Singles & Downloads 8

Two lots of abiding electropop royalty, classicist Slovenian techno, an indie band who play electronica, a hyper-synthetic R&B superstar, Irish-Mancunian disco-boogie, "buzzsaw fuzz" meets Phil Spector, Paris-Bordeaux-Alabama-Berlin rock chaos, Welsh psychdelic dreams, a post-dubstep crooner and a novelty song about Gillian McKeith - (almost) all human life is here in Thomas H Green and Joe Muggs's round-up of tracks of interest out to buy now.

Pet Shop Boys Together (EMI)

About 200 years into their career, the Pet Shop Boys have barely changed - still plaintive, still rolling out deceptively simple but heartbreakingly lovely pop melodies and lyrics of everyday relationship woes over pounding club beats, still uniquely brilliant. "Together" is essentially the trashiest of pop-trance, but the edge of cracked desperation that Neil Tennant gives its declarations of eternal love put a powerful sting in its tail. The accompanying cover versions are inspired: Kate & Anna McGarrigle's break-up ballad "I Cried For Us" retains its plain-speaking power, while the Dave Clarke Five's "Glad All Over" is rendered frankly insane with high-camp electronic orchestration. Long may Tennant and Lowe abide. (JM)

• Find Together on Amazon
• Read Q&A with the Pet Shop Boys' creative director Es Devlin on theartsdesk
• Read about the Pet Shop Boys' music for kids' play My Dad's a Birdman on theartsdesk
  

Brett Domino Gillian McKeith (Bad)

Once upon a time folk minstrels would tour Britain gathering news and converting it into sung narratives, peppering everything with satire and bawdy humour. This tradition of music as news and gossip goes back hundreds of years and can still be found here and there, notably on the Jamaican scene, the idea of firing out songs that react to contemporary issues without worrying too much about longterm worth. The internet, of course, has become the natural home for this sort of thing, especially in millions of YouTube clips, and Brett Domino, the alter-ego of Leeds comic musician Rob Madin, has made the leap from there into the charts with a Tom Lehrer-style lampoon about Gillian McKeith's possibly career-ending behaviour on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. The song itself is a throwaway novelty number mocking reality TV's latest celeb super-numpty but the way it demonstrates how technology can facilitate an immediate artistic response is truly exciting. (THG)

• Find Gillian McKeith on iTunes

Watch the video of "Gillian McKeith":

8Bitch Equinox EP (Seed Records)

Maya Medvesek is a Slovenian living in London, with strong ties to the Glasgow rave scene, whose first official release was on a Philadelphia label - and her music reflects this cosmopolitanism in its refusal to adhere to local scene or genre diktats. All four tracks here sparkle with all kinds of motifs from early electronica through to the most recent post-dubstep developments, but each has its own clear sound, those past influences deployed very discerningly. "Isis" is beat-free, full of pretty, wintry arpeggios of bell-like sounds; "Hathor" puts wordless soul vocals over a rolling dubstep groove and synth-funk chords; "Astarte" has dreamy rising-and-falling melodies completely envelop a vintage techno rhythm; and lead track "Orpheus" is quite startlingly narcotic, the sounds stretching and contracting as if made of rubber, increasing the sense of abstraction as the track progresses. As deserving of headphone immersion as of club play. (JM)

• Find Equinox on Amazon

Gruff Rhys Shark Ridden Waters (Ovni/Turnstile)

Following the raw and spontaneous insanity of his recent collaborative album with Brazilian malcontent Tony da Gatorra, this is a return to the Super Furry Animals singer at his most accessible. Produced by psychedelia archivist Andy Votel, it's a blissful daydream of a song, timeless rather than retro, the fine details of shortwave radio swoops and chirrups and musique concrète sound effects musical embellishments rather than kooky distractions, and the songwriting ultra-sophisticated and razor sharp beneath the soft, inviting layers of harmonies. Quite why the man is not a megastar is one of the great mysteries of our time. (JM)

• Find Shark Ridden Waters on Amazon

James Blake Limit To Your Love (Atlas)

James Blake has previously popped up on R&S Records showcasing various electronic styles that make geeks, connoisseurs and geek-connoisseurs salivate but which will never raise his profile very far. "Limit To Your Love", however, is a wake-up call as to his ambitions. It walks confidently into territory Jamie Lidell has made his own, that is to say the soul troubadour who's also happy to thrill his listeners with crazy computer music. Blake takes a tune by Canadian singer Feist, strips it right back to nothing, then adds occasional interjections of wibbling dubstep bass. It's not quite as clever as it thinks it is but, nonetheless, remains stark and effective, and demonstrates clearly that we'll be hearing a lot more from Blake in 2011. (THG)

• Find Limit To Your Love on Amazon

The Human League Night People (Wall of Sound)

I confess that, like fans of any group the world over, especially when said group have been away a while, I really wanted this to be great. And... it's not half bad. The League now comprises Phil Oakey and "the Girls", singers Susan Ann Sully and Joanne Catherall. They last reappeared on record in 2001 with a cracking album, Secrets, but no one noticed because the label it was on collapsed. The group nearly gave up but were thankfully made of sterner stuff. "Night People" is punchy electro-disco pop enlivened by Oakey's eternally off-key way with a couplet ("Leave your cornflakes in your freezers/ Leave your chocolate and your cheeses"). The best bit by far is the final minute which explodes suddenly into a lather of sweet female chorus and euphoric synths. Bodes well for the album Credo which follows in Spring 2011. Comes with remixes by Mylo, the Emperor Machine, Villa and veteran French disco producer Cerrone. (THG)

• Find Night People on Amazon

Krystal Klear/Arethis Greensilver/Rugged Angels (Dub Organizer)

Another shining example of the total genre meltdown going on in underground music right now - this time aimed firmly towards the dancefloor. This release is on maverick London house producer Cooly G's label, but the tracks are one piece of gloriously smooth and jazzy 1980s disco-boogie by young Mancunian-based Dubliner Krystal Klear, and one combination by Arethis from North Carolina of scampering London pirate-radio garage beats with the fierce buzz of vintage acid techno riffs. This, like the 8Bitch EP, demonstrates very specific genre elements rewired and updated, not at random in some kind of postmodern glut of sound, but with craftsmanship and an ear for concordance of sounds across continents and decades. (JM)

• Find Greensilver/Rugged Angels on Amazon

Crocodiles Hearts of Love (Fat Possum)

Weirdly Christmassy, this one, although I don't think it's intended to be. It's all buzzsaw fuzz guitar and Jesus and Mary Chain vocal tics, but the song itself rides far closer to the Phil Spector end of the spectrum than the Ramones, especially on the thoroughly massive chorus, and there are also plenty of seasonal bells clanging in the background to add to the effect. Yuletide fare or not - and given the Suicide-ish B-side, not seems the likely option - this Californian duo ably demonstrate, with assistance from Simian Mobile Disco's James Ford on producer duties, that they can hold their own in the catchy, psyched-up rock'n'roll stakes. (THG)

• Find Hearts of Love on Amazon

Paris Suit Yourself Lost My Girl (Big Dada)

A thoroughly deranged black/white, French/American, boy/girl band who have paid their dues in Berlin's squats and warehouse parties and mix an unholy brew of garage rock, Krautrock, Afrobeat, gospel and glam, Paris Suit Yourself on paper look like the biggest, most ghastly hipster folly of the 21st century. But when you hear them, all thoughts of affectation and modishness go out the window - this band clearly adhere to nobody else's idea of what is cool, and the sheer pleasure of making a great, grooving racket just pours out of every bar they play. They have intensely memorable hooks, too, and indeed in the case of the punk-gospel coda to this song, parts that will haunt you for ages after just one hearing. The antidote to "landfill indie", this is modern rock as it was always supposed to sound. (JM)

• Find Lost My Girl on Ninja Tune's site

Gazelle Twin Changelings/I Wonder U (SomethingNothing)

She's called Elizabeth Walling and she's from Brighton but she usually looks like a cross between Predator and something from a Japanese horror film. The shot we've been given (pictured left), however, features her sporting a Brothers Quay-friendly chain-mail creation. Such wilful oddness is all to the good and the music is equally evasive and tantalising, merging arty gloom-scapes with mournful vocals. Fever Ray is the obvious reference point but it's not quite right, as the music, especially on the slightly sinister Prince cover "I Wonder U", is more like pre-fame Human League remixed by Art of Noise, albeit moodier and more ambient than either. As a debut single, it sets out a wilfully uneasy stall and, given that Esben & the Witch also hail from Brighton, hints that maybe a full-blown south-coast Goth revival is imminent. (THG)

• Find Changelings on Amazon

Nicki Minaj Right Thru Me (Universal/Island)

The almost entirely synthetic Nicki Minaj is a frustrating proposition. An actress by training, her guest rap verses on others' records and her leaked tracks and mixtape releases have given the impression of a vocalist both technically brilliant and subversive as she cascades through voices and personae. But there's little of this sense of fun and strangeness to her debut album proper, from which this single is taken - she may snap and swear, but ultimately it's dominated by drearily straightforward "urban" pop like this mid-tempo obsessive love song. Contemporary R&B is capable of glorious grandiosity (see work by Rihanna and The-Dream to take just two examples), but in this case its over-the-top production just feels hectoring and Minaj's role-playing neither here nor there. Still, if she can ride out the hype, it's early days and she may yet come good on the crazed promise of her early work. (JM)

• Find Right Thru Me on Amazon

Watch the video for "Right Thru Me":

Breton Counter Balance EP (youWILLBEfollowing)

They look like an indie band but, thankfully, sound nothing like one. Instead these five tracks wander across any sonic territory they fancy. This attitude is admirable as is their willingness to explore what their machines will do, and the results run the gamut from dubstep explosions in the bass end to clanking Crystal Castles-style Gameboy synths. Breton have proper vocals - "Hours Away" is almost a pop song - and occasionally a guitar or bass will pop to the surface but mostly the music on their third EP is an experiment that's tethered extremely loosely to the traditional band ethic. (THG)

• Find Counter Balance EP at Puregroove site