Paloma Faith - Picking Up The Pieces

I have to admit, I never bought in to Paloma Faith the first time around. Sure, the lovely string-soaked refrains of New York were nice enough, but I never felt compelled to go out and buy her album. And new single Picking Up The Pieces - the first from her second album - still leaves me unconvinced too. She's still going that heady retro-soul thing, all theatrical vocals and liberal dollops of star-dust thrown in for good measure. But in a post-Someone Like You world, there's the sense that torchbearing female singers like Paloma have to up the ante a bit. And Someone Like You isn't that - moreover just a sort of reasonably pleasant coasting along. As a pretty thing, Picking Up The Pieces is undoubtedly a curio worth more than a cursory bit of interest, but even the gospel choir that surges up on its final choruses can't seem to elevate it to something more profound than that.

Picking Up The Pieces is released on the 21st May.

Paloma Faith, Graham Coxon & Bill Ryder-Jones - Desire

Hot Chip & New Order's Bernard Sumner delivered one of the most brilliant collaborations in recent years with their team-up track 'Didn't Know What Love Was'. And for that we have Converse to thank. As part of their new initiative 'celebrating the diversity of the UK music scene' they get various artists to group together, resulting in awesome new music. It's a win-win scenario for all parties involved really and their latest release sees Paloma Faith, Graham Coxon and Bill Ryder-Jones performing 'Desire'.

One of the merits behind this track, and the initiative as a whole is that the artists picked always fit together so well in terms of their sound. Thus, when it comes to the collaboration, you have something that feels organic, authentic and fun. As you would expect from the likes of Paloma and Coxon, 'Desire' is suitably quirky, a real baroque pop-rock stormer.

The video, as befits a track called 'Desire' portrays a Sin City-esque world, full of dark, unnerving fantasy: