Friday catch up!

Things have been rather busy of late and it's caused us to miss a couple of things.

Firstly, Theophilus London's new mixtape, I Want You, has finally been released and that's the artwork below. You can download it for free from here, and a very good listen it is too.

FACT: The cat in the picture belongs to TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek.

Interestingly, we're kind of linked to a minor beef that is taking place between Theophilus and The Guardian's Paul Lester. We won't explain it, best just to pop over and give it a read. WARNING: It's like Biggie vs. Tupac all over again.

Also, Kele from Bloc Party is on a bit of a break from the band and has decided to launch a solo career (as has Brandon Flowers from The Killers, in what must be one of the most expected moves in music history). This is Kele's first single, taken from the album The Boxer, and it's a beat-heavy, 'Wearing My Rolex'-cribbing dance behemoth:



Finally, Hurts are back with their first single proper, 'Better Than Love'. It also has a video, which resembles some kind of sequel to Tipping The Velvet, but a little more lesbian.

"You take all my money / You take all my weed"

Here's a rather lovely new Best Coast track, which is not only taken from their forthcoming album, but also soundtracks a new XBox computer game (huh!?).

Anyways, it's called 'Our Deal' and has a lovely country-ish swing and can be heard here.

Riddle me this

We love a good puzzle and we enjoy them more if they feature a current favourite and new(ish) band that sound promising.

Basically, this video appeared from nowhere for a new act called ceo:


ceo - prologue from Modular People on Vimeo.


At the same time, Musick favourites jj, posted a new song called 'ceo Birthday' and that can be heard (and downloaded) here

Now we hear that Secretly Canadian, jj's label, have announced that ceo is actually Eric Berglund from Tough Alliance and that ceo have an album coming out in June called White Magic. It's all so wonderfully intertextual. We can't wait for Christina to secretly introduce the next Britney album with the subtle, 'She's Not As Talented As Me (Or As Dirrty)'.

New Musick Monday

It's not a great week when your biggest success is a new entry at number 54. The new Hot Chip single, we hear you cry? No, that missed the top 100 altogether (yeah, no thanks to our Facebook petition, right guys?). Oh, it must have been those ABBA loving LA residents, Music Go Music? Nope, nowhere near. Yep, Caribou was our lone entry in the UK Top 75 and now that we've heard the album we can safely say it's worthy of far more, but then you could have guessed that already. Let's keep the Crystal on ice until we've dealt with these bad boys...

BUY THIS

"Hippies" by Harlem

Harlem are three wasters from Austin, Texas who clearly don't believe in politcal correctness or over-dubs. "Hippies", their second album, is a brilliantly ramshackle collection of bone-dry guitar, sloppy drums and slurred vocals that somehow flesh out some of the catchiest songs this side of The Lemonheads back catalogue. If you're still not convinced, just read some of these track titles; 'Gay Human Bones', Three Legged Dog', 'Stripper Sunset' and 'Pissed'. How can you not love these guys?

DOWNLOAD THIS (LEGALLY, OR NOT)

Crystal Castles (II) by Crystal Castles

This isn't out physically until May, but some terrible scamp has uploaded the whole thing onto the interpipe so the band have decided to make it offically available on iTunes. If, like us, you thought their first album sounded like the inner workings of a Dalek's mind, then you might be pleased to hear that the follow-up is slightly more musical. In fact, one song ('Celestica'), is actually really lovely. If something having a melody equals selling out then we can only apologise and suggest you put your head inside a microwave, record the sound and loop it ad infinium to get your kicks.

DOWNLOAD THIS

'Over' by Drake

This has been about for a little while now, but it's slowly creeping up the UK charts so we thought, given our new found influence (ahem), we'd give it that last shot in the arm it deserves. Drake, for those who don't know, is basically the future of commercial rap music, a protege of Kanye West and the man trusted with flying the flag for Lil Wayne's Young Money records whilst the boss is in the clink. 'Over' is a dramatic, paranoid slice of in your face hip-hop, complete with swooping strings, thumping beats and Drake's impassioned vocals. It's safe to say he's better than Chipmunk.

N.ot E.veryone R.eally D.igs (this)

After all the M.I.A shenanigans of last week (Musick was top of the google searches for 'Born Free', geeky fact fans), it's down to earth with a bump today. It's sad to report that the demise of the Neptunes as a producton power-house has finally been confirmed with this, the first single from N.E.R.D's fourth album, Nothing.

Featuring a fairly listless turn by everyone's favourite 'feat.', Nelly Furtado, 'Hot N Fun' (ah, that title!) is neither of those things. We can't help but think it's time for Pharrell & co. to call it a day, stop all this rock nonsense and get back to making forward thinking beats such as this humdinger.



Shame.

NEW M.I.A TRACK!

It's called 'Born Free' and it's not what you were expecting...

  M.I.A. - Born Free by TheProphetBlog

EDIT: That link has died, but here's another:



First thoughts - that Sleigh Bells collaboration is fairly obvious, but it sounds immense. Going to be HUGE.

EDIT: It now has a video (it's a bit explicit, so be careful)

He'll need some Savlon

We've kind of given up on Devendra Banhart recently, not because he lacks talent but because he's channeling those talents down some annoying '70s psych-folk noodle street, at least two miles off melody Lane. We remember when it was all gorgeously plucked acoustic ditties about spiders...

Anyways, this is the new, very much NSFW, video for the track 'Foolin', which features S&M, miraculously growing and shrinking beards, beards of a very different variety and some heartfelt acting form Mr Banhart.

'Enjoy'



You didn't even notice the song, did you?