Quick Listen: The week’s top tunes – Noel Gallagher, Spaces, Kendrick Lamar

NOEL GALLAGHER'S HIGH FLYING BIRDS
Riverman 
Sour Mash
Apparently Noel Gallagher, Russell Brand and Morrissey had a crazy drunken night out in Los Angeles recently. (Well, two of them did. Brand is a teetotaller.) And this song was inspired by that night. One need not be a particular fan of any of these individual gentlemen to figure, nonetheless, it that this must have been one singularly fascinating piss-up. Channelled through the pneumatic filter of Noel Gallagher's songwriting skillset, however, the tale comes out just the usual hodgepodge of better days, brighter ways, and vague aspirations to be realised at the rainbow's end. A latter-day Boswell, our Noel is not. (Well, in song anyway. His interviews are flipping hilarious!)

SPACES
Assembly
Bleep
They say dying is easy, comedy is hard. I say comedy is hard, writing coherently about ambient dance music is well nigh impossible. Some writers are capable of using terms like "tectonic soundscapes" and "sonic architecture" without feeling like an idiot. Alas, I am not one of them. John Flynn (aka Spaces) is the hitherto obscure Irish producer whose name turned up in the credits for Bjork's new album Vulnicura. This is him working solo. What can I say? I would 100 per cent listen to this in the car, while nodding my head appreciatively.

KENDRICK LAMAR
The Blacker The Berry
Interscope
Written in response to the spate of violent deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of the police in the US, it's no surprise that Kendrick Lamar's new single bristles with righteous fury. What is a surprise, however, is the conclusion the 27-year-old Compton native draws in the shocking final verse. I won't spoil the surprise. But if I tell you the Rap Genius entry for this song was annotated by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, you'll gather his take is a little more nuanced than simply "F**k Tha Police".