Vybz Kartel
My Crew (Mixpak)
Of all the nicknames and AKAs in the world of music, is there a better one than "World Boss"? I recently visited Gaza City in Portmore, Jamaica, where the World Boss, AKA Vybz Kartel, AKA Adidja Palmer, is the landlord/lord of the manor of rows of houses, many of which are decorated with murals of his divine countenance. While he awaits trial on a murder charge in the Horizon Adult Remand Centre, Kartel's crew of ghetto youths run/self-police the area, and where epic dancehall anthems like this echo up and down the alleyways all day long. The atmosphere is heavy, romantic and dangerous, just like this [see footnote].
• This footnote was appended 15 August 2012. This review of Vybz Kartel's new single My Crew should have disclosed that Andy Capper, the author, is global editor of Vice magazine, which has a one-off agreement to distribute the physical version of Kingston Story:Deluxe Edition, the album from which the track My Crew is Taken and that Capper directed the video of the single. The omission of the declaration of interest by the Guide, which was unaware of the connection at the time of publication, is inconsistent with the Guardian's editorial guidelines.
George Michael
White Light (Island)
I've always loved this guy and his crazy, car-crashing, police-baiting antics. This one is an epic, melancholy, back-from-the-dead trip, which is apt as the cover art looks like a toothpaste advert for vampires. It evokes long London summer evenings, getting smashed on white wine with a bunch of well-dressed bears and having fun at a birthday barbecue.
Bloc Party
Octopus (French Kiss)
Of all the modern indie rockers who try to balance their earnest with pop, Kele's done it better than most. And buried underneath all the emo-ing, which caused people like the Gallaghers to write Bloc Party off as poseurs, this is a great band who are really good at playing their instruments and avoiding cliches: two highly important qualities currently overlooked by most Brit guitar fops.
Drug Church
Drug Church EP (No Sleep Records)
A young Albany, NY punk band who look like somebody kidnapped them from Sunday school, forced neck tattoos on them and made them record an EP that sounds like 90s major label hardcore bands Jawbox and Quicksand, but with Damian from Fucked Up singing. If anybody reading this gets any of those references then you're probably going to really enjoy this. For the other 99%, leave well alone.
Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo
Fields Of June ft Frank Turner (Xtra Mile Recordings)
Could a release tick any more "please do not do that" boxes than this awful, trite, cod-American gothic pile of wank? There's the inexplicably popular, smug, Stone Roses-hating ex-emo wimp Frank Turner duetting with an Australian and in the video they're pretending to be in a silent movie. There's also fedoras, fiddles and a nauseating nod to when Jack and Meg would sing together and it'd be a bit embarrassing to watch. Ten years ago you'd walk past crap like this in one of the hippy tents in the Healing Fields at Glastonbury and there'd only be six people watching. Now it's the kind of thing that's packing arenas. More proof, if needed, that the world is going to hell and there's nothing that anybody can do about it.
