Monarchy – Living Without You (MK Letting Go Remix)     4/5

The modern master of the remix Marc Kinchen brings us back to the early 1990s with his latest work – a disco remix of Monarchy’s funky number.

Dark tones of robotic keyboard bounce up and down in a flowing melody that continues to circle throughout the four minute plus song but does not bore. Whereas often MK lets his backing beat take full charge of the tune, mixing in just a single word or line from the song which he is remixing, on this occasion he lets the full vocals of Ra Black sound out from around the minute mark in his edit.

With the lyrics still accompanying and complimenting the rhythm rather than driving it along though, this tune is all about that electronic backing. And it’s truly tantalising producing from the Detroit electronic artist.

The Pierces – Kings     3/5

Sisters Allison and Catherine Pierce return with their powerful new record Kings, the second single to be taken from their upcoming album Creation to be released in September.

A basic backbeat made up from guitar and keyboard work supplies the foundations for a fast flowing vocal melody from the Alabama-born siblings that carries the number. The verses are smart and maintain interest by rising and falling nicely in tone and power through the powerful vocals on offer.

The chorus then offers a rising harmony which is barely original, and the repetition of this bracket becomes increasingly agitating as the song draws on. Good vocal work and songwriting without a distinctive edge.

Heart to Heart – Mentirosa     4/5

Heart to Heart have diverted from their previous punk-rock roots to take on a harsher, heavier tone in their music ahead of the release of their new album Dulce
– and it suits them well.

A plucked guitar twang opens up the number in intelligent manner, and this progresses nicely to introduce a heavier instrumental lay down and rough, fitting vocals before an anthemic if slightly predictable chorus.

The vocals really come into their own during the second verse as they begin to sound out over the strong instrumental backing. Breaks between chorus and verse are dealt with well so as to not invite on monotony too, with a cooled bridge leading on to subdued clean vocals late in the third verse to separate it from the previous offerings.

The lyrics could do with a little more depth and meaning but this is a neatly put together track that showcases some good work from the band.

Handguns – Sleep Deprived     2/5

American four-piece Handguns don’t hang around waiting to get their latest effort off to a quick start. Neat instrumental work heavy on riffs familiar to pop-punk play out over vocals shouting about the past woes of a lost relationship. Not much differentiating from genre conventions then, but the chorus is catchy and the chantable lyrics will work well on the live stage.

The tune is slowed down to acoustic pace for a few seconds late on before bursting back into that repeated chorus. It’s a number that will likely appease current fans and is capable of showcasing instrumental talent, but without a distinguishing selling point, it does leave you hoping that more unique efforts await when the band drop their upcoming album on 7 July.

★ RECORD OF THE WEEK ★

Kanye West – God Level (prod. By Hudson Mohawke)     4/5

Glasgow’s own Hudson Mohawke has been living the high life lately after leaving the land of Sub Club and Rubadub Records for the planes of Hawaii to turn producer for Kanye West.

Mohawke is now a full-time member of Kanye’s G.O.O.D music label, and he’s once again the producer behind the latest track to come forward from West. The track, entitled God Level, seems to be (an albeit pretty impressive) leftover, from the rapper’s coveted Yeezus, and debuted in the latest Adidas World Cup advert, featuring Lionel Messi & co.

Trap drums cue an exotic feel from the start that let you see why the track seemed appropriate for Adidas’ Rio de Janeiro-bound advertisement, all the while applying the unique obscurity found throughout Yeezus to the backing track.

This is a back beat which is continually prominent, be it right in your face and blasting your ear drums or simply smashing away in a slightly more subdued manner, but it sets the scene perfectly for Kanye to drop some traditionally Kanye lyrics.

As you can imagine, then, much of Kanye’s input here involves shouting out ‘God Level’ throughout the track around lyrics that play on the opening line (‘Provide a new coffin/You don’t see murder like this this often’) to combine with the backing to form an exhilaratingly, almost tenacious carnivalistic atmosphere.

An exciting, heavy listen coming soon to a motivational YouTube video near you.

                                                                                                                                        Stuart Kenny

Just For Culture bring you all the latest reviews from the world of music, as we tackle some single releases from the second week of May. Here's our breakdown of the latest singles out right now.

Claire – Broken Promise Land (Giorgio Moroder Remix)     3/5

Italian producer Moroder returns with a futuristic remix of Claire’s latest single. The remix begins with the artist’s vocals resounding over a slow, thumping beat accompanied by a distant synth and more prominent, bouncing electronic input. 

The opening verse flows nicely into the first chorus, which doesn’t differ much from the build up, before breaking the song down with some robotic male vocals that cement the ultramodern nature of the piece. These robotics deny the number the chance to take off into the more upbeat number that the second verse threatens to bring on, but ensure the unique nature of the remix remains. An electro effort worthy of critical praise for the intricacies, but unlikely to make for comfortable regular home listening.

Little Mix – Salute (Troyboi Remix)     4/5

The girl group spawned from X Factor hit back with another single, and when Troyboi takes hold of it the track travels in an entirely different direction. After some early vocal harmonies from the four-piece group, an absolutely massive bassline drops in big enough to blast your face off. Good work from the producer to lay down his marker on the track and turn it from a pop number into a grimey hip-hop track early on.

After the bassline has calmed down, it’s a more standard hip-hop backing that accompanies Little Mix through the remainder of the song. The fast paced nature of the chorus works well with the instrumental work laid down by Troyboi, who manufactures a song that wouldn’t look out of place in the back catalogue of Destiny’s Child. This is one to be played on big speakers in a room with slamming acoustics.

Seinabo Say – Hard Time     2/5

Faded vocals start this off in a melodic, looping chant. The vocals soon grow in power as the introductory build up is met by a strong, repetitive backing formed through keyboard and bass. After a minute or so of what feels like build up, a smooth guitar interlude brings us back to the build up before the piece finally seems to move up a notch with around a minute left on the timer. A final hook from Seinabo Say as the end draws near allows a penultimate push off into a satisfactory and memorable ending, but it does feel as though it is too little, too late for this track.

Paloma Faith – Only Love Can Hurt Like This     2/5

The spectacular vocals of Paloma Faith play out over a subdued big band backing for the first verse of this track, which transforms into somewhat of a whiny love number as it hits the chorus. The song feels like it should be playing in a movie montage as a character who has recently wronged his true love stares out a rainy window, regretting his actions and remembering the good times he had with said romantic interest. A solid track from Paloma, but nothing new and nothing particularly encapsulating. The vocals get repetitive as the eponymous lyric continues to pop up, and this does indeed feel like more of a soundtrack song than a charting hit.

CHVRCHES – We Sink     4/5

The latest single to come from CHVRCHES recently released and highly acclaimed album The Bones of What You Believe, the backing track for We Sink would not have looked out of place if providing the soundtrack to a chase sequence in the Tron series. A futuristic, fast-moving and upbeat electro beat jangles and jives around behind cool vocals from lead vocalist Lauren Mayberry. 

The backing stays strong throughout as it dips and dives into different levels of electronic elation, and the vocals on top are spread out nicely enough not to give the reader the chance to get bored of the bouncy sound. Good work from the Scottish breakthrough act.

★ RECORD OF THE WEEK ★

Oliver Heldens X Becky Hill – Gecko (Overdrive)             5/5

The day that many were dreading had arrived – Oliver Heldens has released the vocal mix of Gecko, the slamming progressive electronic track that has dominated the past year in EDM from the summer festival fields to the mountainous heights of La Folie Douce in the Alps. 

The track flows with an electronic twang reminiscent of Tchami’s innovative future house genre and twerks around so unpredictably that it would seem as though no vocals could ever be introduced without compromising the unique beauty of the track. This, however, proves to be distinctly untrue.

The Voice singer and regular Rudimental feature Becky Hill was the one charged with singing on the track, and the manner in which she takes power over the build up and drops without taking away from the backing is truly impressive. Right from her entrance, Hill‘s distinctive vocals travel well as the record jumps, while also seemingly guiding the song through its various ups and downs. A great choice of vocalist by Oliver Heldens, who alongside the wonderful Becky Hill achieves what many doubted would be a possible. 

Expect to hear this go into overdrive in clubs and on the radio over the next few months.
                                                                                                                                        Stuart Kenny

In the summer of 2013, multi-millionaires Tim and Chris Vanderhook set about rebooting MySpace for a new generation. Alongside king of cool Justin Timberlake, the brothers were aiming to bring the focus of the site back to the artist, to tap into the creative class – to, as JT would say, bring the sexy back to the business. This all happened over seven months ago of course, and thus far there have been no clear signs to suggest that the Vanderhook’s $35 million investment has been justified. With the slick new design though, the musical gadgetry in full flow and the original content now taking on a whole new importance, it does seem on the surface that there is a lot to love about MySpace. Even so, something is clearly lacking.

There has been no mass influx back to the once heavyweight social networking site, no sign that it will be launching a rampage to rival Facebook and Twitter, and generally, not too much heard from the former time-stealer at all. In short, the ‘strategic vision’ of Futuresex and Lovesounds brought on by Timberlake did not seem to get the blood pumping last June.

If there is a place to begin inspecting the reasoning behind this slow start then, it is almost certainly in some of the basic account details now running on MySpace.

Although old account log in details still work on the site, the connection count of all previous profiles has been catapulted back to scratch. This means that if you once had a profile with a massive audience, you can’t simply pick up where you left off, you are expected to start all over again.

This may not be such an issue for the non-musical punters, but for the musicians and artists that the Vanderhooks are targeting, it is quite the problem. Certainly, even pre-revamp, MySpace still had a mass of web traffic arriving at its page thanks to the fact that a simple band Google search would more often than not throw up an old artist account. Google Biffy Clyro for instance and you’ll find their MySpace is the third top hit.

This is a factor that kept the hits and connections rolling in, but now it’s all gone, and it’s not easy to get back, something wonderfully shown in the profile of Justin Timberlake himself; previously the artist had 1.5 million connections, now he has just over 50,000.

The alternative to this questionable call would have simply been to leave the connections in place, allowing a load of former MySpacers to log back in and become once again hooked. I’m willing to bet that many artists who spent years in the past building up a MySpace audience for their music will not be so willing to go through the debacle again.

It’s really a shame too, because there are plenty of features to love on the site. The original material is a major bonus – the features section boasts interesting interviews, new media and the likes of a lifetime profile of Pharrell Williams, something definitely worth checking out if you have a few spare minutes. The analytical data on offer to artists offers up some pretty useful numbers too.

Certainly, the social network will continue to grow in the next year or so. They’ve got an iOS app out now and will surely have an android sibling to follow, and after racking up 31 million users just two weeks after the website’s beta period had ended, the early summer love shown to the site will be more than enough to give the team appropriate time to boost their ratings.

Yet, it’s all too easy to feel that the Vanderhooks missed a big trick by failing to capitalise on the previous communities formed on MySpace. They’ve torn down a city, given those remaining the materials to rebuild it, and expected them to get on with it without a complaint.

Well, cry me a river if it doesn’t work out Justin, because that call by the Vanderhooks was almost as awful as the sentence just typed.

Still, as Timberlake once remarked: ‘what goes around comes back around’, and if MySpace continues to reel out such fresh content, the site will undoubtedly continue to grow – not to Facebook standard, not to Twitter standard, and certainly not into the dominative force that it once was, but just maybe, it could blossom into the regular tool of the everyday musician that the Vanderhooks wished it to be.


First published at www.brignewspaper.com


Stuart Kenny