We love Tilly at our house. They’re fantastic. You must know by now that the perfect pop song makes us feel sad and happy at the same time, and Tilly certainly understand this. Those wonderful driving rhythms, harmonies and melodies, and lyrics which find a positive take on the grimmest of circumstances make for hugely engaging and invigorating music, particularly when you see them live.

That said, this is a pretty pointless seven inches of plastic. The Freest Man is, I think, not one of the best tracks off the last LP, and Hot Chip have managed to strip the wonderful Sing Songs Along of most of its heart.

What’s the point of remixes? They seem to come in two varieties these days. There’s either no resemblance at all to the original, the result being five minutes of a repetitive electronic squelching noise interspersed with clicks; or you get this kind of guff, with most of the original vocals over a kind of repetitive electronic clicking noise.

I love Tilly, but I feel a bit short changed by this.

One day, Ma Cherie for Painting made a great record. I happened across this one the other day, and bought it on the off-chance it would also be great. It’s weird (+), and not that good (-); at least not when the awful atonal singing happens. Musically it’s alright, with funny noises, complicated colliding rhythms and bells. Kind of like if Broadcast had access to a church. ‘b’ side’s Piano Magic remix features an early appearance by the Pot Noodle Horn.

You know where you are with Lucky Soul. Lucky Soul don’t dick about with remixes. Lucky Soul just get on with doing their retro northern soul thing. They’re very good at it, and have a nice line in themed sleeves. On the front of this one we finally get a proper look at them. They look cool.

I missed this one somehow. It’s just bloody lovely, as you’d expect.

On Transgressive, so most likely an over-hyped re-warming of something that wasn’t that good in 1986. Let’s see.

Yep.

Pretty much. It’s okay I suppose. Better than The bloody Twang.

You know this isn’t going to be straightforward.

It’s not. White noise, samples, random beeping. What is wrong with these people?

Last night we watched the Eurovision. (Well, the voting. We missed the songs.) Everyone’s throwing their hands up at the pointlessness of it all, and a while ago there was even talk of Morrissey entering for us next year. I say, forget Morrissey, let’s stick Cassetteboy, V/Vm, or Stock, Hausen and Walkman in, and show Europe the path to true enlightenment.