PICK OF THE WEEK
Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat
Street Pastor Colloquy, 3am (Chemikal Underground)
Quivering tune-puppets such as Sam Smith are all very well, but for a genuinely riveting vocal performer look no further than former Arab Strap slurrer Aidan Moffat. Riveting, because you never know exactly which note he’s going to fail to hit next, or when he might chuck in a ribald anecdote about the size of an acquaintance’s cock. No cocks here as it happens, but Moffat does essentially tell a pastor to shove his bible up his arse before hoodwinking a gospel choir into singing a hymn of praise to the devil. Soul-stirring proof that you can be a sinner and a winner.
Slaves
Feed The Mantaray (Virgin EMI)
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, King Kurt, Vyvyan off The Young Ones… just some of the references I never thought I’d be using when describing one of 2015’s hottest new bands. Yet in the current climate of extreme earnestness, Slaves’ primitive Tiswas punk feels necessary. Feed The Mantaray is a silly song even for them, not least because you can’t really feed manta rays: they just swim around all day with their giant maws open, swallowing plankton. But such piffling pedantry is put to the sword over three minutes of comically blunt riffage and caveman drumming that’ll make you want to headbutt a teddy bear and rugby-tackle Phillip Schofield.
Sigma Feat Labrinth
Higher (3Beat)
You’ve got to admire Sigma’s chutzpah. Last year, they notched the laziest No 1 since Jive Bunny by simply looping the hook from Kanye West’s Bound 2 over a cursory drum’n’bass beat. Admittedly they did follow that up with a “proper” song – Changing (Feat Paloma Faith) – but Higher simply recycles that very same song with a different vocalist (in this case Brit soul utility man Labrinth) and a different set of platitudes, hoping that no one will notice. Which they won’t, because they’ll probably think it’s by Rudimental anyway.
Róisín Murphy
Jealousy (Crosstown Rebels)
Róisín Murphy could teach Madonna a thing or two about dignified disco divadom. Co-written with Sheffield dance great DJ Parrot, Jealousy is a thunderous house vamp over the course of which Róisín gradually transforms from carefree lover to possessive bunny-boiler, her growing mania matched by the music’s unstoppable momentum. Pop-house pups take note: this is how it’s done.
Dotan
Home (Universal)
You can file Dutch-Israeli arist Dotan alongside Gotye and Hozier as a member of the international brotherhood of bombastic folk whimpering; music explicitly designed for slo-mo montages at the end of Sky Living dramas. The good news is that Dotan has already peaked by pouring the majority of his blustery boo-hooing into this one horrible song. The bad news? There’s another one of these beardy bastards lugging their acoustic guitar across a deserted beach towards us as we speak.
