Art Department Feat Seth Troxler
Living The Life (Crosstown Rebels)
Here, Canadian duo Art Department attempt to confront us with awkward questions about life, death and working 9-5 in a job you hate. It's like the Smiths' Frankly Mr Shankly, only rendered in sad, sparse, evocative techno. Some of you may find this interrogation a bit rich coming from vocalist Seth Troxler, a man who earns his crust as a producer and DJ. Do a quick search for Troxler on YouTube, and you will find him, at last year's Miami Winter Music Conference, in a seriously advanced state of refreshment, conducting a TV interview in which he babbles about galactic sunbeams and fends off imaginary bats, while wearing his girlfriend's hotpants. Ironically, you might think: get a proper job, you waster. Not me. If anything, that performance just emphasises his point. Real life is rubbish.
The Decemberists
Don't Carry It All (Rough Trade)
Essentially an American civil war re-enactment society with banjos, it seems bizarre that the Decemberists' last album went to No 1 in the US. Until you hear it. Shave its beard, tuck in its plaid shirt and Don't Carry It All could – and I don't say this glibly – pass for a James Blunt single.
Glasvegas
Euphoria, Take My Hand (Columbia)
For five minutes there, Glasvegas sounded amazing. Like the Jesus & Mary Chain directed by Ken Loach. Now, the singer dresses entirely in white, they record albums in LA and, on this evidence, they've swapped Glaswegian social realism for the kind of bombastic anthems which, in all their roaring elemental passion, say absolutely nothing. This is what happens when you go on tour with U2.
Footprintz
Utopia (Visionquest)
In the last two years, electropop's stock has fallen through the floor. A genuinely dissenting subculture has been turned into a convenient platform for professionally packaged "weirdos" (Hurts, La Roux). Haircuts matter, interesting music less so. Montreal's Footprintz, however, are working to their own refreshingly incomprehensible agenda. Clunky, quirky, reticent, Utopia relies not on a big presumptuous electropop chorus, but on its own insidious melodic charm. It's an earworm. The kind that Hot Chip might produce, were they forced to rehearse in the stock cupboard at their local library.
Greg Paulus
Nightime EP (Wolf + Lamb)
A multi-instrumentalist who studied rhythm in Cuba, Greg Paulus is not yer typical "Oi! Oi!" rave monkey. One half of No Regular Play, and closely allied with New York's Wolf + Lamb label, his sound is akin to a house music heat haze; a shimmering mirage of hip-hop, 80s soul and cool jazz influences. Nothing here scales the heights of his recent tune U R (emotionally devastating Kompakt trance, with trumpets!), but the title track, particularly, is another elegant, confounding wodge of leftfield funk.
