PICK OF THE WEEK
Foals
Spanish Sahara (Sub Pop)
You probably know this one already, either from its appearance in the trailers for Entourage or the weird, glaciers-and-black-seas-and-animal-carcasses video. By turns fragile to the point of snapping, and then massing into a vast oceanic swell of deafening balls-outery, it is faultlessly deft in its tension-and-release dynamic and has been beefed up to even greater thunder by the presence ofthe London Contemporary Orchestra. And how painful a couplet is "And I see you lying there/Like a Li-lo losing air"? Awesome. Right, now let's slag some stuff off ...
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK
Mystro
Digmund Freud EP (Self Destruct Music)
But not yet. There are two British rap rekkids in this week's pile, a small victory in itself. One of them, Bashy's Fantasy, is a bit rubbish and will almost certainly trouble the upper reaches of the charts; this one, conversely, is not, and probably won't. Main track Don't Worry About It is a thoroughly warm, good-natured and disarmingly lush and languid hymn to maintaining personal peace, with Mystro packing a swaggery, sing-song flow, and a blowsy, jazzy chorus from Baby Sol, who apparently does back-up vocals for the inestimably irksome Paloma Faith. You're wasted in that gig, luv.
Tensnake
Coma Cat (Defected)
The summer is over – in fact, being from Wolverhampton, it never actually happened for me – but nobody has told Marco "Tensnake" Niemerski, whose Coma Cat (despite a title that makes one slightly sad simply to ponder the concept contained therein) is an unseasonal delight of Balearic loveliness in the late-80s style, with its skittering bongos, flatulent bass and kiddy-keyboard stabs. A "big choon", as I believe is the common parlance.
Bashy
Fantasy (Ggi)
These are golden times indeed for British MCs in terms of chart invasion, and nobody can blame the likes of Bashy for making hay in this latest chink of sunlight, but really, Mr Bash, interpolating Baby D as your chorus simply will not do. Endearingly daft lyrics, mind: apparently, being a rich person involves "Paris at the weekend, Barca on a weekday/Shopping on Knightsbridge, bidding on eBay." Yep, you just can't stop those ruddy aristocrats partaking in online auctions, can you?
Alex Gaudino
I'm In Love (Ministry Of Sound)
Let's get something straight right now: you're reading The Guide, for your sins, and so the euphoric handbag daftness of Mr Gaudino, cheesier than a mouse's wedding buffet, holds no interest for you. However, somewhere in Ibiza last month, a provincial bank teller probably experienced a spiritual E-stoked epiphany to this kind of faux-orgasmic nonsense, and who are we to rain on her parade? WHO ARE WE TO JUDGE THAT GIRL?
