This week, This Week In Records comes to you with a twist: I’m currently writing this from McDonald’s. When I typed that last sentence, I was quite excited and thought it’d give me some kind of special and exciting foundation for an introductory paragraph, but the more I type the more I realise that it just seems like a bizarre dose of confessional for a Friday morning. Anyway, here’s what you need to know: The Edge had its welcome meeting last night, Bar 3 in the Union then had free ice cream, and now we’re having an impromptu demi-committee bonding session over nuggets and milkshakes. And, being the time I’d usually set aside for trawling through the interesting musical releases in weeks (like last) in which such things were frustratingly prolific, here I am with a laptop, James Barker caring minimally about the new Kaiser Chiefs LP so I don’t have to pretend to, and a frustrating lack of barbecue sauce. If you’d like to see your upcoming release featured on this page – and you can easily bribe me with late-night condiments because integrity is overrated – then let us know by emailing us at [email protected]!
OneRepublic – Oh My My
Many things have changed since Ryan Tedder first began to apologise over Timbaland’s hollow wails back in 2007 on a song that has apparently only been out-downloaded in Germany by Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’ and a Lena track that won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2010, yet OneRepublic’s place in a vaguely Coldplay-like channel is just the same. Likely to be inoffensive, occasionally rocky, and sometimes found to have baffling levels of string-based classical instrumentation, album four comes after two singles (‘Wherever I Go’ and ‘Kids’) that appear more to be clippings from Tedder’s floor than the anthemic cuts of Native, although collaborations with Peter Gabriel, Santigold, and Cassius promise certain twists to make Oh My My sound more interesting than its cover looks.
MØ – ‘Drum’
Though they chose to cotton on to the wrong post-‘Lean On’ solo effort, preferring ‘Final Song’ to the infinitely superior ‘Kamikaze,’ it seems Major Lazer’s favourite Dane with a tricky name is finally going up in the estimations of the record-streaming public. ‘Drum,’ her latest, has been floating around for a couple of weeks courtesy of a Boohoo spot and comes in full to perfectly coincide with the stint of UK shows she’s playing. Beginning in Brighton on Tuesday and rolling through six more dates until a finale at the Roundhouse on the 22nd, she’s also bringing Nimmo (whose new “homage to London’s nightlife” ‘Dancing Makes Us Brave’ is also in today’s top releases) along for the ride. Having caught flashes of them both over the summer, there are few better lineups on the road as we kick mercilessly into October.
Kaiser Chiefs – Stay Together
Kaiser Chiefs, I hear you ask incredulously? Are they still going? The answer: they probably shouldn’t be. Carly-May Kavanagh reviewed ‘Hole In My Soul,’ the lead single of new album Stay Together, and it’s fair to say she was less than impressed. Though, ever-extravagant frontman Ricky Wilson did call the album “a gift” at Boardmasters Festival this year, so who knows? Try it and find out, now! Or don’t.
Kaskade & deadmau5 feat. Skylar Grey – ‘Beneath With Me’
@kaskade whoa… Dude… Um. Hit me up.
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) April 14, 2016
i dont know what it is. but… yeah… uh, i ended up using my melody on something else. … now its a track? https://t.co/p1pS8Ypm9x
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) April 14, 2016
eh. whatever. i say roll with it @kaskade do whatever you gotta do and we'll put it out however.
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) April 14, 2016
*six months pass, in which I listen to Kaskade’s latest version of their third stunning collaboration on SoundCloud more times than I care to admit*
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) October 6, 2016
@deadmau5 did @kaskade notify you about "Beneath me" coming out tomorrow ?
— Ryan Huck (@ryanimal34) October 6, 2016
No. lololol https://t.co/Fzn2dJOD5U
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) October 6, 2016
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Lido – Everything
I’ve said it before and, when I review it over this weekend, I will almost certainly say it again: Lido’s music is face-meltingly electric. Not convinced by ‘Murder’ and ‘Dye,’ the two singles he’s put out from it over the last fortnight? Allow me to direct you to ‘Crazy,’ the album’s first single, and its mesmerising light show. Then, instead of waiting six months à la me to discover its existence, head to lidogotlights.com to orchestrate such a thing of your own before buckling in to 47 minutes of, well, Everything.
Mahalia – ‘Mahalia’
In early 2012, Stereogum‘s Tom Breihan compiled a list of 20 bands who had named songs after themselves. Unlike the Weezers of the world, who incessantly release albums of their own name (including one, labelled Weezer (White Album), today), it takes a special kind of artist to name three solitary minutes after themselves, and somehow Breihan missed the greatest (and, to me at least, the most obvious) of them all: Daddy DJ’s ‘Daddy DJ.’ Unless Eurodance circa 2000 is something you regularly plumb, you’re more likely to recall its hooks from their appearance in Basshunter’s ‘All I Ever Wanted’ (or ‘Vi Sitter I Ventrilo Och spelar DotA,’ its decidedly more gaming-oriented and elderly Swedish version).
Quite how that all links back to Mahalia, a talented teen who was duetting with Ed Sheeran at the age of 14 and featuring on the title track of Rudimental’s latest just a year ago, I’m not entirely certain, but her latest bubbly piece of acoustic introspection does at least teach you how to pronounce her name.
Selected Other Releases
Albums
Alter Bridge – The Last Hero
Barry Gibb – In The Now
Cash+David – Side II EP
Daya – Sit Still, Look Pretty
Feeder – All Bright Electric
Girl Blue – I Am Not A Star
Green Day – Revolution Radio
GTA – Good Times Ahead
Harriet – Harriet
J Hus – Playing Sports EP
JONES – New Skin
Kate Tempest – Let Them Eat Chaos
Lemaitre – Afterglow EP
Norah Jones – Day Breaks
Phantogram – Three
Placebo – A Place For Us To Dream
Seasick Steve – Keepin’ The Horse Between Me And The Ground
Sum 41 – 13 Voices
White Lies – Friends
Singles
Baauer – ‘Paauer’
Basic Tape feat. Danny Shah – ‘So Good’
Blaenavon – ‘My Bark Is Your Bite’
Bonzai – ‘Bodhrán’
Bruno Mars – ’24K Magic’
Cirez D – ‘Backlash’ / ‘The Tournament’
Clean Cut Kid – ‘Make Believe’
George Maple – ‘Lover’
Hannah Diamond – ‘Fade Away’
Hotel Garuda feat. Violet Days – ‘Fixed On You’
James Arthur feat. SHOTTY HORROH – ‘Sermon’
John Legend – ‘Love Me Now’
Kings Of Leon – ‘Reverend’
Lady Gaga – ‘Millon Reasons’
Lane 8 – ‘With Me’
Lenno vs. Cookin’ On 3 Burners feat. Kylie Auldist – ‘Mind Made Up’
Le Youth – ‘Me Without You’
Lost Kings feat. Emily Warren – ‘Phone Down’
Louis Mattrs – ‘Bow Down’
Matrix & Futurebound feat. Max Marshall – ‘Fire’
MNEK – ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’
Nilüfer Yanya – ‘Keep On Calling’
Nimmo – ‘Dancing Makes Us Brave’
Olly Murs – ‘Grow Up’
R3hab – ‘Icarus’
Sälen – ‘Copper Kiss’
Sleigh Bells – ‘I Can Only Stare’
The Killers – ‘Peace Of Mind’
The Lumineers – ‘Boots Of Spanish Leather’
The Rolling Stones – ‘Just Your Fool’
Tinie Tempah – ‘Bounce’
Tkay Maidza – ‘Tennies’
You Me At Six – ‘Plus One’
Zeds Dead feat. Rivers Cuomo & Pusha T – ‘Too Young’
