Jake Bugg channels Glen Campbell and Lorde is rhymin’ Simon

Jake Bugg: How Soon The Dawn **

Mercury

Maybe it's because Glen Campbell passed away last week, but I'm hearing heavy echoes of the late, great country singer on this latest offering from Jake Bugg's forthcoming Hearts That Strain album. Alas, the comparison isn't one that particularly flatters the 23-year-old Englishman (and 2017/18 Notts County football shirt sponsor.) Juxtaposed to Campbell's back catalogue, the strings and plaintive harmonies on Bugg's Nashville-recorded single sound like little more than a second rate pastiche.

[ https://youtu.be/NGyL80MHtps ]

Kelela: LMK ****

From festivals to summer schools and lunchtime concerts

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Get into the Groove: the best rock and pop gigs this week

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Identity theft blues: the ballad of Sonny Boy Williamson

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Warp

This new single from Los Angeles-based R&B singer Kelela Mizanekristos is a late-night booty call to a passing crush. "Let me know," she sings. "It ain't that deep either way, no one's tryna settle down." Her highly anticipated debut album Take Me Apart is out October 6th.

[ https://youtu.be/ePi5BLJogyA ]

Lorde & Jack Antonoff: Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Live in San Francisco) ***

At San Francisco's Outside Lands festival last weekend, Lorde and her Melodrama producer Jack Antonoff sat down for this duet of Paul Simon's 1972 pop hit. Forty-five years on, it's still not clear from the song's lyrics what egregious transgression it was mama witnessed that was "against the law". But in this telling, I'd be willing to bet it was Antonoff's dorky denim shirt.

[ https://youtu.be/HG61yp1oazM ]

Wyvern Lingo: I Love You, Sadie ***

Rubyworks

This new single from Wyvern Lingo was the second track selected by Hozier for his summer Spotify playlist. (By the way, any sign of that second album, Andrew? We're getting into Chinese Democracy territory at this point.) The Bray-based trio will be launching this single at the Grand Social in Dublin on August 25th.

[ https://youtu.be/_2xVivdm6mk ]

Downtown Boys: A Wall ****

Sub Pop

On this single from their brand new Cost of Living album, "queer, mixed-ethnicity, non-binary" punk rockers Downtown Boys take aim at Donald Trump's doomed, idiotic border wall plan. The Rhode Island five-piece play the Workman's Club in Dublin on October 16th.

[ https://youtu.be/G9yim3ZGuUc ]