TRAAMS

Intercontinental Radio Waves

It’s common knowledge that “filth” is the best setting for any bassline, and here the Chichester indie sluggers essentially put the wrigglesome groove from Elvis Costello’s Pump It Up through a gruelling Tough Mudder, before kicking seven bells out of it on the finish line while yelling “I hate myself!” in its face. It’s a prickly, grotty three minutes of squalling, antisocial brilliance.

Romy

Lifetime

There’s more than enough negativity in the world at the moment, so thank Attenborough for the xx’s Romy, who instead of giving us what we might expect of her – sotto voce breakup ballads as tender as a hammered thumb – bursts out with a Europop disco slammer so brazenly, joyously upbeat it should come with its own disco ball. More please, Romy. We genuinely, genuinely need it.

Gorillaz ft Elton John and 6lack

The Pink Phantom

Damon at his wooziest, 6lack at his Auto-Tuniest and El-to-the-Ton at his “you’ve got me for 20 minutes!”-iest might sound, on paper, terrible. Too many cooks, right? But if, at a party, those same cooks each bring a bottle of something potent, and all pour it into a big pot with a dash of Ribena, what you’ve got there is a lovely punch. What I’m saying is: this is actually all right.

Gwenno

Theme from The Cinematologists

An instrumental theme tune for a podcast that’s better than most other artists’ entire back catalogues. Like the Blade Runner soundtrack, if Blade Runner were a nice film about a gaggle of robot woodland animals that solved crimes, but who discovered that the biggest crime of all was how they forgot to say how much they loved each other as often as they should. Bingo.

AC/DC

Shot in the Dark

You wouldn’t want a pilot’s pre-flight announcement to say: “Sickbags at the ready, I’m going to try something new!” Thankfully, AC/DC’s new single is the most AC/DC thing since the last time AC/DC did their thing. Tinged with sadness since the passing of Malcolm Young, it still sounds like the most fun a load of blokes in their 60s and 70s can have without a Camra membership. Gawd bless ’em.