PICK OF THE WEEK
Owen Pallett
Lewis Takes Off His Shirt (Domino)
The man formerly known as Final Fantasy has, aged 30, decided he's probably a bit too old to be putting out records under the name of a videogame. Wise move. Lewis Takes Off His Shirt is a stupidly lovely number about Inspector Morse's sidekick visiting a nudist beach (possibly). Mixing up classical strings and orchestral horns, with electronic bleepiness, it's a soaring shot of springtime that could paint itself yellow and call itself a daffodil and you'd be none the wiser.
THIS WEEK'S OTHER RELEASES
The Drums
Best Friend (Moshi Moshi/Island)
"You were my best friend, but then you died," trills frontman Jonathan Pierce perkily over guitar jangles and drum machine shimmys, sounding not unlike New Order locked in a toilet cubicle with bloody terrible acoustics. Yup, the Drums are the latest in a long line of American bands attempting to make a career out of romanticising the bleak, austere Manchester of the 80s. But the core members of the Drums used to be in a band called Goat Explosion. And they changed their name to the Drums? The mind boggles.
Eliza Doolittle
Skinny Genes (Parlophone)
Gawh blimey! If it ain't Miss Eliz-ah Doolittle-ah! Covent Garden's rowdiest flowah gal and a pretty little miss into the bargain too, guvnah! Oh, our mistake. This Ms Doolittle is in fact a north London pop lass who's been signed since she was 16, has a thing for chunky trainers, sunshine smattered 80s soul beats, uber-catchy 60s pop refrains and telling-it-like-it-is-lyrics. So far, so Lily Allen circa 2006, but what with Ms Allen's threats to quit the music industry, maybe Doolittle's the right woman to slip into those skyscraping, chart-pounding heels?
Foals
Spanish Sahara (Transgressive)
The aural equivalent of a leisurely, well-timed, deep breath of countryside air, the first four minutes of widdly math-clatter chaps Foals' comeback single are a thing of glacial, stark beauty. Yannis Philippakis's fragile falsetto hovers across sparse beats and spooky synths, crooning professionally disturbo things like, "I'm the fury in your head, I'm the fury in your bed". Then suddenly it's every man, woman and child for themselves as the track wallops into a spun-out, squiddly 5am trance-off. Pretty close to awesome.
Mariah Carey
Angels Cry (Mercury)
Whitney may have had a crack – pun totally intended – at her crown, but Mariah is still the most bonkers of all the warbling pop divas. Sadly, in recent years her music hasn't been as half as interesting as the fantabulous Mimi herself. Angels Cry is the kind of MOR, inoffensive semi-soul fodder we've had to come to expect from her, this time around with extra added blandness from Ne-Yo. Thankfully the video, with a moist Mariah mithering in the rain, preposterous sequinned gold boots, a puppy in the studio, and shameless pimping of her latest perfume, kind of makes up for it.
