And When The Clouds Part Open

Charli XCX is my kind of popstar.

With her passion for nineties nostalgia, loud outfits and slightly leftfield pop output, we were destined to get along well. Thankfully, after a string of excellent EPs/mixtapes, her debut album 'True Romance' lands next month.

We've already heard quite a few of the tracks that made the album, but today she's premiered a new one called 'What I Like'. After a pacy opening that suggests Charli's 'gone Guetta', the song settles into a nice mid-tempo ode to being comfortable in a relationship, kind of like an electro-swathed cousin of Lily Allen's 'Who'd Have Known'.

The track is produced by J£ZUS MILLION, who was also behind Charli's excellent 'Cloud Aura' with Brooke Candy.

Are You Maybe Here To Help Me Hurt Myself?

Baths' 2010 album 'Cerulean' was a great record that I was quite late in coming across.

I was never especially fond of the so-called 'chillwave' trend that emerged around that time but there's something hypnotic about Will Wiesenfeld's ambient soundscapes that drew me in.

His 2011 release Pop Music/False B-Sides kind of passed me by but I am definitely going to investigate further, having in it now that I've heard his latest track 'Miasma Sky' from forthcoming release 'Obsidian'.

The song's pop sheen belies the underlying murk that becomes evident as you listen to the lyrics. In his own words, "Miasma Sky balances being “swallowed alive by the sky” with a gorgeous piano groove and levitative croon that could detonate a disco club night."

I'm Latching On To You

Sam Smith first came to my attention as the vocalist on Disclosure's excellent breakthrough single 'Latch'. His soulful timbre initially reminded of Sam Sparro (remember him?) but I wasn't able to find too much information about him.

A solo track 'Lay Me Down', co-produced by Disclosure, surfaced in January but, lovely as it might be, it's not really my cup of tea. More interesting though is his new collaboration with Naught Boy on 'La La La'.

Built around an infectious sample that I'm guessing was lifted from a Bollywood soundtrack, the track makes great use of Smith's extensive register and, given Naughty Boy's recent success with Emeli Sandé, it has the potential to do very well.

More of this, please.

Already Been Here Too Many Times Before

It's strange to think it's almost a year since concrete information about the 'original' Sugababes reunion began to surface. It was a few months until Mutya Keisha and Siobhan officially confirmed that they were reforming under the dubious moniker Mutya Keisha Siobhan.

Since then, there have been assurances that we would hear new material "very soon" and vague details of collaborations with a mouth-watering roster of artists and producers, including Dev Hynes, Shaznay Lewis, Cameron McVey, Emeli Sandé, Naughty Boy, Richard X, William Orbit and MNEK.

However, the closest we've come to new material has been an 'a capella' version of a track called 'Boys' uploaded in January. Until now, that is.



Today, man-of-the-moment Devonté Hynes uploaded a track to his Soundcloud that sees Mutya Keisha Siobhan put a spin on Kendrick Lamar's signature tune 'Swimming Pools (Drank)'. A veritable feast for the ears, the supposedly spur-of-the-moment studio cut is reason enough to get excited all over again at the prospect of a new album from these ladies.

For one thing, all three sound in full voice and their vocals blend together just as harmoniously as they did on their first and only album 'One Touch' over a decade ago. Furthermore, Siobhan's solo on the middle eight harks back to the best of her own solo material and suggests that a democratic approach to the new album may pay dividends.