1 UNDERWORLD
I EXHALE
The beat’s wearing stack heels, a banjo’s being twanged and the blaring hook seems to be blowing in from across the Arctic tundra. But the lead track from Hyde and Smith’s new one, Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future, is still deeply Underworld: Hyde’s psychobabbling makes twisted (non)sense, full of Ballardian urban code as the track powers forwards and upwards. Meanwhile, Hyde – who appears in the song’s video raving in a suit – says he thinks the JBO label’s Steve Hall deserves thanks, noting, “He knows when to counter our poetry with a bit of football.”
Time for the month’s best analogue bloop, Afro-disco and revivified vintage strangeness – can you defend it?
2 SHIELDS FACE TO FACE Watch out Field Music, north-east youngsters Shields have found the ‘Gabriel’ button and are using it to make elegant, sophisto-synth pop. From Feb’s How Can We Fix This LP on Kaleidoscope. Find it: SoundCloud
3 EARTH, WIND & FIRE CAN’T LET GO In tribute to Maurice White, the second track on I Am has all of his bandleading virtues: smooth, pacy locomotion, strong horns, rich harmonies as he links the hits In The Stone and After The Love Has Gone. Find it: I Am (CBS)
4 METAMONO THE ACROBATIC FLY The south London all-analogue electronicists turn their Bakelite dials to ‘further’ and locate the circuit node where acid house meets the junkyard at 76 Totter’s Lane, in frightening novelty pop style. Felt to be “too banging” for new LP Creative Listening. Find it: tinyurl.com/jumh96e
5 LAURA MVULA FT. NILE RODGERS OVERCOME Extraordinary, strident Afro-disco anthem from the Brummie soul sensation features Nile Rodgers’ bouncing guitar and a video of Mvula laying dead in a gilded cage, before being resurrected by the groove and growing wings. What a song. What a woman. Find it: YouTube
6 CAT’S EYES CHAMELEON QUEEN With ghostly choirs, stately horns and noble chords, Rachel Zeffira and Faris Badwan – who’s disinterested yet shattered – tease third Cat’s Eyes LP Treasure House. Find it: YouTube
7 CHARLES BRADLEY CHANGES Smouldering Sabs-in-soul cover, previously released for RSD and now lead single from his new LP. Check out the video of him silently emoting for six minutes and prepare to weep. Find it: YouTube 8 MASSIVE ATTACK, TRICKY & 3D TAKE IT THERE They’re together for the first time since 1994’s Protection, but the territory is altered: Take It There is piano-led and bluesy with grinding guitars and no MCing to speak of, and disturbs like an unexpected rendezvous with the buried past. Hear it on The Ritual Spirit EP. Find it: YouTube
9 THE ROLLING STONES SHE’S A RAINBOW Live in Santiago, Chile on February 3, the Stones play the Their Satanic Majesties Request fave for the first time in years. The film’s amateur, but this Englyshe-psych effusion retains its charm. Find it: YouTube
10 LUST FOR YOUTH STARDOM Lust For Youth, and indeed a distinct fondness for John Foxxera Ultravox, judging by the first single from the Copenhagen trio’s debut Compassion (Sacred Bones). Cue billowing synths, ominous breakdowns and mournful vocals bemoaning technology’s yoke. Find it: SoundCloud
11 NEW ORDER SINGULARITY (EXTENDED MIX) The Music Complete pick, elongated by the band themselves. Additional space brings alive full-on three-in-the-morning club impact with lasers (in your mind), while keeping one eye on more sinister depths. Find it: YouTube
12 KATY B X FOUR TET X FLOATING POINTS CALM DOWN With electro-movers vying for space on her new LP, this irresistible acid bubble bath with Kieran Hebden and Sam Shepherd is pure class. And is the title Cameron-baiting feminist polemic? Probably. Find it: SoundCloud
13 PRIMAL SCREAM AND SKY FERREIRA WHERE THE LIGHT GETS IN Heralding new album Chaosmosis, Bobby Gillespie exposes his inner disco demon, aided by antagonist pop star Ferreira. A blur of synths and finger clicks, this is insurrection you can vogue to. Find it: YouTube
14 THE RAVEONETTES THIS WORLD IS EMPTY (WITHOUT YOU) The Dane duo plan to release a topical song a month in ’16. Chiming with new wave synths, their opening salvo was this breathless blast of ice-cold heartbreak. Find it: YouTube
15 BLIND GUSSIE NESBIT I’LL JUST STAND AND WRING MY HANDS AND CRY What ails the ’20s ‘guitar evangelist’? All the woes that life can heap on a poor man, it seems, as he abstractly strums and murmurs his innermost being to strange internal metres only he knows. Find it: YouTube
16 JUNGLE BROTHERS I’LL HOUSE YOU The best hip house tune ever? And joy of joys, the Get On Down label have reissued it on clear-vinyl 7-inch (for that ’88 flava, you can get it with a T-shirt and the Straight Out The Jungle LP on double tape). Find it: YouTube
17 HAWKWIND THE AUBERGINE THAT ATE RANGOON (THE DEADSTOCK 33S EDIT) The ’Wind’s tripped-out ’76 instrumental, dubbed up by DJ Justin Robertson, bringing out its inner Billy Cobham to better evoke that hallucinogenic rickshaw ride backwards through time. Find it: SoundCloud
18 JAN HAMMER HAMMER TIME! An hour-long mix of the composer’s jazzfusion works, collated and curated by Manc-based DJ PP Roy. The keytar wig outs are merciless! Find it: tinyurl.com/z3cekf3
19 THE THREE DEGREES LOVE TRAIN Remaking Gamble & Huff greats, the Degrees shocked us as they sang, “the next stop that we make is Afghanistan…” Whoa! Look out Taliban! “Tell all the folks in ‘I-raq’ and Syria too,” they add. Find it: Strategy: Our Tribute To Philadelphia (CHERRY RED)
20 REV. UTAH SMITH TWO WINGS The Louisiana clergyman – who did indeed wear gigantic wings on occasion – on blisteringly raw form in 1953, with electrified guitar, handclaps and hollering galore. Dare Satan disagree? Find it: YouTube