Jukebox offcuts #2
More songs that didn’t make it. This time, the UK!
RoxXxan - Too Fucking Facety
A rapper who I liked in my Camden Crawl roundup, here being casually cool over a ridiculously busy track. Probably too much going on, to be honest, but she holds it together pretty well.
Alt-J - Tessellate
Their album is now my most listened to this year for sure, and this next single is one of the best songs on it. It has something of The xx’s feeling of slinking through black chasms of space, though the vocals are indie in a different way. It’s the words that get me most, I think, or at least the way that they’re almost all delivered like the macabre reveal at the end of a ghost story.
Lucy Rose - Lines
More indie that I love! I was recently slightly surprised to find that she did vocals on Bombay Bicycle Club albums; I guess the musical sensibility isn’t a million miles away but this is emotional in a way that they haven’t managed so far. The deceptive wispiness of the song sets up the crushing impact when the drums and guitar come in and it starts to sound a bit like first album Gemma Hayes.
Us - In the End
At one point last week it looked like this boring acoustic Linkin Park cover was going to get into the UK top 40 on the back of being used in the BBC’s regular England-lose-at-football-on-penalties montage. It didn’t, but I mention it anyway mainly so that I can post this total classic of the genre:
