Duane the Teenage Weirdo – Postcard From Hell

Prosaic band names are great. Look at ‘The Military Wives Choir’- you know right where you are with that, no messing about with Fancy Dan references to a French existentialist novel no one’s read or some arse end of a Morrissey lyric there, just old fashioned Ronsonol style does-what-it-says-on-the-tin goodness. And here comes Duane. And he’s a teenager. And he’s a weirdo. Brilliant. If someone could persuade Carl Barat to rename Dirty Pretty Things as ‘Sub Libertines Crap Out’ we’d really be getting somewhere. Ummm. So back to the music. It’s weird. It sounds like 7 different styles being played on a guitar made out of hope and cardboard whilst Alvin Chipmunk impersonates Prince. It lurches between good, bad and exhaustingly bonkers and it’s out on a fruity coloured 7” from Jack White’s Third Man label now.

James Blake – Love What Happened Here

Or, where James Blake imagines how strange the lift music in Bootsy Collins’ acid fried brain might sound like. Pretty fucking strange as it turns out. Full credibility points to Blake for trying to push things onwards- the evolution of dubstep into this nutjob ice cream free jazz at one end and the nose bleeding skullmosh of Scrillex at the other is, in my book, an odd and wonderful thing.  Still, this probably isn’t gonna get too many rewinds at the next Rinse FM rave

Zola Jesus – In Your Nature

Is it just me, or is there a curious whiff of the Bono round Zola Jesus? Honest, In Your Nature kicks off an eeetsy bit like a Goth response to Where the Streets Have No Name, minus the dodgy shades and rampaging ego. Jobbing musician David Lynch pops up to remix the track for the b side, and does a pretty good job of stripping it down to a trip hoppy skeleton of portentous chords and hypnotic drums. Gets better the more you hear it.

Ceremony – Hysteria

YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH It’s snotty! It’s shitty! And it’s LOUD! This is the first time I’ve listened to Californian’s Ceremony, so shame on me. Hysteria has got bleedin huge drumming, monster guitar bothering and vocal jags of malice and contempt shouted through a knackered mike. They’re taking hardcore to where it belongs with a single that’s a kick to the balls and a shot to the skull, and for that alone this is picking up single of the week. Out now on Matador.