News The Week That Was: Azealia Banks, Lana Del Rey, Bloc Party & More

After a seemingly endless period of bank holiday Monday after bank holiday Monday, music PRs returned to their desks this week to proudly acclaim that, finally, there was some news in the music world that just had to be heard. In case your day job requires you to, y’know, actually work during the day - as opposed to spending endless hours on Twitter, or finding out all over again what ‘an indie’ was - we’ve condensed some of the more important (well, relatively speaking of course) news into one handy place.

The week began in a slightly unpredictable manner - with hyped-to-the-max and officially ‘cool’ (NME et al., 2012) rapper Azealia Banks collaborating with the Scissor Sisters, of all people. Not only was the result a pleasant surprise, but the accompanying video was (and is) also a joy. It was a good week for little old Azealia, who also announced on her Twitter that she’d be playing at this year’s Coachella.

From one buzzworthy alt female to the next, no music news round-up in 2012 would be extensive without the mention of one Ms Del Rey. The artist revealed a new track from her forthcoming debut album ‘Born To Die’, was rumoured to be working with former Fame Academy winner David Sneddon, and also unveiled the tracklisting for her hotly-anticipated-by-some debut full-length release.

Despite some circulating rumours, Bloc Party told Zane Lowe that they’d been working on new material for a fouth album. Talking of new albums, Swedish sisters First Aid Kit unveiled the video for ‘Emmylou’, a track taken from their forthcoming second record, both Sleigh Bells and The Phenomenal Handclap Band pushed back the releases of their respective second albums, Lostprophets said they’d be back with some new stuff in 2012, and Miles Kane crossed his heart and hoped to die if The Last Shadow Puppets weren’t to put out their long-awaited second album.

It was an exciting week for visuals, with Stay+ revealing their video for ‘Dandelion’, Internet Forever doing the same for ‘Happy New Year’, Youth Lagoon going all eerie with their effort, and even The Ting Tings joined in with the fun.

It was a good week, too, for independent labels announcing quirky ideas - with Cardiff’s Barely Regal Records going a little bit Richard & Judy, and Art Is Hard Records going a little bit Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (as well as giving us a new Bos Angeles song). Other quirks of the week included SBTRKT covering Friendly Fires, Egyptian Hip Hop giving Regal Safari a taste of their own medicine by remixing ‘Lake’, and The Weeknd auditioning for band members. Less quirky was the news that The Killers would return with a new album of more of the same later this year.

Other things to be aware of: a whole host of enjoyable artists and The Vaccines were shortlisted for a prize from The Guardian; next-big-thing Grimes signed to 4AD before sharing the best track of 2012 so far; Michael Kiwanuka topped the BBC Sound of 2012 poll; new songs from Thom Yorke and Enter Shikari magically appeared online; and Zooey Deschanel took a break from her not-entirely-sure-if-it’s-funny-or-not sitcom to post a song about doing something or other on a day that’s already passed.