The above image certainly doesn’t represent what the generation that still remembers the little 7” plastic thing called a single. It was a drag to play, and often even needed an additional tool that you had to stick over the turntable spindle to be payable at all.
These days you just turn on a ready-made playlist or pile up a set of files in a certain order. You can call it a playlist too if you wish. Still, with all the possible playing troubles, the old 7-inchers brought joy and excitement and you can repeat them as much as you wanted to.
That doesn’t mean that you are denied some good music in what is called singles these days. You just need a bit more time and patience to dig out the ones that you really deserve to be played for more than 30 seconds. And yes, you can still find those. Here are a few for this week:
Welshly Arms - I Will Overcome
An American band that seems to be doing much better in Europe, with over 500 million combined total streams and certified platinum in Germany and Switzerland. ‘I Will Overcome’ show why it works for them - mid-tempo pop that includes classic gospel elements to a good effect. Commercial? Yes. But then, so what?
Rone & Georgia - Waves of Devotion
Rone is a French producer that has quite a few interesting collaborations under his belt, including Blonde Redhead, and French star Etienne Daho. On ‘Waves of Devotion’ he is joined by Georgia, currently a big star in Britain with her second album and who has also worked with the likes of Gorillaz. Rone employs all the current electronic embellishments around Georgia’s voice with subtlety and style.
The Underground Youth - For You Are The One
Craig Dayer moved to Berlin from Manchester with his The Underground Youth usually being on the more intense side of the musical spectrum. Not that emotion is missing from ‘For You Are The One,’ on the contrary, but here he and his band sound more like The Pogues who have Shane McGowan fully in control. And it still sounds good.
Eric Chenaux - 3 Stars On A Mountain of Doom
Canadian Eric Chenaux alternates between gentle folkish stuff and ambient soundscapes, often combining the two. He devoted this elongated track from the Constellation Records Corona Borealis Longplay singles seriesCorona Borealis Longplay singles series to guitarist/composer Richard Youngs, another cult figure that meanders between folk and experimentation.
Yvette Janine Jackson - Excerpts from Freedom
Should this one qualify as a single? Well, since boundaries are being moved anyway, why not. Even more so, the composer combines elements of music concréte, spoken word, and field recording from her latest album of the same name. A long way from what you would usually find on those ‘old’ little vinyl things, or something that would ever find its way on a commercial radio show, but it is still exciting, nonetheless.