Blur – Lonesome Street
Would a new Blur album have materialised had a cancelled gig in Japan not forced them to hunker down in a Hong Kong studio for a week? Possibly not. Would the world be a worse-off place without another Blur album? Again, possibly not. I find the prospect of a fresh body of music by the band somewhat terrifying given the intensity with which I love them and how meek I found their last offering, Under the Westway (2012). However, a taste of their latest, Lonesome Street, from new album The Magic Whip, offers a reassuring sign that they have not abandoned their Britpop boyishness. Other tracks on the album sound as if they might be a little earnest, but this one marries shabby indie to the parochial concerns of Modern Life Is Rubbish (the “5.14 to East Grinstead” and the word “arse”) . Then there’s its joyous video, which features Chinese folk dancers in a school hall.
Oscar – Daffodil Days
The influence of Blur on Oscar Scheller’s single Sometimes was about as subtle as Song 2. But his latest track, Daffodil Days, reminds me more of Julian Cope: his rich baritone has a moody, bittersweet melancholy. (Scheller credits his soulful croon to Ricky Nelson and Buddy Holly.) Perhaps part of this dandyish daydreamer’s charm comes from solid musical stock: his dad was in the 1970s new wave group the Regents and his mum was mates with Neneh Cherry back in the days of New York’s Mudd Club. “I actually went to school with her daughter, Tyson,” Scheller recently told the Beat, saying that Cherry was a mother figure to him. “I used to stay around their house a lot. Then they moved to Sweden, and I didn’t see them that much.”
Demob Happy – Young and Numb
This track was born out of a “manic and inspired blur of several days and nights locked away in a makeshift studio”, somewhere desolate in the Welsh countryside. And you can certainly smell the grotty ashtrays and Ginsters pasties seeping from its pores. Taken from the Brighton band’s new EP of the same name, it is a festering and ferocious trip, shares the madcap punk elements of Pulled Apart By Horses, and makes rather glaring references to Nirvana.
Best Coast – Heaven Sent
Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno are back! Yes, despite waning interest in the Californian summers evoked by the lo-fi pop bands of 2009 (the Drums, Wavves, etc), Best Coast continue to churn out the feelgood OC-inspired anthems. Indie music blogs have yet to determine whether or not the garland is a veiled poke at the saccharine submissiveness of Lana Del Rey or a tribute to the grunge glamour of Courtney Love, but its polished, pretty aesthetic certainly feels like a stab at the mainstream. Heaven Sent is the second single from California Nights, their third full-length album, out 4 May on Virgin EMI.
Ride – OX4
Ride’s reunion tour stopped at O2 Academy in Oxford on 5 April for a homecoming show in front of just a few hundred fans. The footage is of OX4, the sprawling closer of Ride’s second album, Going Blank Again. It is said to have been on the Gallagher brothers’ answerphone when they were kids, and it’s also my personal favourite. Ride perform at Coachella on 10 April, and have a headline set at London’s Field Day festival in June. Then, hopefully, they’ll get trapped in Hong Kong for a week and find themselves writing a new album.
