The Single Life: Miami Horror, The Courtneys & More

Ah, collaboration. A meeting of like-minded creative souls to artistic ends, and/or a handy demographic-crossing selling point which may well enhance the reputation of some or all parties involved (Kanye! Move away from The Beatle. Gaga! Move away from the elderly Italian man in the nice suit…).

And sometimes an unexpected intersection of talents works well. White Shadows – the band name hopefully not related to the old Coldplay song – has Craig Nicholls handing an old Vines b-side to Nick Littlemore (Pnau, Kings Of the Sun) and his brother Sam (who has Peking Duk on his CV) to scrub the grunge off Give Up Give Out Give In (MGM), add a sweep of synthetic strings, and make the reworking something that on day of release seems destined for Hottest 100 appearance at the other end of the year. You hope all elements of the enterprise will hold their notoriously short attention spans together long enough to make the album destined to follow be something special.

Speaking of special, Van Morrison is very likely one of the finest voices of his generation – come to that, many generations – but in the way of modern marketing it’s decided he needs to freshen up some of the back catalogue with the ‘duets’ album, that seems currently the fashion. Other voices will include the more-than-reasonable likeminds - Bobby Womack, Joss Stone, Steve Winwood – but commercial considerations appear to have won (again) as Real Real Gone (RCA) comes with input from your mum’s favourite Michael Buble. To his credit, or maybe just reflecting his usual irascibility, Van hasn’t let anyone sully his true classics – so thankfully we don’t have to suffer something like Chris Martin groaning through Bright Side Of the Road. Now I’ve put that grisly thought in your head, we’ll move on…

It’s still odd to find so many – including a lot of real enthusiasts for the band – don’t really know that Augie March even realised a new album last year. Thus, further chunks of the estimable Haven’s Dumb are being shovelled out in various ways: new arty clips of various tunes given to mainstream media outlets and niche markets, but there’s actually an official single – it being album opener AWOL (Dark Satanic/Caroline). It’s almost generic Augie – if this most idiosyncratic of bands can have such a thing – a tad harmonied sea-shanty, tasteful guitar solo, while Glenn Richards poetically muses tunefully on existence. Whatever, just tell your friends.

Also one likely to be pondering the big questions, you’ll realise Sufjan Stevens isn’t exactly being light-hearted in intent when the previewing song for his upcoming album is called No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross (Asthmatic Kitty/Inertia). It’s a little more restrained and ‘folkier’ than some of kind-of-ironic bombast he can sometimes provide. New album is named for his mum and stepdad – Carrie & Lowell, and he describes it as being about ‘life, death, love, and loss’. You know, the usual eternal puzzles from which you make pop songs.

And somewhere quite different from where you might have taken elements of them previously, Shifting Sands has members from Sixfthick and Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side. But Other Girls (Spooky) is an older and wiser man philosophising somewhere down the river from Serge Gainsbourg’s house. It’s quite something. Look past that distinctly non-hipster greying beard and into those eyes of Geoff Corbett that may have seen too much, and try and put out of your mind you have seen him squirt shaving cream onto his brother’s chest – and light it. Ah, sibling fun.

Even more pure in its grace – or lack thereof – the music of Nadia Reid. She is a New Zealand folk singer. That probably about covers it. Her voice and emotion are simply honest, and honestly simple. There is very little artifice in Call The Days (Spunk), and hopefully something this sincere doesn’t need it to. Just listen, and drift away.

Up a few gears and from that place where they obscenely catchy breezy guitar pop without apparent effort – in this case that being somewhere in the land of Canadia. The Courtneys’ inspiration, in the fine fuzzy pop tradition, comes from nodding off in front of the telly as movies certainly not on their first run are flickering in the background. Mars Attacks (Bone Soup/Future Popes) scribbles at you, then even includes a perhaps unexpected rappy bit as provided by MC Young Braised. Then the guitar start again, and all is trashily well. The ‘b-side’ is titled Lost Boys – so they obviously manages to change to the other ‘classic’ movie channel at some point.

Local boys making good Miami Horror show the first results of their resettled times in Los Angeles offering Love Like Mine (Remote Control). It is of their typically synthetic place, but is that bit bigger and brighter, they having seen a bit more of the world now. The LA sojourn also seems to have here added a touch of something that might be described as a slightly whiter version of Jackson 5 funk to it in parts. And how can that be a bad thing?

It’s surprisingly about eight years since the last Modest Mouse effort. The drip feed of tracks from Strangers To Ourselves continues with another tune with one of their typically ‘catchy’ titles: The Ground Walks, With Time In A Box (Epic). What does it all mean? NFI. But it is, again as is his habit, widescreen pop of an individual kind. Fans of Isaac Brock’s sometimes slightly askance worldview will be all over this.