Jackson purrs in the chorus.
Mmmm... sex against the dustbins. That's romance right there, folks.
Oh, this is fantastic. Janelle Monae is back with the first single from her new album, The Electric Lady. Called Q.U.E.E.N. it features vocals from Erykah Badu, cheddar-splendent Paisley Park synths, and an extended string-laden coda that's like a Frank Ocean track without the po-faced "I've got, like, really deep emotions" attitude.
In fact, Janelle is so far removed from introspective navel-gazing, she's having an out-of-body experience. "Will you be electric sheep? Electric ladies will you sleep Or will you preach?" she asks, convinced (correctly) that being batshit crazy is the best way to approach a pop song. It's likely that the song is part of the continuing story of Cindi Mayweather, the fictional time-travelling fembot Monae played on her last album. But honestly, who cares about thematically confused dystopian sci-fi when the music is this good?
As Janelle tweeted last night: "Q.U.E.E.N. was inspired by private discussions between Erykah and me. It is meant to make you JAM. DANCE. FUNK OUT. and dialogue later..."
