News This Week In New Music (1st February 2014)

This week has witnessed several things. For starters, bands decided they’d releases EPs all in one go without making people wait. Also, FKA Twigs performed in a Mexican forest because she can, and it sounded serene and completely beautiful. A band called LYGER released one of the most inventive videos of the past several months, and Aussie pop specialists The Preatures decided they’d go one better and releasing another brilliant single. It’s been a very good week, but we decided to pick out some specific moments of excellence, a little like choosing caramels from an already delicious box of chocolates.

Here’s what happened this week in new music:

TRACK OF THE WEEK
Broods - Coattails


When Broods decided to stop mulling about, instead releasing their debut EP all at once, there’s the obvious message to fans that ‘you should be listening to all of this. Yes, it’s full of massive pop songs but try and fish them our for yourselves.’ It didn’t take long for ‘Coattails’ to stand out. Ironically, it doesn’t really ride the coattails of anything from years before. It’s shiny, sweet and yes a little bit Lorde-y, but it’s a sharp-lined giant of its own making too. “I’m in love with this,” sings Georgia Nott in a gigantic chorus worthy of a number 1 spot in some not so distant single. Wonderful. Broods are the real deal, with this EP doing everything in its power to prove as much.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Adult Jazz - Springful


Without a decent knowledge of servantry from the early ages or maybe even the skills involved in transporting people via magic moving beds, the video for Adult Jazz’s ‘Springful’ is quite confusing. What it shows, specifically, is a black caped member of the band waking up and deciding he fancies a stroll from Leeds to Brixton. Once he gets to the latter, his first wish is not to visit a hyped-up burger joint, but to check out the fruit & veg stalls. What this has to do with anything is up to you. It’s almost certainly as clever as the song itself, this video. Or it’s complete bollocks and Adult Jazz are having a field day with it. Either way, great song.

DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK
Miamigo


Brighton’s Miamigo do the whole grooving, minimal synth pop thing very well, almost as if they’ve been locked away in a basement since the dawning of time (or in more relative terms, since The xx put out their debut album), perfecting their sparse atmospheric art. In the end, debut ‘Opinions’ puts this whittling away to good use, proving there’s still life in the odd, aesthetically pleasing dog yet. Just when you think a genre’s been exhausted, out comes something like this and the wheels keep on spinning.