East India Youth
Hinterland (Stolen Recordings)

Despite East India Youth including no youths or east Indians – instead consisting of a white dude from Southampton – Hinterland is where the obfuscation comes to an end. It sounds more like the middle of a DJ set than a track on its own, its whirring intro and eventual gently melodic, undulating rhythm like a warm shower of placidity, and then bang, the hard techno arrives. Imagine yourself having just broken through the wall of a slightly harsh pill come-up, allowing yourself to open your eyes again and rejoin the party, only to collapse into a sofa chewing your gums into smithereens for six hours.

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK

Usher Feat Nicki Minaj
She Came To Give It To You (RCA)

This is Usher’s (re)release but, as per usual, the track’s owner plays second fiddle to Nicki Minaj’s feature verse, which is bolshy and mesmeric. The bulk of the song itself is largely forgettable, Usher’s vocal lines don’t stick, and the instrumentation is just your regular sleazy nu-funk, a sound we’ve had to increasingly become accustomed to thanks to Bruno Mars, and isn’t getting any more interesting.

Iggy Azalea Feat Rita Ora
Black Widow (Virgin EMI)

The video for this song features Michael Madsen in what can only be described as a “turn for the worse”. Rita Ora and Iggy Azalea’s quasi-dance-trap schlock is every bit as contemptible as the latter’s brain-frazzlingly offensive black-woman impression on every track she does. I feel sorry for Ora here, as her part in this is actually nigh on palatable, but Azalea’s rapping is absolutely untenable. Hey Iggy, Al Jolson called, he wants his steez back!

Meridian Dan
One Two Drinks (PMR)

Bavarian automobile enthusiast and harbinger of the tentative return of grime music, Meridian Dan is back with another song, and it’s quite similar to the enormously popular German Whip. One Two Drinks follows the same formula – loud nouveau-rap beat with Dan’s comically cocksure MCing – and is decent enough, though struggles to hit its predecessor’s frenzied, immediate pull-up vibe. If the somewhat spurious “grime renaissance” is to continue unhindered, it might take a bit more than some carbon copies of proven success. It works for the EDM world, though, so who am I to tell him?

Steve Angello Feat Dougy From The Temper Trap
Wasted Love (Columbia)

Man, remember Sweet Disposition? The song that launched a thousand Champions League match end credits? Now, after never replicating the success of that song, the Temper Trap’s main man is featuring on a Steve Angello track called Wasted Love, which is destined to feature in the middle of some Time Life compilation for ageing Generation Z-ers. Sunrise, sunset.