Musick's Top 20 albums: 16

Jack Peñate – Everything Is New



The title of Peñate’s second album could not have been more appropriate had he called it This Second Album Is Really Quite Different To The First One. As with friends The Maccabees, Peñate ditched the prevailing sound of his debut (a kind of annoying indie rockabilly) in favour of a much more expansive sound, taking in afrobeat (‘Tonight’s Today’) and elements of dance and gospel (‘Pull My Heart Away’). Helped by producer Paul Epworth, Everything Is New is the sound of a young talent realising his potential.

Key track: ‘Pull My Heart Away'

Jack + xx + Theo = Jackxxtheo

This blog post has it all. You want a musically rehabilitated posh bloke? We got one. You want young people remixing things and calling it stuff like dubstep? We got 'em. You want achingly hip rappers remixing the remix by the young people who call things dubstep? Er, what? We got that too.

This is a pretty amazing remix of Jack Peñate's 'Pull Your Heart Away' by Jamie Smith from The xx:



Fine as it is we think you'll agree. But how about when the remix is remixed by Musick's favourite rapper Theophilus London?

Click here to listen and download it at will.

Whilst on the subject of Mr London, he's also got a pretty impressive myspace page (damning with faint praise? Perhaps) and on it you can download two of his amazing mixtapes (one of which includes this), as well as any new stuff he might have made since writing this post (he's pretty prolific). Here's his latest, 'Enjoy The Sun':



Theophilus London will be touring with Jack Peñate this month.

New Musick Monday

This is something of a bumper edition this week, with four products on display for your delectation. But first, let's have a look at how last week's single, Gossip's 'Heavy Cross', performed yesterday...er, no.40. And people say they're a one hit wonder act with no hope of a repeat. The biggest shock was seeing Little Boots' debut album, Hands, drop from no.5 to no.40 in its second week. Fickle, you people are very fickle.

BUY THIS

Music For Men by Gossip



Yeah, so 'Heavy Cross' may have only sold 48 copies or something but this Rick Rubin-produced album is packed with punk-funk-disco-diva singles in waiting. Beth Ditto we all know about - big voice, big waist, big face - but it's her two faceless bandmates (although drummer Hannah's face appears on the cover) that come into their own, offering up elastic grooves and some fiery guitar lines. So what if they only have one hit single, that's one more then you'll ever have.

SECRETLY BORROW THIS FROM A FRIEND

Everything Is New by Jack Peñate



We're not going to go through it all again, but basically Peñate used to be a bit rubbish and then he hooked up with a good producer (Paul Epworth) and decided to reinvent his sound using some of today's more successful genres; bit of tropicalia here, a dash of Afrobeat there, a smattering of house and just a dose of Peruvian jazz-folk fusion. All in all, a tasty concoction. Opener 'Pull My Heart Away' is possibly the best opening track of any album listed on this page today.

YOU MUST MAKE A CHOICE

As we all know, 2009 is the year of the woman or some such nonsense. Little Boots, Lady Gaga, Paloma Faith, Pixie Lott, etc, etc, all have a vagina and a voice each and are all signed to record companies and are releasing music for us to buy. Add to that list La Roux and Florence & The Machine, two people with vaginas, voices AND red hair, making them bitter rivals in the world of music. Some are calling their chart battle the musical equivalent of Israel versus Palestine, but we see it more as Venus versus Serena; two equally talented women, both capable of great things serving up a couple of aces...or something.

'Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)' by Florence & The Machine



Twinkly harps, pounding drums and a voice you could wrap yourself in for weeks, this is a BIG sounding song. Written after a falling out with her record company - they asked her to make something more immediate - it's a song to be sung from the rooftops, possibly whilst drunk.

'Bulletproof' by La Roux



From the layered, lush sounds of Florence to the brittle, tinny sounds of La Roux. 'Bulletproof' is the single that was meant to make up for the failure of 'In For The Kill', but seeing as that peaked at no.2 the chances of this turning La Roux into a genuine pop are 'fair' to 'fucking obviously going to happen'.

Peñate butter

We, the music writing fraternity, felt sure we had the measure of Jack Peñate. That strange knee-knocking dance move he did, those clothes that screamed 'poor student' when in fact his Grandfather owned Bath or something and most disarmingly of all, those annoying busker-in-Shoreditch singalongs.



As we mentioned here, he's had a bit of a change of heart of late and his second album, the aptly-titled Everything Is New, is 95% better then the first. Producer Paul Epworth has added some Afrobeat, a dash of dance music's euphoria and slow-burning hit singles. This is the new single, 'Be The One':



It's not a great video by any means, but it does feature Jack in an ensemble last worn by Russia's gold medal winning ice dancers circa 1984 (3:15 onwards).

When Musick mentioned that we had a copy of his new album (EXCLUSIVE) we were met with blank looks, turned up noses and general indifference, a microcosm of the reaction he may still face trying to remedy the damage done with the first album. Still, everyone loves a fighter...