Heads up for this week’s batch of single releases (well the ones I have an opinion on).
A couple of things pleasantly surprised me today, a couple of things horrified me. It was like a night out with my hard drinking grandmother. Oh the nightmares, they won’t leave me alone.
The good news is that I’ve just discovered Keziah Jones (very late, I have to shamefully admit) and am off to Spotify to find out more. I’ll leave you in the fine company of Drums Of Death, 6 Day Riot, The Roots featuring John Legend and, like the person at a party that no-one admits to having brought, Eliza Doolittle.
Keziah Jones ‘Lagos vs New York (Gilles Peterson Remix)’
Nigerian Fela Kuti/Hendrix disciplie Keziah Jones lets our own Gilles Peterson loose on a remix of his ‘Lagos Vs New York’ track (watch an acoustic performce of the song above). Taken from his ‘Nigerian Wood’ album, Peterson here speeds thing up a little while managing to both recall classic afrobeat and make the song a more dancefloor friendly outing.
6 Day Riot ‘Take Me’
I seem to be a bit mixed-up, I thought these guys were a Emo kinda proposition. I’m pleasantly surprised to discover they aren’t. Not because I dreaded three and a half minutes of ‘My dad never said he loved me’ complaining over noisey guitars, but because ‘Take Me’ is really quite good. There’s something a bit Ting Tings in the delivery but yeah, I’d recommend this. In fact, I just did.
Drums Of Death ‘Won’t Be Long’
We love a bit of Drums Of Death round these parts even though the promo of his debut album had a kooky ‘piracy is bad’ voiceover every two minutes which was amusing at first but gradually wore very thin. We won’t that against him though as long as he keeps turning tracks like ‘Won’t Be Long’ out. Look out for the helium voiced chipmonk when things go temporarily ‘Prodigy’ in the middle.
John Legend and the Roots ‘Wake Up Everybody’ (feat Melanie Fiona and Common)
Unfortunately I’ve never found The Roots to be as good as their premise, a great live band playing hip hop. ‘Wake Up!’, the lead track off their album with John Legend, is pleasant enough if a bit smooth for my ears (it’s a cover of an old Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes song). Read Clash’s review of the ‘Wake Up!’ album HERE.
Eliza Doolittle ‘Rollerblades’
There’s something horribly studied about Eliza as if she underwent months of consumer group testing before being unleashed on us. I’m not even sure who she’s marketed at. The kids have got Justin Beiber and everyone is surely too savvy to fall for this shit? Everyone? No?
And, as YouTube user ‘MrBennish’ notes, “the song’s called ‘Rollerblades’, so she spends the entire video on a bike”.
