PICK OF THE WEEK
Chase & Status
Blind Faith (Mercury)
Whatsoever dark magics and powers Chase & Status are calling upon, I know not, but this is the second time that one of their ridiculously overwrought pop-hop juggernauts has ploughed into my pile and, despite every pop-critic bone in my flabby body telling me that they are just AWFUL and proffer all the subtlety of a killer whale attempting erotic coupling with a seahorse, one just finds it impossible not to be buoyed up and borne unto the firmament by their mastodon drums, vast volcanic clouds of strings and him-her vocal histrionics. Probably crap, but definitely ace.
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK
Jim Noir
Zooper Dooper EP (jimnoir.com)
With his bizarre, jolie laide face, daft hats and videos with massive chickens and dancing football gnomes, it's easy to laugh at Jim Noir, but it's much more rewarding to laugh with his baffling little flights of eccentricity, which on this six-track EP take in authentic funk, classic English psychedelic daftness, weird High Llamas-style sonic textures, and the lovely Do You Like Games? which boasts the brilliant opening lyric "Saw her coming and she made my day/ Then I tripped and got in her way". We've all been there.
Talib Kweli
How You Love Me (Duck Down)
About 13 years ago, Talib Kweli sent me an angry fax taking me to task for a tongue-in-cheek (but essentially correct at the time) article I had written called Why Women Can't Rap. It was a load of disappointingly patronising guff about how "woman is closer to the rhythms of Earth" and stuff like that, and it predisposed me against him as a bit of a sanctimonious berk. So it's rather galling to note that this, with its queasy synths and sparse drum-slaps, is rather excellent and that it's only one of the middling tracks on his Gutter Rainbows album too. Gah!
Tinchy Stryder
Let It Rain/Gangsta (Island)
One desperately wants to dislike the current Brit-hop pack, with their stupid names and enthusiastic humping of the leg of the top 10, but this is entirely acceptable and really rather stirring in an Empire State Of Mind way, with the added bonus that it doesn't have Alicia Keys on it. The AA side, which features Tinie Tempah, is a much more straight-up attempt at a Swizz Beatzy headcracker, but its rawness is tempered (tempahed?) somewhat by the fact that both the men making the big noise are such shortarses.
Creep
Days (Young Turks)
This has Romy from the xx on breathy, insubstantial vocals, which I gather is something to be excited about, but I can't imagine any listening environment where this lurching electro-goth would be appropriate, except perhaps the denouement of a torture porn film in which a brutalised surviving heroine lurches towards freedom. Which is probably not what they were aiming for.
