Even for the particularly strong year we're having, these past few weeks have been great for new music. Varied, too - there's Robyn's electronica/house/pop anthem with her new project La Bagatelle Magique (which means The Magic Trible, FYI), Laura Marling's beautiful feminist ballad, and Prince's deeply political funk track. And that's barely scratching the surface.
In case you haven't been holed up on the internet of late, wading through new music like we have, we've put together a Friday playlist of the greatest new tracks from the past few weeks to catch you up to speed. It's raining in London, so stay inside, put this on, and thank us when you're done.
Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique - 'Set Me Free'
It's not quite the instant classic that was this collaboration's first single, 'Love Is Free', but put some good headphones on and the slightly disorienting, thumping house beat slides in perfectly with Robyn's cherubim vocals. There's shades of Goldfrapp's 'Ooh La La', but with more work for the sub woofer to do.
Chvrches - 'Leave A Trace'
What a comeback. It's anthemic, defiant and contains about six killer hooks, the best of which is the beautifully resolved melody of the verse, which cascades into a more ambitious, confrontational chorus: "I know I need to feel released / Take care to bury all that you can / Take care to leave a trace of a man."
Lianne La Havas - 'Green & Gold'
Everything that's come from Lianne La Havas' forthcoming album so far has built upon the brilliance of 2012's Is Your Love Big Enough? 'Green & Gold', with its staccato, falsetto chorus and sultry verse, is no exception. The lyrics, too, are poignantly nostalgic, "Six years old / Staring at my nose in the mirror / Trying to dip my toes in the mirror /Thinking 'Who's that girl?' / And 'Does the mirror world go on forever?'"
Foals - 'Mountain At My Gates'
With its light summery guitar riff and a drum beat that dances underneath the infectious melody, this - like 'What Went Down' before it - is destined to become a classic. Eventually, it descends into a wall of noise, with screechy synth sounds and feedback as Philippakis' voice builds into something formidable.
Laura Marling - 'Daisy'
While on the surface this new track, from the director's cut version of Short Movie, is a return to the acoustic style that Marling favoured before she discovered an electric guitar, it's still starkly different from anything she's produced before. In fact, we suspect Marling would rather stop altogether than become lazily stagnant. With its rolling, meandering melody, Daisy's eponymous heroine is fiercely independent - an independence Marling seems keen to attach to all womankind: "I think that you look at her wrong / I think that you look at us all wrong / A woman alone is not a woman undone." It may be tacked onto the end of an already brilliant album, but this is one of Marling's best tracks to date.
Prince feat. Eryn Allen Kane - 'Baltimore'
Written to address "the unrest in Baltimore and the socio/political issues around the country in the wake of a slew of killing of young black men," Prince's new track is as deeply important and culturally relevant as it its filled with funk licks and a melody that grabs you and forces you to listen to its message. "Does anybody hear us pray / for Michael Brown or Freddie Gray? /Peace is more than the absence of war."
Hurts - 'Rolling Stone'
Following on from lead single 'Some Kind Of Heaven', 'Rolling Stone' is a tale of a love story gone awry, the track features the typically melancholy chorus of "her daddy was an alcoholic, and her mother was an animal, she said the law would never take her alive if they take her home," as well as the oh-so-satisfying line "in Belarus she was a vespertine, she danced the go-go for the bourgeoisie, now she's here and she's on her knees." It's so Hurts it hurts, and it's absolutely magnificent.
