It is time once more for a little snippet of the newer music that has caught my ear...
Let's open with the first single release from the widely-anticipated (not least by me - I adore the woman!) new EP
Mi Senti by Róisín Murphy, a collection of innovative cover versions of standards by Italian singers - icons of ours including Mina and Patti Pravo, as well as Gino Paoli and Lucio Battisti. This is her version of a classic by the latter, it's
Ancora Tu:
An utterly beautiful track I heard recently on BBC Radio 3's fantabulosa
Late Junction show, here's the
Thievery Corporation featuring Lou Lou Ghelichkhani and
Décollage. Cocktails, anyone?
From the sublime to... How about something gayer than Elton John and Freddie Mercury in the back of a pink mini? Balancing queeniness with sleaze, here's
Naked Highway and their cover of the late, great Laura Branigan's gay anthem for the poppers era,
Self Control - it's camp-tastic!
Much more classy is the New Order-tinged sound of
Client, with a rather mysterious video for their new single -
Refuge:
Miss
Neneh Cherry is back (having recently
celebrated her 50th birthday), complete with a critically-acclaimed new "left-field artistic project" (that's music-journo-speak for "new album")
Blank Project, which promises a departure from the familiar "Buffalo Stance" type pop for which she is remembered. Here is her new single, a collaboration with the equally nuts fellow Swede
Robyn and
Out Of The Black, complete with its odd "home video". The song is quite good, actually, if your eyes can stop watching the sub-Reynolds Girls action:
As exciting is the return - with her first ever solo album
Stockholm [and she, alongside Miss Cherry, is one of the artists appearing at this year's
Meltdown Festival] - of the legendary Miss
Chrissie Hynde! She's wearing
Dark Sunglasses:
"Lost" tracks by ground-breaking artists always make the news (and of course boost sales), but when it's Grace Jones covering Gary Numan's dystopian anthem
Me I Disconnect From You [released as part of the
newly-remastered re-released version of her seminal 1981 Nightclubbing album], then it is very special indeed:
Speaking of "comebacks", it seems like ages since we heard anything from the pioneering Brighton dance music combo
The Freemasons, but apparently they've been keeping themselves busy producing music for others, such as this sublime piece. It's Pegasus featuring Chloe Wolf and
Gorecki:
This song is simply brilliant! Many thanks again to the lovely Henry at
Barbarella's Galaxy for highlighting it - it's the magnificent tonsils of Miss
Kimberly Davis and the Dave Audé remix of her single
With You:
But to finish, this may possibly be my weirdest discovery yet from that land of mystery, Japan - famously described by
Dom Lawson in The Guardian as
"a collaboration between Slipknot and Aqua", it's Babymetal and (fortuitously on Easter Sunday)
Gimme Chocolate!! Bizarre...
As ever, enjoy - and let me know your thoughts!