Songs you may have missed: Two weeks off edition

Hello... and also goodbye. We're heading off for a bit of summer sun, so unfortunately the blog will be out of action for a fortnight. (It's a one man show, and that man is quite tired). However, I have a bountiful spread of pop goodies to sustain you over the next 14 days. Try not to gorge yourself on them all at once.

1) Katy B - Crying For No Reason (live on Graham Norton)
People always get a little anxious when a record is pushed back but - hooray! - Katy B's Little Red is a triumph. (One song in particular, All My Lovin', sounds like it could have come from Neneh Cherry's Raw Like Sushi. It's that good.)

The album arrives on 10th February, so until then, here's a live performance of the current single Crying For No Reason. As Popjustice has already noted, "it's the best chatshow-based single performance in years". Katy doesn't move around much, but her vocals are mesmerising.

And when a song is this good, that's all you need.




2) NONONO - Hungry Eyes
Nonono, the Swedish band who aren't named after a Dawn Penn song, have released Hungry Eyes, a single that isn't named after the Dirty Dancing song. Ah well.




3) Lorde - Team (Panic City Remix)
I didn't think it'd be possible to dance to a Lorde single, unless you count that creepy Poltergeist thing she does on every TV performance. But San Franciscan DJ/Producer Panic City has taken Team's minimal, spidery beat, shot it with a tazer and dragged it onto the dancefloor.

You won't be able to resist (but if you can, could you keep an eye on my coat?)





4) Little Mix - Word Up!
I wrote about this last week when the audio wasn't available. Now the audio is available. Here is the audio.




5) Ibibio Sound Machine - Let's Dance
Mary Anne Hobbs played this on her peerless 6 Music show this weekend (there is literally no better way to wake up on a Saturday morning) and it gave me a greater jolt awake than the hot jug of coffee I was pouring down my throat.

Ibibio Sound Machine are an eight-piece London collective, fronted by British-Nigerian vocalist Eno Williams, who combine elements of West African highlife, disco, post-punk and psychedelic electro soul. This sprawling, funky single is their debut after signing to Soundway Records at the tail end of 2013. It sounds like The Tom Tom Club got swallowed by Botswana, and it is incredible.






6) Jhené Aiko - Bed Peace
2014 is shaping up to be the year R&B came back from the grave, with Solange, Banks, SOHN, Kwabs and Sampha among the artists hailed as saviours of the genre. Now you can add Jhené Aiko to that list, too.

Jhené's USP is her girlish falsetto - all playful and sensual compared to her contemporaries, who wither sound bored, depressed or stoned.

Her Sail Away EP came out last year, but is starting to get some mainstream pick-up (mostly on 1Xtra). The lead track is the woozy, sexy Bed Peace, which features Childish Gambino on co-lead vocals. The video sees them recreate John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "bed-in" protest against the Vietnam War because... oh, I don't know. You work it out.




7) iamamiwhoami - Fountain
I haven't really bought in to the whole iamamiwhoami "thing". The project, created by Swedish singer Jonna Lee, has consistently sent dozens of blogs spiralling into a frothing whirl of delight, mainly because Jonna wouldn't tell them who she was and everyone convinced themselves it was Christina Aguilera for some reason.

Anyway, now that we know it's not Christina Aguilera, the music suddenly seems more focused and tuneful. Fountain is a beautiful, icy pop ballad with a particularly arresting (ie pretentious) video.




8) Prince - U Got The Look
With his tiny royal purpleness making an impromptu visit to Britain on 3rd February, I will be spending my entire holiday listening to Purple Rain and Sign O The Times and Batman (yes, even Batman) and wishing I was back at home.

If you haven't seen him before, sell your kidneys on the black market to get a ticket. Because even when he doesn't play the hits, Prince is still the best performer alive today.

With the set-list changing every night, I really hope he hauls this one out of the vault. U Got The Look is one of the best-constructed pop duets of all time. Try and deny it.

Right, that's it... The out-of-office is on, and the sunglasses are packed.

If you see anything that should go into a "Songs I have missed" round-up when I get back, put the link in the comments, or send me a tweet @mrdiscopop. I'll put the best ones up here on 10th Feb.

Cheers,
mrdiscopop

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Screengrab of the week: Kyla La Grange

I'll be honest, I'd written Kyla La Grange off after her first album - a non-terrible, but largely inessential collection of songs stitched together from Florence and the Machine's cast-offs.

So it took me a week or so to listen to her new single, and now I'm kicking myself for it. Cut Your Teeth is a diaphanous whisper in your ear. A sleek, swooning siren song. A mystical glimpse of pop majesty. The sort of single that has journalists grasping clumsily for adequate vocabulary.

I have clearly failed in that respect. So here's the video instead.

Kyla La Grange - Cut Your Teeth

PS: You can read the treatment for the video here. It says the directors reference "classic 80s and 90s children's movies Gremlins, Never Ending Story and Dark Crystal adding their own dark twist." Am I alone in failing to see get of those references? Where is Mogwai? Where is Falkor? Where is Phoebe Cates?

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Must listen: Kwabs

Say hello to 23-year-old newcomer Kwabena Sarkodee Adjepong (don't worry, you can call him Kwabs), who's just been put on Radio 1Xtra's Hot For 2014 list.

Possessed of a stunning, honeyed baritone, his vocals remind me of Seal when Seal was good, adding depth and soul to the swirling electronic grooves he's been creating with Dave Okuma and SOHN (Jessie Ware, Banks). Kwabs himself describes his sound as the "meeting place between elements of old-style gospel with more current sounding music". And everyone loves current sounding music, don't they?

His latest song, Wrong Or Right, is the title-track to a forthcoming EP. The video, which features some mesmerising slow motion choreography, is right here.

Kwabs - Wrong or Right

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New Disclosure music keeps coming

You don't hear it much these days but one of Disclosure's first tracks, back in 2011, was a sublime and funky remix of Q-Tip's Work It Out.


Since then, the brothers Lawrence have largely steered clear of rap, even though it would seem a perfect fit for their luminous house grooves. Until today, that is, when they turned up as the producers on a new track by 17-year-old NYC rap prodigy Bishop Nehru.

A dreamy old-school "jam", You Stressin recalls the jazzier bits of Q-Tip and Common's back catalogue. In other words, it's dead good.



Meanwhile, the band have been in the US selling deep house back to the Americans. Here is a very watchable performance of Latch with bequiffed pop warbler Samuel Smith.


Meanwhile meanwhile, Disclosure have been busy in the recording studio with Mary J Blige. She's redoing Howard's vocals on F For You (poor Howard) presumably for a US release. It's coming out tomorrow, but they put a preview clip of the song in this horrible Facebook "module":

Post by Disclosure.

What's that? Have they scribbed all over Mary J's face with a Tipp-Ex pen? Of course they have.

UPDATE: Here is the full video for the Mary J Bligey version of F For You. Sounds like a lost C + C Music Factory b-side.

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This is not the Little Mix single

Hooray! Popular beat combo Little Mix premiered their Sport Relief single this morning on Radio 1.

Boo! They've only gone and done Cameo's Word Up, a song that's 100% immune to cover versions.

You see, Word Up balances upon twin pillars of brilliance: The funkiest drumbeat of the 1980s, and Larry Blackmon's "unique" vocal technique, in which he rolls every syllable over his tongue like he's tasting it for the first time. Anyone who interferes with those foundations brings the roof crashing down on their head.

Mel B was the first to get covered in rubble, back in 1999. Her hopeless attempt was let down by a surprisingly leaden beat from Timbaland (who should have known better). Five years later, Korn's rock overhaul started off well, until a pile-up of dismal guitar "licks" broke the song's backbone.

Amazingly, then, Little Mix just about get away with it. Yes, they add a pointless "look, everyone, we can sing" section to the intro but the rest of their embellishments - the harmonies, the cowbell, the snippet of Fix Up, Look Sharp - are broadly respectful of the original. All that's really missing is the sample from Ennio Morricone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Sadly, the band have not seen fit to put the song online today, so all we're left with are "radio rips" by fans who've blatantly just held their phone up to a loudspeaker. So, with regret, here's Damon Albarn's new solo record instead.

Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots

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Here is a great video by DJ Fresh

In a week where the release schedule features 13 repackaged Beatles Albums and "deluxe editions" of Del Amitri's entire back catalogue, this should stop you getting too depressed about the state of the music industry.

It's DJ Fresh, Ms Dynamite, the best video of the month and the silliest chorus of the year. Nicely played, everyone.

DJ Fresh vs Jay Fay ft Ms Dynamite - Dibby Sound

Dibby Dibby Sound is out in a fortnight.

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