42 MusicWeek 20.07.12
PRODUCTRECOMMENDED ALBUM OF THE WEEK
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TRACK OF THE WEEK
PITBULL
CONOR MAYNARD Contrast
(Parlophone/EMI)
Pharrell Williams has said he’s the kid that “will change the face of pop music”, Ne-Yo started a bidding war to sign the young whippersnapper and now he’s a priority on his record label. Brighton-born 19-year-old Conor Maynard captured the attention of
many when posting his ‘covers with a twist’ on YouTube a few years ago. He has since amassed whopping 90 million YouTube views – in addition to a hundreds of thousands of ‘Mayniac’ fans across Twitter and Facebook. So far in 2012 Maynard has been crowned MTV’s fan-voted ‘Brand
New’ winner, seen his debut single Can’t Say No peak at No. 2 on the UK Official Singles Chart, plus he bagged the TAG Newcomer Award at the Nordoff Robbins Silver Clef Awards. Now, his debut album Contrast, an urban-pop feast featuring
July 30 INCOMING ALBUMS
BAND OF HORSES Mirage Rock (Brown/Columbia) The follow-up to 2010’s Grammy-nominated Infinite Arms, Mirage Rock is the
first Band of Horses record to be produced by Glyn Johns, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year in recognition of his work with iconic acts such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and more. Band of Horses will spend the
summer lead-up to Mirage Rock’s release as the support act to My Morning Jacket on their North American tour, road-testing tracks from the forthcoming album alongside favourites from Everything All The Time, Cease To Begin and Infinite Arms. The band’s will embark on a
UK/Europe headline tour in November, culminating with a night at the Hammersmith Apollo on the 20th.
SEPTEMBER 17
GALLOWS Gallows (Venn Records/[PIAS]) From their forthcoming self- titled album (being released through the band’s own label
Venn Records in partnership with PIAS Recordings), Gallows - now minus lead singer Frank Carter - have released free download single Last June. With an independent streak, the band
said of the record: “We made this self- titled as it musically defines the band known as Gallows as we exist today. “This is the first of many releases to
come from the house of Venn, our imprint, hijacked from PIAS those long standing backers of independent rock ‘n’ roll.” “This our statement of intent, our
laugh in the face of those who said Gallows were done when in reality we’re just warming up. We couldn’t feel more vindicated and proud.” They will tour the UK in October in support of the record.
SEPTEMBER 10
NOISETTES Contact (Mono-Ra-Rama/Absolute) The follow up to top 10 charting album Wild Young Hearts, Noisettes’ third studio album promises to
deliver “an eclectic mix of everything that the world loves about this duo; intoxicating, emotionally evoking, with a hint of uplifting, funky beats that will have you shining like the morning sun.” Vocalist Shingai said of the album: “It
starts with a big thirty piece orchestra and ends with just Dan and I singing, and just the cackling of the wood and the flames of the fire for accompaniment.” They have bagged the prestigious
headline slot at BT River Of Music at London’s Pleasure Gardens on July 22 as part of the London 2012 Festival celebrations in the lead up to the Olympics and are giving away single Winner to coincide with the occasion. This will be followed by first official single release That Girl on August 13.
AUGUST 27
former courters Pharrell and Ne-Yo and management labelmate Rita Ora, promises to set a new precedent for UK R&B - and has the potential to seriously compete on a global scale. The album release will be preceded by second single Vegas Girl,
out on July 23. August 26
Get It Started (feat. Shakira)
(RCA Mr. 305/ Polo Grounds Records)
This track, the first to be taken from Pitbull’s forthcoming album, Global Warming (due in autumn 2012), follows million- selling, chart-topping single Back In Time, that was featured in the Men In Black 3 movie. It features international multi- lingual superstar Shakira. The new album is the
follow-up to Pitbull’s 2011 LP, Planet Pit, which achieved over 1.3 million worldwide sales and spawned 18 million single sales. The album will include the
worldwide No.1 hit Give Me Everything (featuring Ne-Yo) as well as Rain Over Me (featuring Marc Anthony), International Love with Chris Brown, plus T- Pain collaboration Hey Baby. Pitbull recently performed in
the UK at the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park.
STAFF PICK: ED MILLER, SENIOR DESIGNER
PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING The War Room EP (Test Card Recordings) Retro spoken samples dubbed over the top of a
quirky tune is hardly an innovation in music. Think Frankie’s intro to Two Tribes or The Avalanches’ Frontier Psychiatrist for starters. But outlandish experimental duo Public Service Broadcasting have a nack for combining the eerie voices of the past (in this case 1940 Britain) and guitar, banjo and electronica to quite brilliant effect. London Can Take It is the best of the five tracks on offer, wailing air-raid sirens and the menacing thrum of aircraft engines meander with heavy synth pulses and the American drawl of a war correspondent detailing the life of ordinary Brits during The Blitz. The
fuzing of old and new certainly startles, but never jars – and while the idea may sound staid, the execution, attention to detail and music underpinning the spoken samples is anything but. Elsewhere, If War Should Come is backed by spiky, angular guitar bursts; Spitfire is nostalgic, perfectly enunciated in those clipped English tones of yesteryear, catchy and with a hint of Mogwai about it; the splendid Dig For Victory could have been lifted from an OMD or early
Human League album; and Waltz For George is a gentle, slow-building acoustic affair, recalling WH Auden’s famous Night Mail. A one-trick pony? Harsh – on last year’s EP One and ROYGBIV, the duo show they can wring inventive strands out of one over- arching concept and, that aside, The War Room is a superb work. OUT NOW
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