Hiatus - We Can Be Ghosts Now (feat. Shura)

After their last spellbinding collaboration, the slight but striking "Fortune's Fool", it's a delight to hear London producer Hiatus team up with the haunting voice of Shura again. Whilst "...Fool" was a melancholic, longing track, "We Can Be Ghosts Now" picks up the pace, with an airy vibe and a gorgeous sense of peace and release.

A gently pulsating kick drum, and tinkling arpeggios bring to mind Jamie Woon's "Night Air" from a few years back, but if "Night Air" soundtracked the witching hour, "We Can Be Ghosts Now" is resolutely a dusky winter's afternoon, although it could easily translate to summer. Shura's voice is as fragile and heartbreaking as ever, but there is a certain majesty to her gutsy chorus vocal, which opens up her vocal chords just enough to let the gorgeous melody bounce charmingly against Hiatus' warm, glossy backdrop.

FOR FANS OF: Daughter, The xx, Jamie Woon

Give Pop A Chance's Best Of July Round-Up: INCLUDING 15-TRACK MIX!

ENJOY THE GIVE-POP-A-CHANCE JULY 2012 MIX BELOW!



Azealia Banks finally dropped her mixtape Fantasea this month, to a gleeful response from this blogger. A mix of bass-heavy hip hop, underground dance and house, working with a plethora of brilliant underground producers, highlights including the camp, high fashion house anthem "Fierce" (0:00 in the mix), and brilliantly explicit moombahton flirtation "Esta Noche" (42:41), penned by Munchi.


Bat For Lashes also finally released a new single, a simple piano and voice lament, the heartbreaking "Laura" (28:42).


If you've not heard Grimes latest work with producers Blood Diamonds, the track "Phone Sex" is as balearic and blissful as it is dark and disturbing, sweetened considerably by some pretty steel drums and poppy beat. Whilst you're checking this out, the Unicorn Kid remix (45:52) is also worth a listen or 10; the kid only goes from strength to strength, his production values having never sounded more chart friendly, whilst never losing the 90s rave vibe that gives everything he touches such a joyously euphoric sound.


Anyone missing their indiepop need look no further than The Crookes, whose debut record Hold Fast is pumped with youthful energy and earworm hooks. Particularly exciting is single "Maybe in the Dark" (26:14), oozing the same desperate teenage woes of their equally likeable peers The Heartbreaks.


After opening many a recent set with the track, Crystal Castles (10:46) finally shared a studio version of the dark, difficult and foreboding "Plague", sounding like a rave caught in a tornado, with Alice Glass crying "I am the plague!" with trademark alarming gusto in the chorus.


Etta Bond's free EP Emergency Room, produced at the dirty dubstep hands of 22 year old London producer Raf Riley, made early preview "Ask Me To Stay", seem like the weak pleas of an innocent girl in comparison to aggressive anthems about vomiting, fake tan and kissing on the tube. "Boring Bitches" (3:06) is a clear standout, with Etta's enraged party girl rant at said bitches and a drop to make you bleed from the eyes.


Pnau getting access to some of Elton John's back catalogue was a bizarre project, but a successful, lush sounding one, with Pnau merging slick 70s disco sounds with a gorgeous 80s warmpad sheen, particularly on the heartbreakingly beautiful tragic disco anthem "Sad" (23:00).


My favourite remix of the month has got to go to the Krystal Klear mix of the latest Marina & The Diamonds single "Power & Control" (32:58). The Manc producer takes the initially plodding track and turns it into a 1992 house banger, complete with token bubbling organ basslines and bright piano hits.


Passion Pit returned to their early bubblegum hyperpop tendencies of early tracks like "Smile Upon Me" for a brief moment on their sophomore effort Gossamer, for the cut and paste joy of "I'll Be Alright" (18:39), which stands out like a blinding ray of sunshine on a generally emotionally heavy album. Although lyrically its just as paranoid as the rest of the record, you wouldn't guess by all the cheery melodies flying around.


The debut album by electronic bass band Purity Ring however had no shortage of highlights, with the gory words and meatgrinder bassline of "Fineshrine" (7:19) and hypnotic middle eastern bells and sugar sweet melodies of "Amenamy" (36:21) proving to be amoungst the best.


Just when you thought M83's "Midnight City" (14:59) had done its fair share of rounds, eerie electropop act Saint Saviour posts a cover so good that it will undoubtedly do its own fair share. But with haunting synth pads, distant cooing vocals and an addictive rework of the already addictive main refrain, it almost deserves to stand on its own as an original work, such is the creativity on show here.


Bass producers Lunice and Hudson Mohawke's duo project TNGHT also had released its first EP, and the dance world is already trembling under the weight of the brass bass line in "Higher Ground" (39:44).


But the real event of July was The xx finally releasing their comeback single, "Angels" (50:09). Read my review of it here.

SONG OF THE MONTH: The xx - "Angels"

30 seconds into the lead single from Coexist, the music cynic that lurks in the back of your subconscious emerges, to usher in a sinking feeling. You haven't fallen in love instantly. As the track floats by like a single cloud in the night sky, you're waiting for that breathtakingly subtle moment to hit you, and when you're listening to the new xx song, the expectations were always going to be ridiculously high.


But then Romy Madley Croft sings the line "they would be as in love with you as I am", and the single guitar line, that oh so familiar sound soaked lovingly in reverb, warm and comforting, yet with a hint of melancholy, slides up to an unexpectedly positive cadence. And your heart skips a beat. That moment has arrived, and you are in finally in love with "Angels", and all it took was that mere instant to convince you. And it doesn't stop there.


Unlike a lot of the band's debut, "Angels" is not a song about sex. It's not a song that's trying to seduce you, or let you in on its lustful secrets, it's trying to explain to you a completely different notion entirely, and it genuinely sounds as if its the very first time its ever been encountered. With repeat listens (and there will be many of them for all of us) you can hear a clear change in Croft's tone, before her tone was subdued yet suggestive, her youthful dryness and disinterest dripping with effortless cool, but now, her voice cracks and shivers, afraid to soar, but not ashamed of the words she is singing.


The second verse brings along such trodden ground as "Every day I am learning about you the things that no one else sees", but Croft delivers every word as if it has never been sung before in pop music. It's no wonder that musically, it's the band's sparsest song to date, it doesn't need to do anything more than it does. Dusty percussion dives in and out, rumbling into crescendos that go nowhere, but its acts less as a rhythmical device, more as sound design. It is a heart jumping, it is limbs shaking, a mind racing; the drums represent the sheer impact of what Croft is so angelically describing.


With every listen, "Angels" helps you fall further in love with it, and the band itself. As Croft repeats "love, love, love...", and the song evaporates into thin air, you realise that 2 minutes and 53 seconds has felt like half an hour. Yes, expectations for "Coexist" are ridiculously high, but the effortlessness of "Angels" suggests the band have no need to try and meet these expecatations, as they will, and will surpass them, by default.