Temper Trap Conditions

Bertie Blackman Secrets and Lies: [Forum5] [MGM]

Five years on from her first album, Bertie Blackman has finally managed to break the mainstream market and fill our airwaves with this modernised new album. Still showcasing her signature voice and song writing beautifully, the album is less quirky than her previous work, with an element of pop complimenting Bertie's folk style. There are plenty of catchy sing-alongs and an inclusion of electronic elements such as in Thump, yet you'll still find a small presence of cool kooky tunes like My White Owl. She's stepped out with an album that should please old and new fans and transfer easily to live performances, although those who have followed her career may slightly grieve for odd little Bertie's forgotten style.

Polo Club The 13: [Amphead]

Polo Club's inventive electro-rap has spawned an attractive side to a genre I've previously scorned. Their experimental mix of rap with overlapping sound takes, heavy use of electro distortion and sampling combine to deliver an enticing new creation. The duo has a good ear for quality retro tunes and lyrics, with the funky beat from Janis Ian's Fly Too High appearing in Witness the Feeling and words from Bohemian Rhapsody used in Shouldn't Let Him Out. The poppy Million $, with its chorus delivered in chipmunk pitch, is a CD highlight, conveying the message that money can't buy happiness. It's a gas maze of assorted rhythms and effects, which even includes castanets!

Mos Def The Ecstatic: [Downtown]

Thrusting one's opinions upon the great unwashed is the one of the main reasons alcohol-soaked journos such as myself get into this heady game. So with this in mind I implore you with great joy to spring to your nearest music emporium and pur-chase a copy of the suitably titled The Ecstatic. It's Def's best album since his genre-bending debut Black On Both Sides thanks to the poetics and earnest delivery layered over globetrotting production from Madlib, Oh No and Mr. Flash.

Hairy-knuckled folk who spend too much time in dark rooms listening to music will recognise a lot of these beats already; Oh No rejigs some samples from Dr. No's Oxperiment to launch the album with the charged guitar riffs of Supermagic, Madlib serves up a reheated-but-still-tasty India flavour with tracks from the Beat Konducta in India series, and Life in Marvelous Times recycles Ed Banger label Mr. Flash's Champions. But the tracks, and the whole album, come alive with Mos' energy and deft lyrical flow layered over the top. This will be in my albums of the year.  Make sure it's in yours.

Super Moth Black Rainbow Eating Us: [Spunk]

If you like Air but can't quite handle the highly dependable clatter of Super Furry Animals, then Super Moth Black Rainbow could be your 19th favourite band. There's an easy-going, vocoded laziness wafting across this album that could be uncharitably compared to a nauseating chill out compilation CD but the Moths pull up just on the right side of predictability. Just. Iron Lemonade teases with an ever-present threat to explode and Gold Splatter would be more at home on DJ Shadow's Diminishing Returns psychedelic mix tape. But in the end Eating Us sounds happy enough to merely exist. Apparently that's sufficient these days.