Neu This Week In New Music (14th September 2013)

Hold on to what you know or try something new. Even new bands come undone when faced with this question. Pre-debut, there’s still the temptation to change and switch styles, throw whichever new ideas crop up out of thin air, into some melting pot of potential.

But stuff that: The following standout acts from the past 7 days just refined what they did so well. Ok, it might take a game-changing sound to begin with, but JUNGLE’s tropical-disco and MØ’s jerky chant-pop are very different to anything else out there. They’ve responded by upping the anti, producing something fiercer, less limited by their surroundings. Long may it continue.

Here’s the best of what happened this week in new music:

TRACK OF THE WEEK
JUNGLE - THE HEAT


JUNGLE: Still an enigma; just two tracks in; but confident enough to announce a debut UK tour (just to prove they’re real and not someone out the Jai Paul factory). ‘THE HEAT’ carries all the staples of previous Big Song ‘Platoon’. It still songs like it could’ve been conceived somewhere between a South East Asian rainforest and the damp streets of London. It’s loaded with funk, as fresh as the wallpaper in the picture up above. It taps into a sound that’s JUNGLE’s and JUNGLE’s own, even in these early days. And that alone is enough to convince any naysayers that whoever this bugger is, they’re onto something.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK
MØ Feat. Diplo - XXX 88


MØ’s all about youth. The messy bedrooms, the flag waving, the motorbike riding in a massive desert. You know, that kind of thing. Stereotypical, MØ is not. That’s part of what makes her so exciting. But to couple a song as boiled-up and ready for action as ‘XXX 88’ with some similarly coffee buzzed, boundless energy-ish visuals - that’s a smart move. The punk icon for a post-MTV generation of wasted youth? That’s what MØ wants to be - and she’s not far away from becoming just that.

DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK
FFNORDZZ


Just as Arctic Monkeys aim high with more muscular, swaggered rock ‘n roll, they shake the shackles of some clever, catchy riffage. FFNORDZZ initially sounds like he’s picking up the scraps in latest track ‘Pop Stardom’. That’s until the song morphs into a sickly, puke-wave bout of guitar-flu. Disgusting, and brilliantly so, FFNORDZZ’s approach is half sarcy, half an earnest love for noise-led explosions. One to keep an eye on.