some of it was true!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend – I was in Utrecht, and thoroughly recommend it.  Here’s a great blog to get you started.  Anyway, I digress - here’s my weekly collection of five, not London-related songs that have caught my ear in the past seven days:

Solid Gold – Danger Zone
Minneapolis’ Solid Gold are one of my favourite bands: their melancholic, rocked-up euphoria provides atmosphere and delectable beats in one fine sandwich.  And now they’ve gone and given Kenny Loggins’ Top Gun tearjerker a most unlikely electro-pop makeover.  Where the original was homoerotic and high-pitched, the cover is surprisingly elegant and priddy, while fondly retaining the desperate-sounding melodrama  - think fists clenched in slow-mo, glazed eyes and dodgy denim jackets.

Rusko – Da Cali Anthem
Two fantastic things are combined here thanks to producer Rusko: the ever more popular genre of dubstep, and 2pac’s high-pitched dancefloor classic, California Love.  I feel like this could have had better teasing of those oh-so-familiar lyrics. Nevertheless, as famous lines like “Innn the Ciddddyyyy” get the twostep treatment, so we see a potentially seminal moment, with dubstep threatening to make itself prominently known in the USA at long last.  Are those hoochies I can hear screaming?

Wye Oak – I Hope You Die
Wye Oak are a great depresso band – that is, bands you listen to when upset in order to get more upset because actually you want to be upset.  As the title hints, this latest (from new album My Neighbor / My Creator) ain’t a cheery pop number neither: like the band’s best, it meanders along through soundscapes as moodily pretty as Scottish mountains, with the smoky aura enhanced by a distant saxophone refrain as the song gives way to reverb. Jenn Wasner’s voice remains as impassive and soothing as ever.

The Radio Dept. – David
Like a swirling London mist, this one comes drenched in atmosphere: trance beats like a Streets remix, vocals reminiscent of Ian Brown but with a Swedish accent, and a resigned, regal tone.  The Radio Dept.’s imagination shines through via the quirky keys and digital add-ons, but it’s the echoey, jaundiced sound that stays with you once the song fades out.  Confident and catchy, the trio are set to make a big splash in 2010.

Small Black – Despicable Dogs
The fairground’s closing: the sun’s setting behind the main tent, it’s pink pools of light catching glinting litter in the trampled grass, an abandoned shoe, still carousels, feathers from a toy bird won hours earlier rippling in the sudden wind, a closed coffee stand where a pretty girl glanced your way, the odd shuffling figure, now-cold hands thrust deep in pockets.  This is the kind of bleak, maudlin scene that new Jagjaguwar signing Small Black conjure up: their songs are brief windows to other, allurring worlds.

MP3 links via the song titles.