Here Time Is Ending, Here I’m Gonna Stay

Clinic “Falstaff” – I am beginning to wonder if Clinic are working on some kind of conceptual project of making modular pop. Walking With Thee felt as though the band was rewriting their own material, but there was enough distinct about those songs to make it seem that it was only a coincidence and that they were just being themselves.

Songs from Winchester Cathedral often seem as though the impulse to rework parts from previous material has become deliberate rather than accidental or habitual. The most obvious example is “The Magician,” which sounds like the groove of “Welcome” has been spliced with the melodica style of “The Equalizer,” with only some vague nod to klezmer as a new element. It could just be my imagination, but at least three songs from this new record make reference to the previous album’s “Sunlight Bathes Our Home.” Some new sounds and techniques differentiate Winchester Cathedral from its predecessors (mainly the use of simple piano on several tracks, and a greater range of percussive sounds and effects), but it does not add enough novelty to make the record feel like anything more than a less enthusiastic version of what they’ve already done.

“Falstaff” is a major exception on the album. Though Clinic have written other tunes in the same light jazzy balladic style, the song’s sweet, romantic melody and heavily reverbed guitar refrains stand out as the most memorable parts of the entire record.

Armand Van Helden featuring Spalding Rockwell “Hear My Name” (Radio Edit) – This brilliant rock/house hybrid is running in a dead heat with Gene Serene’s “Electric Dreams” as being my favorite electropop tune of this year so far. The song is the new single from Van Helden’s New York: A Mix Odyssey compilation, which mixes some of his own compositions and newer selections along with obvious classics from Blondie, Yazoo, Soft Cell, and Wire (via Klonhertz). (Click here to buy it.)

Neo-Miyako “My Nuthin Babe” – As with Fujiya & Miyagi, this is not a Japanese group, but rather a bunch of white guys from Brighton. Neo-Miyako specialize in catchy, high-gloss electro-rock, not unlike that one great single that Richard X did with the Sugababes. Great stuff. (Click here to buy a compilation featuring this track.)

Elsewhere: Kittytext is a new MP3 blog with an emphasis on folk and country. Bumrocks offers a new twist on the MP3 blog format: no writing, all tunes.