Eoin Butler's guide to downloads, singles and free audiostreams
THE VACCINES
Post Break Up SexColumbia ***
Having announced their arrival late last year with their Mark E Smith-esque Wreckin’ Ball (Ra Ra Ra) debut single, The Vaccines consolidate their position as the most hotly tipped indie act of 2011 with this ode to casual sex. An album (What Did You Expect from The Vaccines?) is due this year.
RETARDED COP
Tea N' Fags****
DJ Gaz Le Rock is the host of 2XM’s The Loving Room Floor. It would be difficult to identify exactly what I like the most about this no-frills bubblegum ode to “tea and fags and porno mags”, but it might be the fact the singer’s mother appears to be sitting next to him looking bemused for the entire duration of the video. youtube.com
M.I.A.
Vicky Leekx**
The latest missive from Maya Arulpragasam is this free 36-minute mix tape, inspired by international super-villain du jour Julian Assange. Well, it’s one way to banish those New Year blues, I suppose. vickileekx.com
IRON AND WINE
Walking Far from Home4AD ***
“I saw a building, high as heaven/But the door was so small.” Lyrically, Samuel Beam’s latest single borrows much of the apocalyptic imagery in Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall. His fourth album, Kiss Each Other Clean, is reviewed at left.
KATY B ft MS DYNAMITE
Lights OnColumbia ***
Another heavily hyped new British act, Katie Brien is – like Amy Winehouse, Kate Nash and Leona Lewis before her – a graduate of the BRIT School in Croydon. She may have been feeling under the weather during the recording of this single, a duet with 2002 Mercury Prize winner Ms Dynamite, as she appears to be wearing pyjamas in the video. Standards, clearly, are not what they might be.
