Tomas Barfod Feat Gruff Rhys
True To You (Secretly Canadian)
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It's Record Store Day, so let me be your wholly reliable guide through the best one-off singles available. First up is Danish dance polymath Barfod, alongside the wearily lovelorn vocals of the bearded Furries frontman. Throughout this scruffy slow jam, Rhys sings with such sweet sincerity that you can sense him kissing you gently in the gaps between words – no tongues, but lots of eye contact. A key release for all those love birds out there.
London Grammar
Hey Now (Bonobo remix) (Metal And Dust)
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London chindio (chillout indie trio, keep up) get a Bonobo rework that whips the slow and overwrought original into a galloping garage groove. It reminds me of being off my face on drugs in dingy south London clubs in the early 00s. Well, tipsy after a few WKDs. A Fanta. A Heinz oxtail soup while watching Birds Of A Feather at my parents' house.
MØ
Say You'll Be There (Sony)
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MØ's cover of the Spice Girls' 1996 single strips out the song's funk and ferocity skeleton and leaves you with a flesh puddle of ethereal blog-pop. A quick fact – Karen Marie Ørsted's moniker is in fact pronounced Moo, a name she was given when discovered by Louis Walsh in a field outside of Kendal singing the word "moo" belligerently in the faces of cows. Backstory aside, this release is cute fun for those into 90s nostalgia and a strong social media presence. Really enjoying it, actually.
Suede
Let Go (Nude Records)
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17 January 2014. Brett Anderson sits alone and half naked (bottoms off) on a cold, black leather sofa somewhere in Highgate, London. He taps open an email on his iPad that reads: "Record Store Day are keen to get a Suede release. Got anything we can pull together pronto?" Hit by a surge of youthful adrenaline, he opens Garageband and lays down an impromptu rap rhyming "lily-livered" with "finger quivered" on top of a trap beat. This is new, he thinks, while unpeeling his left buttock from the sofa. Three hours later the song is complete, and as he prepares to press send on the WeTransfer link, he catches a glimpse of his reflection and is struck with trepidation. Instead, he sends over Let Go, a caustic campfire song originally issued only as a CD single in Sweden, the song is met with a rapturous reply from his manager, and Anderson goes upstairs to make intense, burning love to his wife in celebration.
Bombay Bicycle Club
To The Bone (Island)
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With a No 1 album under their belts and aged only 13 – with the exception of frontman Jack Steadman, who is and always will be 40 – Bombay Bicycle Club really do have the whole world in front of them. This gorgeous one-off single sounds heavily influenced by Tim Buckley and Simon & Garfunkel and I will never listen to it ever again.
