apollo 440

Delilah, ‘Love You So’

Delilah

I’ve done a proper, almost considered review of her album for NME, but we do of course need to appraise Delilah frivolously – and with input from a seven-year-old.

Delilah’s all 21st century trip-hop, which sounds like a creaking bore on paper until you appreciate what she could’ve been. She was a vocal foil for Chase And Status, the hollow-hearted Apollo 440 for nos jours. We could’ve had another Kosheen on our hands. In the circumstances, some lush, gorgeously sung trip-hop is manna from Heaven.

Junior’s musical muscle memory isn’t weighed down by the plodding mass of Morcheeba or Sneaker Pimps, so she can sit here and enjoy ‘Love You So’. There’s a trace of sarcasm in her “fantastic” verdict and the cherry on top is the wavering thumb, neither up nor down.

Junior’s mum just spends three minutes trying to remember the name of Finley Quaye’s ‘Even After All’.

[6] Röyksopp featuring Robyn, ‘The Girl And The Robot’

Röyksopp get away with being coffee table dance bores because they’re Norwegian. Stick them in the Home Counties, and they’ll be held in the same esteem as Groove Armada, Morcheeba, Apollo christing 440. “Didn’t you make a good record once?” an aging hipster will say. “Yeah, that one on the advert,” will be their chipper reply. “Oh, and the one that Robyn rescued.”

And she does rescue it. This would be a hi-NRG SAW-era Kylie record (OK at the time, but in 2009?) if it wasn’t for the “killingest pop star on the planet” and her ability to make the mundane sound heartbreaking. She could make the Liverpool FC year-end financial figures sound dramatic and devastating. But instead, it’s the story of a poor girl ignored by her cold, workaholic boyfriend. He’s like a robot. He may even be a robot. After all, as well as sounding like 1989 this sounds like The Future. It’s a wormhole.

It’s also the key to unlock Junior’s dynamic array of disco moves, which now appear to include The Robot. Fortunately, she doesn’t look like Peter Crouch. My brother looks like Peter Crouch.

Never know when you’ll return: