Monday, February 26, 2007

Lily Allen – LDN (iTunes)

She was robbed at The Brits but you can commiserate by getting this live, acoustic version which is available only on iTunes. £0.79 gets you 4:01-worth of LDN recorded last year in concert at Bush Hall. ****

Moby – Go Remixed (mute.com)

The Downloadable Deluxe Version of Go, the Best of Moby, scored just two stars in this column back in our Christmas issue because too many versions across countless download sites smacked of record company cash-in rather than the almost hand-crafted product you’d expect from Moby. Fortunately this download edition is different from its CD counterpart, but is much easier to get your head around. It drops two tracks (the CJ Bolland Mix of the James Bond Theme and Moby's own Old Skool Mix of Feeling So Real) but adds two in its place (Bob Sinclar’s Main Vocal Mix of We Are All Made Of Stars and the Slipping Away/MHC Edit of Escapar). But if you only download one track from this set, make it Rollo and Sister Bliss’ (a/k/a Faithless) take on Honey. ***

Moby – Go Remixed (mute.com)

The Downloadable Deluxe Version of Go, the Best of Moby, scored just two stars in this column back in our Christmas issue because too many versions across countless download sites smacked of record company cash-in rather than the almost hand-crafted product you’d expect from Moby. Fortunately this download edition is different from its CD counterpart, but is much easier to get your head around. It drops two tracks (the CJ Bolland Mix of the James Bond Theme and Moby's own Old Skool Mix of Feeling So Real) but adds two in its place (Bob Sinclar’s Main Vocal Mix of We Are All Made Of Stars and the Slipping Away/MHC Edit of Escapar). But if you only download one track from this set, make it Rollo and Sister Bliss’ (a/k/a Faithless) take on Honey. ***

Dinosaur Jr - Almost Ready (dinosaurjr.com)

Next month, April 30 to be precise, sees a new album called Beyond from the original Jr. line-up, their first in 18 years. “Some groups can change line-ups without anyone noticing,” their website observes, “but that was never the case with Dinosaur Jr. The pieces that fell away over the years were missed. But now they have all been collected together in one place. For how long no one can say. So just dig it while it is.” This free taster from the album is also available on their MySpace at www.myspace.com/dinosaurjr. ***

Mr Hudson – Why Must I Always Play The Clown? (iTunes)

One of the surprise highlights of Amy Winehouse’s current UK tour is the support band, Mr Hudson and The Library. An odd mix of The Police, 80s drum pads and quality pop songs, with a backing vocalist with a nice line in steel drums. They’re signed to Mercury and this is their first single, available exclusively as an iTunes download. ****