Artrocker Magazine’s Single Reviews for the week commencing July 19th

Toro Y Moi
Leave Everywhere
(Carpark)

Writing an awkward balled is an ever popular pursuit. However, penning a ballad where you describe how you had an emotional brawl as the result of a lover ‘getting into your head’. The imagery of lying flat on your back by a knock-out blow dealt by love causing you to retreat back home is as affecting as it is sincere.
Not only is this track reminiscent of The Crystals’ He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss) but it carries the West Coast lofi Wall of Sand sounds of Girls, The Smith Westerns and Best Coast. There’s no doubt that Toro Y Moi are currently hanging with the cool kids right now. With this nervous guitar shuffle you can picture the lead singer throwing himself about the stage like Little Richard on ketamine, where his front-man gestures seem more like fidgeting, whilst still constantly alluding to sex. Welcome to the new R&B.
Samuel Breen


Milk White White Teeth
Ingrid Won't Smile/Dante's Danceteria
(Too Pure Singles Club)

Kong like real trumpets. Kong not like fake keyboard trumpets. Kong get angry when he hear keyboard trumpets! Same with second A-side. Munch munch. Kong say good indie-pop songs anyway. Munch. Nice male / female vocals. Kong feel good!
Ric Rawlins


The Charlatans
Love Is Ending
(Cooking Vinyl)

It's easy to have the mistaken impression that The Charlatans called it quits a good few years back: Tim Burgess has been seen out and about as a new-band mentor and festival curator (he programmed a day at 2009's Isle of Wight), but less frequently as the '90s indie guru slouching off a microphone stand.
For sure, you'd do well not to compare 'Love Is Ending' to earlier classics like 'One To Another'. Starting off in a blizzard of distortion, it hits its stride with a Sex Pistols-style rhythm, as Burgess delivers one of his lazily likable vocal takes over the top. The result is a strangely casual punk song which wears its lack of ambition as a mark of pride. Weird, but not especially good-weird.
Cindy Suzuki


Tantrums
Champloo EP
(Bigger Than Barry Records)

It's always a bit confusing when you get a press release that reads "AMAZING!" - ARTROCKER at the top, only to discover music that's the aural equivalent of a pair of used pants. I wonder if they get this problem at The Times?
According to us (via the press release), Tantrums are "energized by the atmosphere of illicit raves", which immediately makes me ponder two things, namely 1) should the person who wrote this be fired? and 2) am I about to smell the aforementioned whiff of used pants?
Thankfully the answer's no on both counts: one song here called 'Barracudas' does sound distinctly rave-like, while the EP as a whole contains some genuinely likable moments, not least the star-gazing female vocal on 'Give Me My Ticket'.
Brownie points are removed for sounding a little bit 'polished emo' at times, but said Brownie points are then put back on for inspiring me to research barracudas on Google, only to discover a breed of vampiric-looking fish.
Ric Rawlins


The Pipettes
Call Me
(Fortuna POP!)

If you wanted to chew on some MDMA-laced bubblegum, you could do worse than pick this inoffensive and mostly harmless piece of rave-pop. Like Sophie Ellis-Bextor with jet boosters, The Pipettes make the sort of perfect pop that Xenomania could only dream of, the sort of music that has the ghost people who float around your mind’s eye performing impromptu Whigfield wig-outs. Catchier than a Skatch pad.
Michael Bennett