Neu This Week In New Music (22nd June 2013)

Forget your ‘Yeezus”, your North Wests, your G8 Summits in which precisely nothing gets solved, this is where it’s at: New music is a daily comfort. Sometimes it’s like an ice cream machine that keeps dispensing the sweet stuff until your agape mouth explodes, but most of the time it’s a constant reminder of just how much there is to look forward to. Think about how it’s only a matter of time before Kitty rules the world. Consider how a band have called themselves Gay, thus heralding the dawning of a new era in band names: It can only be a matter of time before newcomers title themselves Thisty, Jovial, Melancholic, Content. And step back, think for a second, at just how freaking huge Raleigh Ritchie will become once we see his beautiful face instead of a silly pink logo. Plenty to anticipate, but here’s the best of what happened this week in new music.

TRACK OF THE WEEK
Kitty - Barbie Jeep


It might just be an off-cut, part of the Adult Swim Single Series, but ‘Barbie Jeep’ is all the proof we need that Kitty aka Kitty Pryde can get away with everything. How else do you load your song with not one, but two Harry Potter references while still sounding cool? The words ‘muggle’ and ‘wingardium leviosa’ are applied to some toad that wants to get rowdy in the club with Kitty. The tumblr kids might approve of such film knowhow, but nobody else on this planet can sound remotely cool when spitting the phrase; ‘You’re gonna pop my bubble you muggle pretend to stumble any closer.’ This is by no means the best thing she’s put her name to, but it’s a remarkable turn, a killer move to the haters.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Gay - Chrysotile


As much as this is a real jovial affair, all bodies rolling down hills, wide-eyed smiles and summer bliss, it’s the song that’s the real draw on Toronto group Gay’s latest track. The handstands and the red trousers (what were they thinking?) prove they couldn’t give a damn about how they situate themselves, and even with a band name that’d put many a foolish, cursory passer-by right off, there’s a stunningly crafted work simmering in the background. ‘Chrysotile’ is intelligent, witty on a Wave Pictures level, and totally unabashed about its surroundings.

DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK
Raleigh Ritchie


The man knows how to love, so much so he inserted a clever pun for debut track ‘A Moor’. Romantic or otherwise, information’s scarce on this emerging soul-specialist. At the moment listening to his music is a little like inspecting an online dating profile minus an attached image. What if this guy’s seedy and wears crocs? Can you see where the issue is here?

But whatever. He writes some forward-thinking, glitzy pop tracks that’ll rival any established old hard. He’s a fresh revivalism of something that was already doing quite fine, thank you.