This Week at Musikigai

For some parts of the world 37 degrees celsius is a regular summer day. In Britain it is a national emergency of whinging, incompetence and irrationality. I cope with the heat fairly well. Having lived in a country where 37C is a cool day, I have learned how to deal with it. This week was a trial for me too. I’m so happy it has finally broken and the temperature has dropped a good 10C after a week of oppressive heat which towards the end didn’t even let up at night!

So I’m still alive, and I hope you are too! Reviews this week for Texas Sun and Keleketla! weirdly fit the context of the weather. and I’ve got some great albums lined up for the next few weeks. However, as I’m still catching up with myself, exactly what is under wraps for the time being!

Maybe I’ve been busy with work and not listening to too much but it seems like there were fewer tracks of note floating about this week. Time to cover a couple of fresh tracks and then to dig through the long list of candidates who have come 6th a few too many times. New stuff first and it’s err punchy… LET’S GOOOOO…

Spotify links: This Week / Archive

We Live Here – Bob Vylan

When grime meets post-punk in the cross fire of socio-political tumult then I guess this is the electrifying result. Refreshingly direct, loud and brash We Live Here rams the racial and social issues that divide the UK and smacks you in the face with them in a way that doesn’t hurt too much but makes you pay attention. It reminds me of The King Blues’ heavier stuff in the way it mixes spoken narrative with more aggressive punk vocal stylings or maybe this is what RATM would sound like if they were from East London?

The full album is only 20 minutes and not being released on Spotify or streaming services (though the other single England’s Ending is on there alongside this). Get yourself over to Bandcamp if you fancy experiencing the full set – I recommend it – if you enjoy this.

Model Village – IDLES

Let’s keep the post-punk rollin shall we? Now that Fontaines D.C. is out there we can spend all our guitar craving focus on the endless march of IDLES towards their third record – Ultra Mono. Model Village is the fourth single from the incoming album and I think all of them have been in Friday Five. This record is shaping up to be nothing short of fantastic if the singles are an accurate barometer.

This one speaks to me too, having grown up for a portion of my youth in a small village. The band said today on Instagram: “I hated growing up in a city that was really a town that was really a fishbowl. I left as soon as I could, only to realise the fishbowl didn’t exist…just the fish, and they’re everywhere.⁠” Coming from a 200 occupancy village – we agree entirely. People are people – for better …or worse. What a video too!

Here’s The Thing – Sports Team

MORE GUITARS!!! Fuck those who say guitar music is dead! Here’s some indie guitar pop. The full review for this will come form me next week and I’m really excited to write it. This album has that rare attribute of getting better with each lesson by an order of magnitude each time. In fact the last time this happened was Everything Everything’s Get to Heaven 5 years ago which I am going to be launching our work album club with this week. I digress

I was torn between this and Lander from the record as I love love love the messages in each of them. Lander is a withering take of an aspirational deluded twat whereas this is a straightforward record straigtener for everything you’ve ever been told.

In fact… proposed lyric “Here’s the thing! Guitar music is dead and its all about hip hop and grime these days. It’s all just lies lies lies lies”. Do I think they will win the Mercury? No. But it would make me very happy.

Never Come Back (Four Tet Remix) – Caribou

This has languished in my list of candidates for this week’s edition since it started 15 weeks ago! It now gets the place it deserves. The Caribou album coming out seems like an age ago. Right at the beginning of lockdown. I think it was my first lockdown vinyl order. The slippery slope that turned out to be – I’ve probably bought more form indie record stores this year than any other!

There have of course been some excellent remixes of which this is one. You should check out the others and just go back and listen to that record again. He’s a genius and not having a festival circuit this year really bites when you think of the talent releasing stunning albums this year that we can’t experience due to a bloody microbe.

Honey (Avalon Emerson’s Deep Current Reroll) – Robyn

What is wrong with the term ‘remix’ for goodness sake? This is an excellent remix of an excellent track from a good album from a great artist. It has also been dwelling in my archives.

Have at it.

There you have it folks. Five tracks for your weekend. I’ll see you back here next week to explore Deep Down Happy, another album currently TBC and another round of track and blogging from me!

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