Singles & Downloads 5

Quasi, Bye Bye Blackbird (Domino)

The "Bye Bye Blackbird" on offer here is not the jazz stalwart favoured by everyone from Peggy Lee to Miles Davis. It is, instead, a garage guitar-pop concoction from perennial underdog trio Quasi from Portland, Oregon, that prolific centre of American indie guitar raucousness. At the core of the band, ex-husband and wife Sam Coombes and Janet Weiss have always appeared happy, throughout eight albums, to veer into wilful lo-fi messiness whenever their natural aptitude for a tasty melodic song threatens to interfere. This time, though, they've blown it.

The lyrics of "Bye Bye Blackbird" are opaque and throwaway, concerning an octopus in a tree and various psychedelic drugs, but they hold together a Beatles-ish song that's nursery-rhyme catchy and appealingly upbeat. However much they lay on the guitar feedback and punk drawling, Quasi have accidentally created a late period grunge-pop corker. (THG) Download "Bye Bye Blackbird" on Amazon

Ellie Goulding, Guns & Horses (Polydor)

It's quite peculiar that the folk/ acoustic revival that has been creeping up on us over the last decade has now broken into the mainstream so much (see Mumford & Sons, Laura Marling) that "folk" is considered a marketing buzz-phrase worthy of application to a spectacularly characterless artist like Ellie Goulding. This is not an awful record by any means: its fizzing layers of synths are designed with military skill to cut through the clutter of urban noise when played over the radio, the earworm qualities of the hooks the best committee design can provide, and the kooky catches and plaintive notes in Goulding's undistinguished voice perfectly designed to appeal to the kind of girls who thought Diana Vickers on The X-Factor was "like, really mad, yeah?" But the plonking on of acoustic guitars and pitching of it as "folky" is done with such grim cynicism as to make my stomach knot. It'll sell billions. (JM) Find "Guns & Horses" on Amazon

Rose Elinor Dougal, Find Me Out (Dance To The Radio)

This is far, far more like it. One of the more distinctive of the new acoustic singer-songwriters of the "Green Man Festival generation", Dougal has here created a song that's intimate and yet - thanks to Lee Baker's Morricone-inspired arrangements - wonderfully big. Her voice is perfectly controlled so that personality emerges from actual singing rather than quirky tics, and the song is something you want to luxuriate in, not something forcibly blasted at you like Goulding's over-produced gubbins. Best use of the word "arteries" in a pop song this year too. Sheer class. (JM) Find "Find Me Out" on Amazon

James Blake, CMYK EP (R&S)

As an ageing raver, the very sight of the R&S logo sets me salivating. R&S was the Belgian label that released a wave of early Nineties techno classics, introducing a generation to artists such as Aphex Twin and Joey Beltram. Recently revitalised, the imprint appears to have now left pounding beats behind but maintains a dignified interest in electronic music. The four tracks on 6'5" Londoner James Blake's R&S debut are squelchy, glitch-laden pieces that elegantly amalgamate minimalist funk, bloopy blobs of bassline, BBC Radiophonic Workshop effects and, most appealingly, treated chunks of soulful vocal. If Tonto's Expanding Headband, Seventies synthesizer hippies favoured by both John Peel and Stevie Wonder, began their career right now they might sound a bit like this. It may be sedately paced but the "CMYK EP" wanders well off the beaten track. Cannily, it's also warm and approachable. (THG) See James Blake's MySpace page

Rothko, Sunset to Sunrise EP (Trace Recordings)

In the wake of Mark Beazley's beautiful solo album Stateless comes the return of the denser instrumental layers of his band Rothko. With the melodies of the trademark two bass guitars snaking around one another, buoyed up on waves of cello and ambient guitar distortion, the sleep-themed EP creates atmospheres that begin at Disintegration-era Cure and go further into abstraction. Sad, strange and lovely. (JM) Find "Sunset to Sunrise" (limited edition of 275 copies) on the Trace website

Gabriella Cilmi, Hearts Don't Lie (Island)

I recently delivered a derogatory review verdict on Australian singer Gabriella Cilmi's frothy new album. Since the UK is inundated with chirpy female pop stars of the Pixie Lott variety, I failed to see anything of interest in yet more cheesy fodder from the latest teen diva. However, for some time afterwards, I couldn't get this song out of my head. Now it's become clear that "Hearts Don't Lie", produced by 24-carat hit-makers Xenomania, is a massively contagious disco belter that has the tune, raunch and electro-funk to sweep along anyone but grouchy music journos. Sorry, Gabriella, I give in, this is a monster, the best nouveau-Moroder wedding party classic since Scissor Sisters' "I Don't Feel Like Dancing". (THG) Download "Hearts Don't Lie" on Amazon

Kavsrave, Quotes EP (Numbers)

The club-music style pioneered by Glasgow's Numbers label and club is rapidly gaining in popularity and it's easy to see why from this release. Croydon producer Kavsrave encapsulates their sound, a kind of parallel to grime and dubstep's half-tempo grooves but with all the colours and brightness turned right up, the synapse-frying rushes of classic rave powering through its nervous system and the unabashed sexiness and glitter of US R&B popping out all over the shop. It's slick, brash and overwhelming in the best possible way and so cram-packed with real joie de vivre that it's very very hard to resist. (JM) Find "Quotes" on vinyl at Rubadub. Download "Quotes" at Juno

A Place to Bury Strangers, Ego Death (Mute)

In their New York studio, A Place To Bury Strangers alchemise a fusion of avant-garde white noise and Sixties pop harmonics, tipping their hat to Suicide along the way. They don't generally do much that Jesus & Mary Chain haven't done before but they add their own layer of modern technological icing and hammer it home with such ballistic sonic bravado it's all thoroughly enjoyable in a turn-it-up-very-loud sort of way. "Ego Death" is a highlight of their new album, plunging into the eardrums on a crashing welter of riff-distortion. It arrives on this five track EP with another noisenik smasher called "It's a Fast Driving Rave Up With a Place to Bury Strangers" and three forgettable remixes. (THG) Find A Place To Bury Strangers on Amazon

Addison Groove, Footcrab / Dumb Shit (Swamp 81)

Addison Groove is the alias of Bristolian dubstep producer Headhunter, and his production style has been given a new lease of life by the influence of "juke" - a Chicago style of music that relies on relentless repetition of vocal snippets over sparse, heavily syncopated drum-machine patterns. These two tracks are bizarrely haunting, weightless chords hovering among the constantly shifting rhythms and literally hypnotic nonsensical voices - and yet they have enough oomph and natural wit to have made "Footcrab" one of the most unexpected club anthems of this year. A brilliant illustration of dance music's endless powers of regeneration and surprise, and of how extreme simplicity of technique can beget gloriously sophisticated end results. (JM)

Class Actress, Journal Of Ardency EP (Terrible)

Like Ellie Jackson of La Roux and Alicia "Tigs" Huertas of Chew Lips before her, New York singer-songwriter Elizabeth Harper has shoved her loft-bound acoustic balladry to the back of the cupboard and rustled up a couple of semi-visible blokes with vintage synthesizers. As with the aforementioned frontwomen, this turns out to be a good move, even in these electro-pop sodden times. Certainly the music bleeds a little too much unreconstituted "Fade To Grey" ambience, but Harper's sweet voice and canny ear for a tune gently coaxes listeners to go along with the whole repackaged Yazoo schtick one last time. This, however, really is the final permissible outing for this formula. Please. (THG) Find "Journal Of Ardency EP" on Amazon.