PICK OF THE WEEK
Wiley
Chasing The Art (Island)
“Grime is coming back!” people say, excitedly, every atomic second of the year 2015. Young and old alike, grandmothers and teenagers, in alleyways and on beaches. “Hooray for grime!” they say in unison. But when you listen to Wiley’s latest, you wonder why it ever went away: Chasing The Art feels like cruising around a warm, dark city, making finger guns at innocent pedestrians; effortlessly grime-y, with a high flute-y backing that just works. Although: “It’s not about money,” Wiley says. “I’m chasing the art.” Jessie J said that, Wiley, and look at her now. Reel it back a bit, mate.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
Riverman (Sour Mash)
Remember that guy from your halls of residence who learned to play Wonderwall and then played Wonderwall incessantly and that one time you asked him jokily what his favourite song was he thought really long and hard about it and then said: “Probably… Wonderwall”? Guess what: he’s started a band, and they have a new song out, and its got a bit of saxophone in it. Oh, wait, hang on, that’s Actual Noel Gallagher? He’s still doing exact the same thing, while wearing the same pair of sunglasses indoors? Between this and Beady Eye, you have to ask: what did this world do to deserve two bad versions of Oasis?
LunchMoney Lewis
Bills (Kemosabe/Columbia)
It’s ”Song of the Summer” season, and it seems this year we are cursed repeatedly to listen to LunchMoney Lewis sing about bills. Lewis is an enigma: last in line when God was handing out stage names, he has the songwriting chops to feature on Nicki Minaj’s The Pinkprint, but this solo effort feels like the theme song to a children’s TV show that tells kids that bullying is bad. Bills is what would happen if Randy Newman got really into Afroman. Garbage. You’re never going to hear the end of it.
GAPS
All Me All You ( I/AM/ME)
I’ve never watched a BBC promo for an upcoming selection of homegrown TV while swimming up out of a fever dream, but I do now know what it would sound like, thanks to All Me All You. To be fair to Brighton-based clicky instrumentals‘n’breathy vocals duo GAPS, their music sounds like lying down in a park on a summer’s evening and realising you’ve probably overdone it on the cider. But in a nice way.
OWS Feat Pusha T
Waterline (Overthrow/Island/Universal)
Has there ever been a less-mourned boyband than JLS? Other than the Wanted, but they were essentially a stag do that got out of hand and woke up hungover, nursing a record contract in the Geffen lobby. Anyway, OWS is The Artist Formerly Known As Oritsé, the one with the hat in JLS, and his debut single is almost really good. The verses are a bit fill-the-gaps-until-the-chorus-turns-up, and Pusha T’s nine lines make it worse, but otherwise it’s great: bravely moody production, mournful lyrics, enormous chorus. A solid effort from JLS’s Robbie.
