The Sound Influx Playlist: 28.10.13

It's only ruddy week three! One day we'll look back on this with fondness, remembering the time we had a feature that lasted for three whole consecutive weeks. How we'll drink.
This week, we've had a host of curators of the playlist from across the site; great to see a team come together to collaborate on this project.
In this, the third installment of The Playlist; our three featured artists are MO, Findlay and Swearin'.

Let's get straight to it then!




Mø - XXX ft Diplo

This is, in classic mø style, a chopped -up track with layers of samples and beats and her pretty laid-back delivery. It also includes the almost obligatory trumpet samples which have come to make mø's sound so distinctive. Diplo also plays a part, although this is Mø's moment.
Holly Read-Challen

Swearin' - Dust in the Gold Sack

You'd be forgiven for confusing Swearin' with their tour-buddies Waxahatchee; mostly because lead singer Allison Crutchfield is Katie's twin sister. Where Waxahatchee deal in refined sounds though, Swearin', as their name may suggest, take it a bit more FIDLAR. There's a definite cross between this and many of Wichita's post-grunge releases from the last year and we can't quite get enough of it.
Braden Fletcher


Findlay - Greasy Love

Bursts of static and Natalie Findlay's sexy yelp usher in another cracking single from the young Manchester songwriter. "I know it feels good when he sucks on my blood" she shrieks as her backing band leap from popping bass to strident garage rock riffs that channel The Kills on a three day bender. It's short, sharp, sleazy and seductive. What more could you want?
Max Sefton

That's all for this playlist, enjoy.

Diplo - Express Yourself EP

Diplo’s great skill as a producer is not just being a creator in his own right but acting as a gifted conduit for others, possessing the vision to channel their flair into original and exciting shapes. Even without Diplo, MIA would have been a wild and charismatic talent but it wasn’t until the pair hooked up on the ‘Piracy Funds Terrorism’ mixtape that she found a sonic backdrop that did justice to her unique vision. Beyonce was in danger of drifting into middle of the road balladry until Diplo gifted her ‘Girls (Run the World’) to reassert her sassy feminist position as the modern Queen of Pop. And with his Mad Decent remix series the Philadephia-born producer reimagined records as diverse as Deerhunter and Marlena Shaw to produce rich, ethereal sounds a million miles from their original incarnations.

With the departure of Switch from Major Lazer, their shared dancehall collaboration, at the end of last year, Diplo has now returned to producing material under his own name and ‘Express Yourself’ is his most brazenly commercial material for some time. The Baile funk influence is less prominent on ‘Express Yourself’, a frenetic dancehall workout of cranked beats and bubbling synth bleeps and bursts. ‘Barely Standing’ featuring Canadian dubstep star Datsik and vocalist Sabi, has a catchy vocal hook that almost redeems the brostep/moombahton hybrid backing track that sounds like an angry cat being fed into a printer. As a pure club track it’s perfectly serviceable and Diplo’s production is typically tight but a talent like his could do much more. Too often the standard of his output seems to depend upon the quality of the artists he chooses to work with. The man can polish a diamond in the rough until it sparkles but he can’t turn lead into gold and the guests on ‘Express Yourself’ just aren’t of the calibre of Vybz Cartel or Buraka Som Sistema.

‘No Problem’ features Canadian singer Kay as his surrogate MIA and for about half a verse her brash claims to play ‘like a motherfucking champion’ offer a nice detour from the more typical pop vocals on the EP before Dubstep artist Flinch’s complex chords set up a blurring dubby drop which Diplo demolishes with a wall of synthesizer. ‘Move Around’ is another hookup with controversial Jamaican singer/MC Elephant Man to follow up their excellent reinterpretation of Beyonce’s ‘Halo’ but this is heavier and places less emphasis on the vocals in amongst a cavalcade of plane crash drops and cymbal crashes that are less carnival and more sweaty rock club. Disappointingly ‘Butters Theme’ is not a fanfare for everyone’s favourite naïve and nerdy South Park character. Instead its forgettable, faintly progressive moombahton featuring Billy the Gent and Long Jawns neither of whom manage to successfully stamp their personality onto the track.

Diplo is clearly talented at turning his hand to a wide range of genres but despite the pin-sharp production too much of this EP feels like a selection of learning exercises. The title track aside, this EP isn’t his finest moment.

5.0



Max Sefton

Nicola Roberts- Cinderella's Eyes

As everyone knows, Nicola Roberts is part of the longstanding girl group Girls Aloud. She’s always been the ‘in the background’ girl in the group so on the news of Roberts embarking on a solo career, safe to say I’m sure more than a few people were a bit bemused. Although, she’s been slowly working her way towards the prestigious solo career goal for a while now and worming her way into the music industry’s hearts. The lead single from her debut full length ‘Cinderella’s Eyes’, ‘Beat Of My Drum’ is an unmistakably Diplo produced first attempt to break the mainstream and it fails to arouse any kind of excitement. Especially with strange barking esque noises and Nicola’s shrill (and often annoying) vocals, repeated listens definitely do not reward and I don’t recommend it.

Things take a turn for the incredulously catchy with follower ‘Lucky Day’; a looping synth hook and Roberts ingeminating ‘Could it be my lucky day?’ start off a feisty quirk pop dance along. The highlight on the whole album, this is the only song that really sees her potential shine through and her perky optimism rubs off with this fun motivational number.  It’s frustrating that it doesn’t carry on with the same bounce, ‘Yo-Yo’ could easily be written for swagger brat Cher Lloyd. The instrumental is too minimalistic, the vocals are flat and uninspiring and the lyrics leave much to be desired; ‘All the other girls/ they say you’re full of it and talking shit’ Roberts spits with minimal effort, jealousy doesn’t quite suit her.

It’s only on Joe Mount produced track ‘I’ that we’re faced with an authentic instrumental that holds up well, swelling synths and twanging guitars backing Roberts’ vocals which sound like Mount’s female equivalent. Roberts chimes, ‘I hope that everybody loves my new direction’, it’s nice to see she actually cares what people think about her music but you can’t help but feel that her wish won’t be fulfilled. There’s a lot of work gone into this album, reflective on the title and album artwork; ‘Cinderella’s Eyes’, Nicola Roberts is somewhat of a Cinderella , she’s made her way up from being ‘the ginger one’ in Girls Aloud’ to having major producers back her and a debut album under her belt. This album is by no means a game changer but it’s refreshing to hear a Girls Aloud solo project that doesn’t sound anything like Girls Aloud.

6/10

By Aurora Mitchell