Ben Folds/Nick Hornby – From Above

At my desk the other day I was listening to the fabulous BBC 6 Music when this song hurtled down the wires of my earphones sending pulses of pleasure throughout my being. I hadn’t been paying much attention before so I was suffering some form of brain atrophy and any song that can break through the indifference barrier is worthy of further investigation.

Once I’d got my bearings on the stream, I found it was a collaborative effort between Ben Folds (the music) and Nick Hornby (the lyrics). Which on paper, is like the wet dream of a hipster kid from 1995. A year that saw Ben Folds Five release their amazing debut album and Hornby had the musically themed High Fidelity published.

Taken from the forthcoming album Lonely Avenue the song opens with a quick roll of the drums and bounces along blissfully into the best pop song I’ve heard since Darwin Deez Radar Detector. Driven by Folds on the piano and teeming with synth embellishments in all the right places, it becomes very difficult not have it whirring around your head for the rest of the day.

Lyrically the song is a distinctly Hornby monologue. A daydream of two people who don’t realise they are soul mates. Comfortable in their current relationship and have no desire to search for a fairytale ending. Folds delivers Hornby’s words with gusto and is ably supported by female vocalist Kate Miller Heidke, who provides the soft edges to the track.

The sum of these parts creates a truly memorable pop song that is reminiscent of Jens Lekmans work and leaves me hoping that the rest of the album can match up to this high standard.

You can buy the Single “From Above” on iTunes and the album Lonely Avenue is out on September 28^th

From Above.mp3

Darwin Deez - Radar Detector

So it's been a while since I wrote one these things., Its an unfortunate by-product of just having way too much on at work and in my social life. Excuses aside I'm back and intend to be far more committed to this music blog than i have been in the last month.

So where to start? well there's only once place really and thats with this most amazing of Tracks from Darwin Deez. I first got wind of this via Ben Marwoods podcast for me on [edit] radio last month, he described it as possibly 'the best pop song of the year?'

I have to say that even after the 10th listen the track loses none of its luster. It has a boundless energy and sounds wee bit like Max Tundra but poppier (if thats even a word).

As I said in the podcast I released this week if you listen to this song without bopping along you don't deserve the power of hearing!

Darwin Deez - Radar Detector by LuckyNumberMusic

You can buy his amazing album from the link below