Dan Condon: Sick Tunes, 14 February, 2014

I hope you're all well. If not, these songs might make you feel better. The holiday lull is well and truly over and good music is being pumped out by labels and indie bands thick and fast, which is mighty exciting. 

I reckon these five songs are great, but I genuinely care what you think too, so let me know in the comments section below or on twitter or email. I know websites always say that shit in order to get extra content or more clicks or whatever, but I do really want to know what you think. 

Seinabo Sey – Younger

This song was released a couple of months ago, but I heard it for the first time just this week and immediately started feeling worried about my mental faculties; surely this is some massive hit song that I've somehow completely missed out on. Maybe I had my memory wiped by one of those stick things they have in the Men In Black movie?

Seinabo Sey is a Swedish singer with one hell of a voice, who looks to have appeared as a guest vocalist on a few Swedish EDM recordings over the past couple of years. This appears to be her first solo single and it's astonishing it's not a smash hit; even in her native Sweden it only managed to peak at number 48 in its two weeks on the singles chart.

Three-quarters of the song is completely understated, a simple synth chord progression the only thing accompanying Sey's massive, soulful voice, before it explodes into flourishing strings, an almost marching-drum beat and eventually some kind of feel good trance territory that I'm simply not well versed enough in to explain properly. It's clearly been engineered to be uplifting and that kind of contrived emotional manipulation is always a bit gross - but this remains a great song.

It might have missed its chance to be a hit, but there's no way a woman with a voice like this isn't going to be back in a big way. Keep your eye out for her.

Brick Mower – Shitty Parade

You've probably heard of Waxahatchee over the past couple of months, a great alt-folk kinda project from Brooklyn. Well Brick Mower sound nothing like her, but they do share a label in New Jersey's Don Giovanni Records, and that's how I found them just this week.

Imagine how foolish I felt then when I dug back into their back catalogue and discovered they'd already released two pretty gnarly pop punk records in 2011's Under The Sink and 2012's My Hateable Face, as well as a stack of 7”s and so on. Anyway, we can't have our finger on every scene's pulse, can we?

After a quick listen to past material, Shitty Parade sounds as if the band are little looser and more comfortable with what they're doing; it's not the simplest song the band have penned, but there's a crazy good guitar riff in there that just ties it all together and will at the very least have you bopping your head, guaranteed.

OFF! – Void You Out

OFF! are one of my favourite bands currently playing music in any genre, so there was no way I wasn't going to lump their new single Void You Out in here now that it's online.

It sounds exactly like OFF! have always sounded since they got together a couple of years ago and if everything goes to plan this is a sound that they will never desert. They're a great punk rock band who are not too serious and that'll never get old.

I also like that they made a five-and-a-half-minute clip for a one minute song. It's a must-watch for fans of The Decline Of Western Civilization. 

Future Death – Basements

Here's a snippet from the press material about Future Death's soon to be released record.

"Special Victim, their forthcoming debut full-length on Bloodmoss Records, was recorded and mixed by This Will Destroy You's Alex Bhore in a funeral-home-turned-studio owned by producer John Congleton."

What the fuck? Who knew John Congleton owned a funeral home? Who records in a funeral home? Where was Congleton when this was happening?

I have to admit I was expecting something far more evil sounding than this when I first heard Basements - it is, after all, a track recorded in a funeral home, by a band called Future Death - but it's not quite the grimfest I was anticipating. Not that that's such a bad thing, it's pretty catchy and lead vocalist Angie Kang has a charming way of delivering the hooks over the top of a pretty driving, noisy bed of sound.

The band apparently don't spend a lot of time developing their songs, preferring to work with what they're feeling in the moment in order to organically capture something real. I can dig it, and you can kinda hear it a bit here.

Future – Move That Dope (ft. Casino, Pharrell & Pusha T)

Pharrell is unstoppable. He simply cannot do wrong. I don't like everything he's done over the past couple of years, but who cares? I'm a snob.

I do very much like his verse on the new track from Future, Move That Dope, which also features guest spots from Pusha T and Casino. You might well tire of hearing Future urging to protagonist to “move that dope” but I urge you to wait for the Pharrell verse to drop, just after the three minute mark, because he delivers in spades.

The rest of the track is pretty great too. Pusha T often doesn't get the credit he deserves for the calibre of his work and, while his verse here isn't among his best work and looks a bit shit next to Pharrell's, it's still pretty good.

The song itself is a lot of fun, so long as tropes about drug dealing don't offend you; all four of these dudes are all bragging about how much drugs they can sell, but you can sense their tongue is so firmly in their cheek throughout that it's more silly than concerning. 

Have a lovely Valentine's Day (I'm going to the footy) and take care.