New Tune From The Delta Riggs Provides Obligatory Shirtless Hip Swivels

Depending on your view, a lot of your popular music is comes down to the eternal traditions of appropriation/referencing/homage/theft of what has gone before. While there are always some percentage of new ideas, look hard enough and you’ll likely find some hint or echo of what someone’s done already.

A certain northern English combo of the ‘60s, punningly named The Beatles, have had much of their catalogue well-pilfered in one way or another. Chunks of the various members’ solo works have also been recycled, with the oddly notable exception of Paul McCartney’s uber-pop confection of the following decade, Wings – with the oddly notable exception of Guns N Roses flogging Macca’s contribution to the Bond theme canon, Live And Let Die, to a howling death spiral. Coming from another angle altogether, Timo Maas and James Teej delve back to a 1973 Wings’ b-side, the then future-seeking Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five (EMI) and gives it an European electronica edge from somewhere between the year of the title and about now. 

And if The Beatles back catalogue has been rifled, The Rolling Stones’ history has been well-plundered – although Mick’s team of lawyers tends to organise fair recompense whenever they spot someone having a lend of one of Keef’s rhythms. Thing is, they weren’t/aren’t always brilliant. So, it’s a little disconcerting to hear The Delta Riggs taking inspiration from The Stones’ often-maligned era of ‘disco’ dalliance. Specifically, a 1978 tune called Miss You. But for Surgery Of Love (Inertia) our boys do a fair facsimile of the slightly wonky shuffle of their forebears, allowing Elliott to remove his shirt (again), and do the obligatory hip-swivel as it shambles across your line of sight. 

Further mixing your decades, there is still some of 1989’s kaleidoscopic tumble to what De La Soul are spooning out like gelato heavily laced with artificial colours and flavours. Pain (AOI) tumbles along, and then even has Snoop Dogg (or is he still a Lion - or perhaps some other animal, vegetable, or mineral these days?) shamble in and grumble his way through a verse. It’s hard to say what year the Doggster represents, not the least as the haze of blue smoke probably has him forgetting what day it is. So, if that novelty isn’t enough to hold your attention, they also offer some more colour and movement by giving the listener an interactive video game thingy via their website to play with online as the song carries on its loping travels. 

Dappled Cities remain an enigma. A perhaps surprising twenty years in, and with various members often disappearing into other people’s bands, they remain fondly regarded by many. When they seemingly randomly and sporadically reappear, they still make music that is strangely timeless. What they make is pop music, just beautifully constructed. The aptly titled That Sound (Chugg) is more of what they do so well. Bright, but somehow shot through with some melancholy. There may even be a hint of cowbell in the distance, and how can that be a bad thing? 

Or it can all fall into place, almost haphazardly. Intended as a one-off party band, Phantastic Ferniture found something more sturdy than some of the clearance specials from the operation they’ve carefully tried avoiding the copyrighted name of. There’s classic indie ingredients in Gap Year (Independent) like the slightly swallowed, slightly distracted vocal and guitars held unfashionably high. But it’s pop that sticks in your head and heart – which was probably what they were hoping for, even if they thought their original use-by date was the next day.

It’s another step to that music that probably shouldn’t work but somehow does. Sarah Mary Chadwick comes with a strangely affecting ache and break in her voice, as Makin’ It Work (Rice Is Nice) is called synth pop by some, but its sparseness and dry drum clatter make it something other than that. You can kinda see the join to Sarah’s previous thing, the kinda punky/grungy racket of Batrider, but this is different again. It could be seen as having an ugliness from some angles, but that’s maybe what makes it so awkwardly human as it seems to come up from her guts - albeit with some real fragility.

But if you’re seeking something utterly involved in what it’s making of itself, take Ryley Walker’s newest into your head and heart. As it sprawls and unspools through six minutes The Halfwit In Me (Dead Oceans), goes from chamber pop to something not quite psychedelic, but more like a few glasses of a good Marlborough Sauv Blanc in the park before a shower comes and you have to shelter under the bandstand. I think I’ve been twee enough there. With former Wilco alumni Leroy Bach guiding the meander, Mr Walker has allowed something splendid to happen, without watching the clock. 

And now that’s suitably relaxed you, probably best you don’t click on the below straight away. Conversely, if you though the above was a pile of pastel poo, go right ahead. The band is called Nails, the song is called Savage Intolerance (Nuclear Blast). That should give you some idea of what’s going on. It is not a ballad. It may well tear your ears clean off. That’s probably the idea. I won’t even pretend I know the various genres de metal, but do realise this comes at you at relentlessly and sharply, with the boot on the foldback power of a band who know exactly what they’re doing.