Pick of the week: Fol Chen, Cable TV (Asthmatic Kitty)
It's rare that a track could reach POTW status by virtue of being the 180-degree opposite of another release on this page - the deafeningly dreary new White Lies single. Truth be told, Fol Chen would have swung it anyway with this sitar-starring Club Tropicana for the hip-pop age. "Now here we are by the pool of this motel, getting dizzy from the spritzers and the desert heat..." purr the quasi-mysterious Californians who wear masks over their heads in promo shots but may or may not also be members of tremendous LA noise punks Liars. Not that you'd ever, ever have guessed that if I hadn't just told you.
Animal Collective, My Girls (Domino)
I know, I know, this is the bit where my eyes are supposed to glaze over as I give thanks for the fact that - after nearly an entire decade of giving and never asking anything in return - the perennially overlooked, tireless sonic innovators known as Animal Collective will finally receive their dues as this, the lead-off single from their ninth, career-defining album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, is released to near-omnipotent rapture. Only what I'm actually thinking is: didn't Fuck Buttons make a better experimental-psych record last year? And it only took one try to get it right.
Peter Bjorn And John, Nothing To Worry About (Universal)
Even Edith Bowman, the most listlessly opinionated woman to have ever had music wafted in her direction, said on the radio this one "took a few listens". Presumably, a playlist-friendly way of saying it's a sack of Swedo hipster balls. After triumphing with the whistle, PB&J pepper their new single with the second most irritating noise ever: the cloying sound of happy children chanting. More annoying than Jay-Z sampling Annie? Christ, it's even worse than DANCE by Justice.
KIG Heads, Shoulders, Knees N Toes (Mile Records)
If Bobby Gillespie's early noughties politicking was to be believed, the Thatcher government purposefully flooded heroin into UK estates to keep the disenfranchised masses docile. Taking that theory to its natural conclusion, the current epidemic of kids getting funky with their joints to a ragga'd up nursery-room staple is clearly the work of the health minister in conjunction with a renegade army of PE teachers. Leaking shonky exercise routines on to YouTube and filmed using Tuesday's Year Six detention class, they hope to have halved levels of obesity among 11 to 17-year-olds by summer 2010.
White Lies, Farewell To The Fairground (Polydor)
We kind of covered this one at the top left of the page, so I thought I'd just bang on about my new favourite band, Vistoso Bosses, here instead, yeah? Great. VB are 17-year-old Taylah A and her 16-year-old sister-in-fabulous Kelci, who live in Atlanta, Georgia and are a bit like a smooth, R&B version of scary girl duo Shampoo. Delirious is the single, although personally I'm all about Boy Crazy which makes me giggle almost as much as that White Lies line about the ice thawing in this dying town.
