EOIN BUTLER's guide to downloads, singles and free audiostreams
PRIMAL SCREAM
2013 Ignition Records **
After five years, Bobby Gillespie co are back. The 49-year-old teenager is in rare form here, lavishing us with the searing political insights of a someone who’s just gorged on a bunch of Socialist Workers leaflets during Fresher’s Week: Peasant underclass! 21st-century slaves! TV propaganda! Dutch Gold special offer! (Well, I may have added one of those myself.)
MICHAEL STIPE COURTNEY LOVE
Rio Grande Anti **
’90s throwbacks Michael Stipe and Courtney Love have teamed up to record a sea shanty, which seems to include the lyric “So let’s pack up our donkeys and get underway”. I really don’t know what else to say about that.
J VIEWZ
Teardrop (with Vegetables) ****
J Viewz is a Brooklyn-based songwriter who, unless he's pranking us all, has figured out a way to cover Massive Attack's Teardrop using carrots, mushrooms and kiwi. Just a wild guess here, but drugs may also have been involved at some point in the recording of this video. youtube.com
LE GALAXIE ft LAURA SMYTH
The Nightcaller
The Delphi Label ***
Greg Corcoran and Steve MacDevitt’s video for The Nightcaller, no more than the track itself, is something of a one-trick pony. But what a trick! Le Galaxie play six dates around the country, beginning at Galway’s Róisín Dubh on March 15th.
RIHANNA ft MIKKY EKKO
Stay Island Def Jam ***
From Jim Morrison to Whitney Houston, things rarely go to plan when pop stars step into the bathtub. And so it proves for Rihanna. Here she is in her latest video, sloshing around in the nip, when some guy with a dodgy bubble perm walks in and starts warbling away like it’s a bad Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. She’ll remember to lock the bathroom door next time.
