mixtape maestro (2.0)

It’s been so long since the “Mark Ronson sound” hasn’t predominantly been horn-emblazoned, retro-soul workouts that the announcement of the superstar DJ-producer‘s third album, Record Collection, deviating away from that signature motif initially had us all scratching our heads trying to remember what else Ronson was capable of behind the boards.

Then arrived the peculiar-but-addicting, ’80′s synth-chic of the Q-Tip-blessed first single “Bang Bang Bang”, and we were instantly reminded of the genre-hopping eclecticism of Ronson’s mostly forgotten debut, Here Comes The Fuzz, a vibe he more or less seems to be returning to on Collection.

Latest album tease “Lose It (In The End)” follows “Bang”‘s lead as another left-field delight, it’s wacky arrangement evoking some sort of weird, Spaghetti western-meets-’60′s pop cartoon fantasy-land as a reverb-soaked Ronson sings (!!!!) a woeful hook about how he foolishly let a love slip through his fingers again, and a shotgun-riding Ghostface cycles through his own relationship pains while shouting out Bell Biv Devoe and Slim Shady & Kim.

Hear it below, then snatch up one of her favorite Fuzz cuts, the summery Sean Paul and Tweet-featured bouncer “International Affair”.

Record Collection drops September 27th.

Mark Ronson & The Business Intl – Lose It (In The End) (Feat Ghostface Killah)

BONUS DL: Mark Ronson feat. Sean Paul & Tweet “International Affair” (alt)

Five years after bursting onto the music scene earning all kinds of critical fanfare for their self-titled debut‘s boy/girl harmony-sweetened stabs at happy-go-lucky (at least on the surface) ’60′s folk-pop, and four years after losing much of that breakthrough momentum on a hastily released sophomore album (2006′s Those The Brokes) bogged down by over-long track lengths, English indie pop quartet The Magic Numbers have returned, armed with third project The Runaway and, likely, the hope that it will have the power to restore them to their debut heights.

So far the outlook isn’t looking so bright, but even if Runaway isn’t bringing in much praise as a whole, the set still manages to delight on individual moments.

Early album offering “Why Did You Call?” is one of those moments, nicely seeping its way into the ears with a driving, ’80′s MOR groove and the ghostly whisper-coos of female members Angela Gannon and Michele Stodart triggering an inviting late-night ambiance (while also recalling the melody of Womack & Womack’s oft-covered “Teardrops”).

Caught off guard by an ex’s phone call late one evening, Gannon and Stodart’s mesmerizing encircling vocals share the role of a woman reduced to a pile of weak-kneed mush by the sound of her former love’s voice at the other end of the line, all the headway she had achieved in getting over him dissipated in mere seconds as she regretfully finds herself unable to resist sharing one more “dance with the sinners tonight”.

This one NEEDS to be a single.

The Magic Numbers – Why Did You Call

BONUS DL: The Magic Numbers “Crazy In Love (Beyonce Cover)” (alt)

Add English five-piece Apples to the ever-growing list of acts making sure the clean-cut, Casio-laden pleasures of ’80′s-era pop are never forgotten.

On their new single “Theo”, the quintet deliver a happy-go-lucky dose of shimmering keyboards, bits o’ sax (one instrument that needs to make a major pop comeback STAT!) and sugary, multi-part vocal harmony-dipped hooks all in an attempt to get a distraught pal out of hiding.

What’s hurt Theo so bad that he hasn’t been heard from in four days? We’re not really sure, all we really learn is that something mean was said, people started talking and now the Apples are sorry (“We all make mistakes,” they earnestly apologize). What we do know is that, in this case, the narrative’s lack of detail is completely okay, as it only adds to the track’s light and fluffy charms.

Check out the video below, then have a listen to the single’s B-side, an acapella cover of The Housemartins’ 1986 UK chart-topping acapella cover of the 1985 Isley-Jasper-Isley American R&B #1, “Caravan of Love”.

DL: Apples “Caravan of Love (Isley-Jasper-Isley Cover)” (alt)

BONUS DL: The Housemartins “Caravan of Love (Isley-Jasper-Isley Cover)” (alt)

BONUS DL: Isley-Jasper-Isley “Caravan of Love” (alt)

Obviously geared more towards the “opposite” side of Everything But The Girl half Tracey Thorn‘s third solo album Love And Its Opposite, first taste “Oh The Divorces!” is a devastating one, dripping blue melancholy at every turn as Thorn bemoans the many marriages fracturing around her.

Tracey’s voice lacks none of the throaty, reserved beauty it has soothed listeners with for three decades now and here, when pressed against what opens as a stark piano lullaby, her calmed vocal touch proves even more arresting, evoking a tinge of exasperation when she’s hit with the news that yet another close friend’s relationship is in dissolution.

From there, all types of emotions are sparked as she wonders aloud if she could have somehow softened some of her friend’s pain by giving her an earlier heads-up (“I should have guessed that day that his phone wouldn’t take your text”), fires curses at the cheating beau (“He was a charmer, I wish him bad karma”) and then starts to question the strength of her own relationship (“I examine my heart/ See how it stands, wonder if it’s still in safe hands”). Most crushing though, is when she begins to list the further consequences oft overlooked when one initially walks down the road of infidelity: “Now there’s kids to tell, and legal bills, and custody…”.

Sigh. This one will have you yearning for a drink (and the instant need to phone your mate to make sure everything’s still on the up-and-up) when it’s over.

Love and Its Opposite arrives May 18th on Merge. Look for the single’s 7″ vinyl release, featuring a cover of Vampire Weekend’s “Taxi Cab” as its B-side, on Record Store Day, April 17th.

DL: “Oh, The Divorces!” (alt)

BONUS DL: Everything But The Girl “Kid (Pretenders Cover)” (alt)

After bringing about more than a few scratched heads over recent track “I Just Love You More”‘s polarizing attempt at a punk chick makeover, Kate Nash makes the world right again with the welcomed return-to-(snarky/ perky)form that is new single, “Do Wah Doo”.

Helmed by producer, and former Suede guitarist, Bernard Butler (Duffy, Black Kids), “Do Wah Doo” buzzes with a playful jumbling of familiar ’60′s pop conventions (radiant girl group harmonies, handclaps, zinging surf guitar, blaring horns) all congealed into a thickened Wall of Sound.

Beneath the happy-go-lucky framing, however, things aren’t as sunny, as Kate is heard spewing all type of “hateration” towards a girl hogging the secret object of her affection’s eye. “Everybody thinks that girl’s a lady/ But I don’t, I think that girl’s shady,” Nash pouts on the sidelines, even going so far as to tag the crush-stealing cow a “bitch”.

Interestingly enough, just when you think she’s about to fight for her man “Jerry Springer”-style and get this fizzy pop confection the happy ending conclusion the upbeat arrangement all but demands, Nash opts to give him up, resigning to “read a book instead” because “I can hang out with myself”.

Hmmm…it’s not the most sassiest way to go out, but whatever, jerk’s loss; we’re just happy to have the undeniably catchy nugget-crafting Kate Nash we love back.

From her April-set second LP, My Best Friend Is You.

With most of the appeal of Ellie Goulding‘s current UK smash “Starry Eyed” lying in the sonic dramatics of producer Starsmith‘s slathering of dance-tronica sparkle, we didn’t think there would be anything remotely interesting about a stripped-down version of the tune that completely does away with his toilings…that is, until we heard this acoustic take Ellie brought to the BBC Live Lounge studios last week.

Aiding in quieting critical murmurs that she’s somewhat of an inconsequential vocalist, Goulding takes hostage of your full attention from the first moment she opens her mouth here and never lets go, exposing striking, quiver-and-rasp nuances in her child-like coo that could be barely heard underneath all of the studio version’s production pizazz.

We get why her industry backers would want to push Ellie as the “new La Roux” for the moment (with electro-pop being all hot and whatever right now), but hearing her in folksy singer-songwriter mode here as us thinking it’s a style she should be relying on more for future albums.

Lights, Goulding’s debut, drops in March.

DL: “Starry Eyed (Acoustic ‘Live Lounge’ Performance)” (alt)

After dwelling in the dark and moody on the 80′s sci-fi-meets-’70′s soul curiosity “Stylo”, cartoon collective Gorillaz offer a much-welcomed return trip to the lighthearted pop end of their stylistic spectrum for newest Plastic Beach tease “Superfast Jellyfish”.

Goofily sculpted as a three minute long advert of a microwavable breakfast dish that we’re sure is meant to be a metaphor for something deep (sans helpful lyric sheet, we won’t even try to figure out what it’s really going on about), “Jellyfish” is definitely a strange lil’ concoction; at the same time, it’s also one that won’t easily be escaping your brain anytime soon, thanks to convivial cameos from De La Soul and Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys and an irresistible schoolyard funk groove that’s just begging for a third guest spot turn from that other great animated band, Fat Albert & The Junkyard Gang.

Snatch up a radio rip of the track (shouts) below; pre-order Plastic Beach here for the single CD version or here, for the CD/ DVD combo.

DL: “Superfast Jellyfish (Radio Rip)” (alt)

Previously heralded for sunny, handclap-laden singles that worked a Motown-influenced, ’60′s girl group pop bop angle with bliss-inducing results (“Add Your Light To Mine, Baby”, “Woah Billy”, “White Russian Doll”), Lucky Soul venture a bit darker sonically on new track “A Coming of Age”, the title cut from the British six-piece’s upcoming second set featuring lead singer Ali Howard’s coquettish coos housed within a dramatic display of waltz swing patterns and Bond-esque guitar figures.

The reason for all this grandiose hullabaloo? Some man done done Ali wrong, shattering her young heart and leaving her “cling(ing) to the floor”, fingering the still warm footprints that trace his pathway out of her life. “I thought a friend meant someone to depend on/ Call it a coming of age…come too late,” she sings, the brief pause before those last three words bulging with all kinds of unstated ache and confusion.

Awww. Makes you wanna pull her into a tight embrace and let her know that everything’s gonna be alright.

Pick it up below or as a free download from their website, then proceed to lift your spirits back up with a viewing of their peppy “White Russian Doll” clip.

A Coming of Age, the album, arrives April 19th through Ruffa Lane Records.

DL: “A Coming of Age” (alt)

On her critically acclaimed 2007 debut Made of Bricks, indie-pop singer-songwriter Kate Nash got plenty of mileage out of her winning, Lily Allen-esque mix of the sweet and the sour (the sweet being her cutesy, sing-talk delivery and the album’s surplus of perky, piano-pop melodies; the sour being colorful lyrics anchored in titles like “Dickhead” and “Shit Song” that called out sucky boyfriends).

For “I Just Love You More” though, an early taste of her forthcoming sophomore effort My Best Friend Is You (and an obvious by-product of her days playing bass and singing in the punk-based side project The Receeders), there’s little traces of sugary sweetness found in it’s initially shocking riot grrl assault of thrashing guitar and screaming yelps.

As feedback-clouded axe work paint a dark and Hell-ish ambiance around her, Nash spews “I just love you more/ I just love you more…than anything” over and over, her vocals growing more and more intense in each repeating until she reaches an orgasmic peak of furor, her obsessive adoration far too powerful a force to keep bottled in any longer.

A bit creepy? Yes. A little too unrefined? Sure (it registers more as a sketch of a tune than an actual full-bodied song). But if judged without taking into consideration the far different sound of Nash’s previous album (as difficult as that may be), it actually works, sufficiently handling the riotous, Karen O-inspired mood it’s obviously going for. We just don’t know if we could handle an entire full length of such an extreme about-face, if that’s indeed what Kate has planned.

We’ll see when the rest of My Best Friend Is You arrives in April.

DL: “I Just Love You More” (alt)

Bonus DL: Kate Nash “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You (Black Kids Cover)” (alt)

British electro-pop singer/ songwriter/ producer Dan Black shook up the music blog scene back in 2008 with his mash-up-to-the-next-level “HYPNTZ”, a half-sung cover of Notorious BIG’s “Hypnotize” backed by an entrancing beat that merged bits of Rihanna’s “Umbrella” with parts of the soundtrack to John Carpenter’s 1984 sci-fi flick Starman. In short, the aural patchwork was utterly brilliant, the kind of stop-you-in-your-tracks introductory record that instantly had you eager to hear more of what this genre-blurring newbie (a sort of modern-day Beck) had to offer in the future.

Two years later, on the eve of the U.S. premiere of his all-originals debut UN (due February 16th, and featuring the Kid Cudi-featured remix of his non-Biggie-”borrowing” “HYPNTZ” rewrite “Symphonies”), Black has put together six more of these dope mix-and-match creations for his new (and free!!) mixtape Weird Science.

You can fnd the entire set here, but check out a couple of our highlights, the Madonna & Kate Bush-fusing “Gimme Into The Cloudbusting” and “Slave To Paper” (a gorgeous synthesis of some hazy 80′s pop number, Dizzee Rascal’s “Stand Up Tall” and a teeny-weeny drum snippet of Missy Elliott’s “Beep Me 911″) below:

DL: “Gimme Into The Cloudbusting” (alt)

DL: “Slave To Paper” (alt)

…And for your viewing pleasure, here’s the video to the “Symphonies (Remix)”: