PICK OF THE WEEK
Clean Cut Kid
Runaway (Polydor)
Due to more than one member’s straggly, distractingly lopsided hairdo, Liverpool up’n’comers Clean Cut Kid risk being mistaken for 1992’s hottest grebo outfit. But on Runaway, they sound effervescent and fleet. Against a lived-in, wheezy soundscape of synth-augmented melancholy, their heartsore boy/girl harmonies and tinny-but-energetic drums beat a convincing path toward Arcade Fire uplift. It’s a nourishing NutriBullet of on-trend influences, a proper indie-disco belter and proof, if any were needed, that any song benefits from the addition of an echoing, karate-chop shout of “hai!” in the chorus.
Flo Rida
My House (Atlantic)
Flo flukes it again. Without even realising it, hip-hop’s human incarnation of the shrug emoticon has effortlessly tapped into the zeitgeist by releasing an inessential hymn to the increasingly unavoidable boning euphemism “Netflix and chill”. Sure, at first it just sounds like a list of things he likes about his crib – though weird not to mention the retinal-scan entry-protection system that features in the video – but Flo detailing an estate agent listing is all just pretext, baby girl. He has champagne, big fluffy bathrobes and is totally DTF.
The Strypes
Scumbag City (Virgin/EMI)
Another one from the industrious Irish roustabouts with a whiff of blues and Biactol about them. This grim snapshot of urban ennui surveys the wreckage after a typical Saturday night on the tear and shakes its head, although likening the alienated character’s inability to escape their small-town roots to a one-way traffic system seems a bit on-the-nose. Alarmingly for ones so young, it mostly sounds like the Strypes are on autopilot. Reigning shithole-chronicling champs Arctic Monkeys can certainly rest easy.
Jean-Michel Jarre ft Little Boots
If..! (RCA)
The sexy synth Gandalf has just released a bonkers new team-up album that sees him knob-twiddling with the Korg de la Korg of electronic music, from Armin van Buuren to Fuck Buttons to Air. Some of the tracks are even pretty good, but this vanilla effort with Little Boots is one of the more bubblebath ones, a song so urgently in need of a tune-up or turbocharge they ended up lobbing an exclamation mark into the title to try and give it some oomph.
Fleur East
Sax (Syco)
The 2014 X Factor runner-up who gazumped Uptown Funk has just released her debut single proper, a sombre and surprisingly moving tribute to Stooges saxophonist Steve Mackay. Just kidding: it’s a plutonium-powered hi-NRG banger built around a skronking sax sample. Is it actually any good? At time of going to press, East had only released a 15-second preview snippet that sounded like you could splice it into the Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack without any major probs, so all signs point to yes.
Click here for a 15 second snippet, yes 15 whole seconds, of Sax
