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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Icona Pop have a new single (former single yet to be released)

It seems that even Icona Pop are fed up waiting for their record company to release I Love It in the UK. According to the current schedule, it's supposed to be out on 30 June - more than a year after it's European release - and Radio 1 have finally put it on their C playlist this week, so maybe the track won't sink without a trace after all. WELL DONE EVERYONE.

Meanwhile, Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo have written and released a new song 'pon de internet. It's called Girlfriend and it interpolates the chorus of Tupac's Me And My Girlfriend (also known from Beyonce and Jay-Z's Bonnie And Clyde 03). Cleverly, Icona Pop have thwacked the melody with a metronome - a little twist that stops the song being a pure cover version. With a hedonistic "young, wild and free" lyric and a na-na-na refrain, it's only a synth handclap away from being the perfect pop record.

Lovely stuff.

Icona Pop - Girlfriend

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Venetian pop update pt 2

One of the joys of being abroad is checking out the music on their local music TV station, which is invariably called something like Deejay247 or Hitzsonic or Das Ist Musik Hits Superstar Party!

It's always informative to see how other countries view the current music scene. In Italy I've learnt three things.

1) Caro Emerald is, like, a really big deal in continental Europe.

2) If in doubt, you can't go wrong with a Phil Collins track.

3) There's a band called Wankelmut.

Sadly, Wankelmut is not a badly disguised euphemism for "canine handjob" but is instead a German word for someone who is fickle. It is also the nom de pop of Berlin producer Jacob Dilßner.

Jacob, a former political science student, is currently enjoying a massive Europe-wide hit with the song My Head Is A Jungle, featuring vocals from Aussie songstress Emma Louise. If you can forgive the piss-poor video, the song is a delectable addition to your summer pop playlist.

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Venetian pop update

Apologies for the lack of updates, but I'm working out of a series of hotel rooms on Venice this week.

Anyway, just had time to check in on planet pop and here's what I found... Three slightly underwhelming songs by major league singers.

1) Jessie J - Wild
In the plus column, Wild showcases the harder R&B edge Jessie J all but buried after Do It Like A Dude bin the minus column, "no more drama" lyrics and Dizzee bloody Rascal.



2) Kylie Minogue - Skirt
Co-written with The Dream, this popped up on Soundcloud on Kylie's birthday. A 45 for her 45th, if you will (vinyl reference - ask your dad). It's a bit of a racket, to be honest, but there's a sudden burst of melody at the 1'30" mark that just about passes muster.



3) Ellie Goulding - Tesselate (Alt-J cover)
Honestly, did anyone really need this in their life?



NB: Ellie did an amazing turn at Radio One's Big Weekend in Derry Londonderry Londerry Derlonlondundolerdery. This performance of Anything Could Happen is the dictionary definition of "throwing yourself into it". Hair explosion ahoy!

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Must listen: Clare Maguire

Remember Clare Maguire? She came fifth in the BBC's Sound Of 2011, she had an amazing voice, and she had some not-so-amazing songs. Not that her album was terrible (the singles Last Dance and Ain't Nobody are still worth checking out) but too often her melodies were blown to smithereens by bombastic production. It's a common problem for powerhouse vocalists: How do you frame their voice without getting into a futile screaming match? All the greats - Aretha Franklin, Mary J Blige, Whitney Houston - have suffered from it at one time or another. Clare was just unfortunate that the producers got it wrong on her first record.

Luckily, she kept at it, and has just posted a new demo on SoundCloud which I'm really taken with.

Changing Faces is a striking change in direction. Gone are the clattering kettle drums and pompous, swelling strings; and in comes a smoky, muted piano. Clare (whose school choir used to make her mime because she drowned the other kids) has dialed down the histrionics, too. As she sings about losing her mind in a broken town, she sounds on the verge of tears. It's as stop-you-in-your-socks incredible as Bat For Lashes' Laura was last year.

Just one thing: Aren't those opening chords nicked from Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah?

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Here is Jessie J's new single (sort of)

J-J-J-Jessie J's comeback single is called Wild, and it comes complete with shouty bits from Dizzee Rascal and Big Sean. The song's not ready to be heard by the public yet - but Ms Cornish has just uploaded an acoustic teaser to YouTube. Featuring a beautifully restrained vocal from Jessie, I suspect it'll prove to be superior to the final mix, where all the subtlety will be buried under a supersonic jetstream of crap.

Jessie J - Wild

NB: I still don't understand why Jessie has to pull a face like she's just smelled rotting kippers every time she sings.

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