A true summer electro-pop gem, with handclaps and all, just as the sun deserts us

It’s hard to tell if summer is still upon us, or if it buggered off a few weeks ago having allowed us three whole days of sunshine. Either way, Seattle-based duo Beat Connection have managed to bottle some of it up and actually stitch it into the fabric of In The Water. Seagulls squawk melodiously during the intro and there’s much talk about water before the whole thing bursts into life, like the sun suddenly breaking through a grey cloud. There’s a great bit around the 1:50 mark where the handclaps (of course it’s got handclaps in it!) reach a crescendo and the chorus drops and you want to put on some Speedos, run out into the sea and frolic like you’ve never frolicked before. Naturally, it all ends with some steel drums, making this a shoe-in for the next Lilt commercial.

You can not only download In The Water but an entire 8-track EP is available for free from their Band Camp site.

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Is this leaked song an old unreleased track or a hint that the singer will finally release a follow up to her 1998 solo album?

Lauryn Hill has been away from music for far too long, so you can’t blame fans for getting excited about the unexpected arrival of a new song. The question is, is the track actually new or an unreleased recording from the late 1990s? Repercussion is a languid, introspective account of Hill’s life with lyrics recalling those on her 1998 album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill: “I was born into this world, a little ditty baby girl … a racist world, now it’s a difficult process – the matter is of perception.” As it bears the hallmarks of her earlier work, fans are already speculating that it was a reject from The Miseducation … LP, while others suggest the recent confirmation that the singer will play the Rock the Bells tour in the US is a sign she’s about to release new material. Maybe our blog convinced her to up the work rate!

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Depech Mode played through a duvet? That’ll be Coolrunnings

“You want to kiss my egg?” Who doesn’t love the 1993 comedy about a Jamaican bobsleigh team who overcome prejudice to compete in the Winter Olympics? It’s a seminal movie, like Raging Bull. We can only assume that this eight-piece from Knoxville, Tennessee agree, and they didn’t just choose the name because it sounds good. I Am You is a bit like hearing 1980s-era Depeche Mode through the wall of an adjacent room, its muffled synths and fuzzy beats seemingly recorded through a 12 tog duvet. In spite of their shyness, melodies fight their way through the fog and by the end you’ll be shuffling about despite yourself.

If you like this, head over to Band Camp where you can download I Am You for free, plus two EPs, one of which comes with artwork featuring nude female skateboarders.

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A summer jam from a man whose real name trumps his stage one

So, what do we know about Chad Valley? Well, we know from his MySpace that he’s from Oxford, that his – much more exotic – real name is Hugo Manuel and that he’s one sixth of the band, Jonquil. Now, this is all very well in a This Is Your Life kind of way, but what’s the music like? Up and Down is a slinky Hot Chip on downers, a disco-infused summer “joint” featuring some shimmering synths, padded drum beats and Manuel’s impressive croon. You know when Big Brother contestants say, “it was like some mad rollercoaster ride in that house, Davina”? Well, this song sums that sentiment up perfectly.

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Listen to the London club duo unleash the Jets’ inner party animal

Because it’s sunny right now, here’s a bongo-bashing summer party anthem. We’ll give you a day to learn those dance moves, but you can start singing “Ooooooooh, yeah!” right away.

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The launch of Pitchfork’s Altered Zones was met with derision from bloggers sniping about ‘traffic-driving ad revenues’. Whatever happened to just discovering new music for fun?

Music blogs used to act like online zines, compiling the latest underground music or uncovering lost vinyl classics for a new generation. They relied on adjective-strewn enthusiasm for all things undiscovered and were unpaid apart from a few free CDs and a place on a guestlist. But with the launch of the Pitchfork-endorsed Altered Zones last night, and the subsequent internet backlash, is blogging about new bands starting to sound like boring old music hackery?

Altered Zones is boasts an exciting variety of content from 14 of the most impressive underground blogs around. Overseeing the site are San Francisco’s yourstru.ly, which films its favourite bands in unusual locations, 20jazzfunkgreats, which plucks innovative electronic sounds out of thin air, and former print zine and mainstream media-appointed “tastemakers” Transparent.

“The best thing about blogging is the people you get to meet,” says Jack Shankly, one of Transparent’s co-founders. “It’s a great way to gain exposure for the individual blogs (and the music they cover) among a readership that might be unwilling to trawl all 14 sites.” They’ll also benefit from Pitchfork’s bank account, allowing them to spend a little more time listening to music, and a little less worrying about bills. In short, they’ll be professional enthusiasts.

But it also shows what’s happened to blogging in recent years. As Shankly says, readers don’t want to trawl through hundreds of sites in search of new music. Instead, many music fans rely on MP3 aggregators such as the Hype Machine or blog networks like MBV (featuring Fluxblog and the Catbirdseat) to decide what to download. They are now run like small businesses, with associated promotion wings – such as the Buzzmedia-affiliated Gorilla Vs Bear showcases – and labels. Come on, who wouldn’t want the official Mexican Summer/Gorilla vs Bear SXSW T-shirt?

And it appears that bloggers these days are familiar with fancy big-business words too. Following Pitchfork’s announcement about Altered Zones, there was a critical backlash. Impose, a Brooklyn blog and magazine, wrote a hate mail that included the words “central command”, “minimal target adage” and “traffic-driving ad revenues”. Salad Fork, a blogger known for indie-pop discoveries, wrote an “analytic dissection of music blogging”, while on Twitter people moaned about “blog monopoly” before the site they were complaining about had even gone live. Which made me think: isn’t this kind of internet whining best reserved for budgets and expense scandals rather than something that’s meant to be, er, fun?

Shankly agrees: “I don’t want to waste time and energy bitching about a record or band I hate. There is no gratification in that. It’s irritating that there’s a negative culture of ownership that exists in blogging. There is an assumption that a blog gains certain rights over an artist, track or video simply because they posted it first. It seems the antithesis of what blogging is about.”

Whether it’s glitch, dream pop or doom-metal, this kind of writing should be about emotion, not numbers and hard analysis. If blogging is to retain its credibility it needs to remember that new music can be a joyous thing. So stop griping about the business, stop worrying about what Altered Zones could become and just listen to the songs. Even Pitchfork does that.

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MySpace’s visitor numbers have halved in the last six months, says Tech Crunch. So if you’re not going there to listen to new music, where are you going?

An article in Tech Crunch this week says that MySpace’s visitors have halved in the last six months. That seems like a very dramatic figure, but I can’t really say I’m surprised. As a site for social networking its function has been totally usurped by the likes of Facebook and Twitter, and its role in the world of music seems to have completely stagnated since about 2005, when Rupert Murdoch shelled out $580m to buy the once forward-thinking site.

MySpace’s musical content seems to have grown increasingly clunky and slow to load over the last few years. Having heard a fair bit about Missy Elliot protegee Sharaya recently, I decided to listen to her music on MySpace. Her profile is so crammed with boring PR shots, lists of influences and, erm, a Nietzsche quote that the actual music player is buried half way down the page. In the wrong browser, it doesn’t even show up. In the end, I just headed to YouTube. This experience is not confined to those wanting to listen to Sharaya (though she may want to consider toning the page down a bit). It feels all too familiar on MySpace.

When I put the figures published by Tech Crunch to MySpace, their spokesperson made the point that individual artist pages are not under the company’s creative control. It therefore attempts to tread the fine line between allowing total artist freedom and making the site user-friendly. He was also keen to point out that the site had launched a playlist function in December 2009 and had success with streaming live concerts by the likes of the Dead Weather and Hot Chip. Chris Moser, the managing director of MySpace UK, responded with an ambiguous allusion to changes in the site in the near future: “MySpace is dedicated to providing artists with a place where they can creatively engage with their fans without intermediaries. We are working on the next evolution of MySpace which will be unveiled later in the year.”

But the problem is that superior sites for listening to new music, such as Spotify and SoundCloud, have emerged over the last few years. In terms of service, Bandcamp.com seems like MySpace’s clearest rival in the music stakes. The first thing you’re offered on the homepage is a friendly Apple-style tutorial on how to use the site and what it can offer you both as a listener and an artist. Instantly, its manoeuvrability and visual clarity put MySpace’s design to shame.

Playlists and album previews are great, but MySpace lacks any musical authority. This week you’ll be greeted by a link to the new MIA album, next to an “intimate chat” with Emma Bunton, a woman who hasn’t put a record out in three years.

Another personal favourite is Boomkat, a sort of digital cratedigging site for independent music whose recommendations for largely unheard-of acts are nearly always spot on. In fact, it was mention of the site from guardian.co.uk/music readers a while ago that turned me on to Boomkat in the first place. So now seems like a good time to ask: where do you go for music online? And which sites do you think offer the best service?

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The rapper returns with a prog-rock sampling new single

Ever since Kanye West went off for a bit of a brood after making a massive tit of himself at the MTV awards, we’ve missed his big mouth. Fortunately, it seems the rapper has returned (from recording in Hawaii, apprently) with new song Power, which features an unlikely sample from King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man. But was it worth the wait? Have a listen and let us know what you think.

Kanye West – Power (Via Nah Right)

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A new music programme has been set up as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

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Our milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and they’re like … Oh sorry, we just got a little carried away thanks to this week’s guest. Yep, it’s the one and only Kelis. She tells Rosie Swash about her new album, Flesh Tone, why being 30 is great and how a cookery course inspired her return to music.

Singles Club sees Rosie joined by Malik Meer, editor of the Guide, and the Observer’s chief pop critic, Kitty Empire. The panel find themselves up to their elbows in new music, including Beyoncé’s Why Don’t You Love Me, Sleigh Bells’ Tell ‘Em, and Jai Paul’s BTSTU.

And we finish with Ninja Tune’s new signing, Andreya Triana, who explains her love of mixtapes to Emma Warren, and plays an exclusive live version of her song A Town Called Obselete.

That’s your lot. We bid you happy listening, and find us on Twitter and Facebook if the fancy takes you.

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