Singles round-up

Jan 20 2009 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

EURO popsters M83 follow their recent UK support slot on tour with Kings Of Leon by releasing the four-track single We Own The Sky.

The lead-off song is a typically trippy offering from Anthony Gonzalez and his loose musical collective, taken from their fifth album Saturdays=Youth.

With boy/girl Gallic vocals to the fore, the epic track plays like a dreampop Prefab Sprout remixed by The Klaxons.

Occupying similar territory to fellow French experimentalists Air, this offering is a highly-textured and multi-faceted affair.

Maps provide a space disco reworking of We Own, while Parkerlab’s remix of Graveyard Girl is old school electronica in the vein of Jean-Michel Jarre.

Completing a stylish set, M83’s own Je Vous Hais Petites Filles is a gigantic, cold as ice instrumental.

Also this week, young punks BYE BYE JOHNNY unveil their first offering.

The band are considered one of the brightest prospects to have emerged this year from the fertile Manchester scene, and on this evidence it’s not difficult to see why.

Suggesting frontman Danny Seasman and co are being tipped to emulate the recent success of city kinsmen The Courteeners, and the fiery five-piece’s debut single Take Cover With Me is a gloriously energetic slice of attitude.

Boasting articulate lyrics about bruised emotions, BBJ’s raw guitar frenzy bears favourable comparisons to The Enemy and The Young Knives.

Elsewhere, FIGHT LIKE APES flag-up their debut album with a new single, Tie Me Up With Jackets.

The three-track offering, which also features Telephone The Real Ham Jackson and live fave Canhead, finds the Irish electroclash anarchists on typically careworn and keening lyrical form.

Also worthy of a mention is the latest from Paolo Nutini-soundalike WILL TANG, Everything Changes, a track loaded with the sort of upbeat positivism that’s the perfect antidote to depressing January mornings.

Finally, METRONOMY turn out another inspired disco take on the modern love song with their latest release, A Thing For Me.

The single is out now on Because Music and includes daring remixes by the likes of Sinden, Blackout Crew, Nightmoves and dub master Mad Descent.