Crocodile MUSIC NEWS

Polock - Fireworks (Eim Ick Remix)

(Photo: Carlos Rodrigo)

Look at Polock. A crowd full of potential, no? The sort of guys who’d stay up all night sharing their drugs with you before offering consolation when your other half dumps you for it the next morning. This Eim Ick remix of “Fireworks” puts you similarly at ease, trapped vocals, a reliable four-four beat and sunshine synths combining to sound like something The Field might make if he had no qualms whatsoever about being positive, if his ecstasy wasn’t always tinged with regret. Find more of the same on the Spanish quintet’s album Getting Down From The Trees, out now through Mushroom Pillow.

Sister Crayon - Still The Same Person .)

I am frequently so pleased that the MPC exists, but it’s usually when someone is taking it to another place (See: All things Araabmuzik). But this is not hip-hop production or dance music, it’s sultry indie. Sister Crayon’s “I’m Still The Same Person” is creating sounds of computer mainframe gone haywire over military drums, all the while, singer Terra Lopez’s operatic yearn is forging the charge for something lush. If you’re a fan of Warpaint or still obsessed with Cat Power’s What Would The Community Think? (specifically her cover of Smog’s “Bathysphere”), this is a band to get on board with. Their album Bellow comes out February 22 on Manimal Vinyl.

Asobi Seksu - Trails (Mirrors’ Un Autre Monde Remix)

(Soando como o devaneio de uma criança particularmente sábia. ” so para a gratia”)

I’m a pretty hardcore kinda guy, so I’m able to see straight through the fact that when most bands call themselves “pretty” what they’re really saying is that they are dull people who don’t have a clear enough idea about what they’re doing to do anything other than something hopelessly weak. Asobi Seksu aren’t like that. Their new album Fluorescence (out February 15 through Polyvinyl) is basically the sonic equivalent of that photo up there; colourful, playful, fluttery and—yes—very, very pretty. But in a hardcore sort of way. Because I’m a hardcore kinda guy. Here, Mirrors do what their name promises, their remix of “Trails” headspun in flurries of percussive confetti and sounding like the daydream of a particularly wise toddler.

It’s hard to deny that the best music being made today revels in nostalgia when it sounds exactly like my brain did when I still went to bed before the sun went down and I didn’t know what sex was. There is a questing haze to Lemonade’s remix of “Clotheslines”, though, that prevents it from seeming overly maudlin or sadsack. When you pair the sedate warmth of that group’s sound with SAADI’s yearning vocal, you get something so emotionally moving it can’t be anywhere other than here and now. Even more irrefutable is the concrete (well, cardboard and vinyl) existence of the 7-in.ch and 12-inch record itself, out now through Dither Down.

dance dance dance .)

The greatest thing about this track isn’t its jaw-dropping beauty. I mean, it is so beautiful it’ll make all your teeth rattle, but it’s also an incredibly exciting record: marking the point where someone from Night Slugs’ extended family figured out how to make music you wouldn’t get laughed at for calling “pop”. Night Slugs is hands down running London at the moment, and though Egyptrixx hails from Toronto, the thought of house and bass pressure like this creeping into the UK charts is enough to make me giddy. Shout out to Trust for making “Chrysalis Records” work—here’s hoping more of the same lies in wait when Bible Eyes arrives on February 9.

A song for the lovesick, the physically unwell, the crestfallen and anyone who secretly enjoys that sensation when tears start biting at your temples.Harry Granger-Howell named himself well—Lonely Galaxy’s lament for “Modern Romance” isn’t anything new, but then that’s the whole point, I suppose. Heartbreak will always be heartbreak, whatever the decade. In the tight, solemn atmospheres of his new release EP2, out c/o the heroes at Transparent on December 6, Harry may have found a voice to echo glumly down through the ages.

Everything Everything - Photoshop Handsome (Disclosure Edit)

If you’ve heard Everything Everything’s original version of “Photoshop Handsome” and weren’t boggled enough by it, this gloopy, ebbing Disclosure edit of the track should make you content. The London-based teenage brothers slap Jonathan Higgs’ vocal around like Ali would a punchdrunk “opponent”, fading it down and back in again in a way that’d be irritating if the synth beds it fell into and rose from each time weren’t so lush and liquid. Find that original through Geffen January 17.

Anika - Yang Yang

Is three years enough time for a song to attain the sort of ‘cult classic’ status that gets you into a Tarantino film? Kill Bill: Vol. 3 is supposed to arrive in 2014, and if the director still has his ear to the turf he should be able to discern the strutter funk bassline of this come rumbling up through it. Make it the theme, Quentin, and not just because Anika looks a little like Uma Thurman’s lead turn, but because “Yang Yang” is one of those rare tracks that is just undeterrably fucking cool. It’s taken from Anika’s self-titled debut album, out October 25 though Geoff Barrow’s (Portishead, Beak>) Invada in Europe, and Stones Throw in the US and Japan.

Husky Rescue is a sled ride down an ice-covered mountain. “Fast Lane” is slick pop music, replete with fuzzed guitars and soft keys. The sweetly sung vocals add a romantic layer to what is their chill-you-to-the-bone version of post-punk. If you check out the Helsinki five-piece’s music videos, then you know they are committed to spooking you a bit. The special edition of their fourth album, Sound of Light, is out today on Catskills.

Hands up who heard that “Sweet Disposition” song and thought The Temper Trap were a bunch of maudlin, sadsack crybabies? I’ll admit it, my hands are raised dumbly skyward, but listen to the original version of this and you’ll hear Penguin Prison didn’t have to slip too many happy pills in the Australian band’s limeade to get the party started, this remix of “Resurrection” surrounding Dougy Mandagi’s reaching falsetto with just a touch more disco glitz/funk flourish. Find more remixes of the songs that comprised TTT’s debut album Conditions on Conditions - Remixed, out November 1 through Infectious.