The Quest For A Blaze of Glory In The Middle of the Night
As England, Scotland and an unfeasibly large contingent of other countries kick off their campaign to bring football home, the international flavour of this week's reviews feels appropriate.
Bell X1, Beth Orton, BMX Bandits, David Boulter, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Cecilie Strange, Domenique Dumont, Kit Sebastian, Lavinia Blackwall, Neil Farrell and SJ McArdle, Maud Anyways, Paul McCartney, Radhika, Weval
Pop In The Real World Taster Tracks 2026 (Spotify)
Pop In The Real World Taster Tracks 2026 (YouTube)
Chorophobia : Weval
Best for : Dance music you can listen to at home
This was timely - a collection of electro-dance club songs from the Netherlands. It's timely because I'm approaching the end of the excellent 842 page epic of 'Last Night A DJ Saved My Life' by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton. Although it's a few years old now it brings dance off the dance floor and into your home.
The gist of it is this. The only purpose of dance music is to fill the floor. DJs are the ones most closely connected with what works is a sweaty club, its ebb and flow. For decades that meant scouring record shops for little known records that get the job done. Gradually they ran out of source material and had to find a way to make their own. Enter the era of cheap electronic technology and producers who could use it. The electronic dance act is not a songwriter. He (and it is still usually a 'he') is a crowd pleasing manipulator of emotions.
Weval appears to have read half the manual, and that's a good thing. Of course, all their songs are based around rhythm and beats.It's when they swamp the song there's a feeling of Emperor's new clothes. You're giving the people what they want and it's fun in the moment but lazy in the long term. That's the world of 'Dopamine' and 'Open Up That Door'. They're the sound of a night out that has tipped over into too much.
In some ways, 'Headfirst' is the key track. It's when they lose the magic ingredient (see below!) and make something grittier . It's when you notice most clearly that the lyrics are mostly slogans flung across the dancefloor.
So what makes the night out a positive shared experience fostering joy and happiness. It's called melody.
Weval provides some very strong melodies in half the tracks here, and they make the album something that you can listen to as well as dance. 'Chorophobia' is based around an addictive and lovely pop melody that will be in your head for the rest of the weekend. 'Moving On' has an ebb and flow that brings the melody to the fore. Somehow 'Movement' brings melody out in the beats. 'Mercator' and 'Free' bring people back together. They're lovely moments.
Weval show us both sides of the electronic dance experience. It's insightful and, fortunately, also a worthy listen.
Taster Track : Chorophobia
Beech : Cecilie Strange
Best for : Those who believe jazz has too many notes
On the basis of 'Beech' Cecilie Strange is strange by name and a little strange by nature.
It's an album that takes you to unfamiliar places or, at least, to places you know seen from an unfamiliar perspective. Its obvious and heartfelt sincerity develops a minimalist beauty all of its own, over the course of its six tracks.
At least three of those tracks were released as singles, but don't expect that to make them any more accessible. This is music that serves more as a soundtrack to your inner thoughts or for understanding your environment. Without melodies to guide you through the pieces, you'll find yourself lost in the music. Perhaps that's the intention. Listening to it is a fully immersive experience.
Jazz is a genre that, more than most, splinters into many different sub sections. Strange plays Nordic jazz. It's not an entry level category. If you know before you listen that Strange is a Danish saxophonist, the first deep, throaty and rasping notes of her saxophone in 'A Fairytale of a Violin' will still take you by surprise. It's the sound of something stirring before awakening.
The centrepiece is the ten minute 'Written In Runes'. It features the startling vocals of Josefine Cronholm, vocals that call to mind both African singing and the sprites of Denmark's forests. To English ears they're as much sounds as words which all adds to the qualities of strangeness. It's also a tune as dependent on silence as it is on sound, full of the kind of silences that can make you jump quietly.
As the album builds, its beauty becomes more apparent. 'Copenhagen - A Love Story' is delicate and heartfelt. 'Walking On Grand Street' is relaxed and soothing. All the music is played with deep feeling which can't help but cast a spell over the listener. A simple, recognisable melody finally arrives in 'Skrova Fyr' before dissolving away like the leaf shape on your flat white as you drink it.
Cecilie Strange's take on music is haunting but ultimately beguiling.
Taster Track : Skrova Fyr (Unless you fancy an immediate deep dive into her essence when it's 'Written In Runes'.)
New Internationale : Kit Sebastian
Best for : A Turkish pop experience
Kit Sebastian are Kit Martin from London, and Merve Erdem, originally from Istanbul. Like Turkish delight, they're an acquired taste and a little goes a long way.
Listen to the opening track, 'Faust', and you're immediately swept up in a cinematic travelogue where spies and camels chase through the pyramids against a bright red sunset. (I know. Camels and pyramids are Egyptian, but the feeling is the same.)
You need something to stand out in the crowded pop world, and the Turkish elements certainly give the duo that. This is music that might as well be wearing a fez. The main issue for me is that the Turkish elements are so strong, any pop sensibility struggles to shine through. It's as if, on holiday, you've overdosed on lavish palaces and beautiful cathedrals. They lose their impact after a while.
Erdem's vocals are often a joy, sometimes sultry, sometimes lifted from the girl groups of old. Martin's vocals? Well, I'm not sure about them. They only make a brief appearance, and they have the tones of a guardian protector looking after their prodigy. Sadly, the vocals eventually seem to lose passion and start to sound bored. That's the case with 'Bul Bul Bul' and much of the second half of the record. TIt's too easy to feel that you're in an empty, musty art house cinema watching a subtitled film. After a while that album diverts into library music. It sounds generic rather than impactful, and I suspect that does not do the quality of the songs any justice.
Lyrically the songs are exotic. Musically the songs are fun. 'Ellerin Ellerimde' highlights the bounce that can be put in a song's step when delivered in Turkish. The chorus of backing vocals add to the cinematic feel throughout. Deep in the mix, beneath the Turkish layers, there's a feel of the jazz pop of Swing Out Sister and Working Week. It's good to hear those influences again.
'New Internationale' is the equivalent of a country you've waited a while to visit. You'll be glad you visited but with so many other countries in the world you may not want to return.
Taster Track : Ellerin Ellerimde
Deux Paradis : Domenique Dumont
Best for : Synth pop treats lit by sunshine
Domenique Dumont are Latvian duo of producer and multi instrumentalist Arturs Liepins and singer Anete Stuce. There's a possibility, never confirmed, that there's a secret third member who may or may not be French. The album cover seems to confirm their existence.
All very mysterious, but the French influence in their music is undeniable. It's not just the song titles about 'La Vie Va' 'Bonjour Tristesse' and the 'Visiteur de la Nuit'. It's in the music too, wearing the charming and confident smile of the experienced French lover.
If early Millennium chill out had lived a little longer, you'd hope that it would sound like this. It mixes the sunny melodies and drifting beats of Air with the quirky outlook and attitudes of Phoenix. This music sets a vibe, a good addition to the unfairly maligned dinner party genre. It will lighten any mood, trigger ease and provoke civilised manners and conversation while building connection. It enchants and delights in equal measure.
There's a further surprise in store at the start too, with the poppy dub of 'Enchantia'. It reminded me of the feeling I had when I heard UB40's debut, not from their political outlook, although I loved that, but from the realisation that a well executed dub is a welcome addition to pop at any time. That feeling continues into 'La Vie Va' before subsiding beneath the catchy, bouncy and highly accessible sounds of songs like the inappropriately titled 'Bonjour Tristesse'. 'Visages Visages' has the colourful jerkiness of an excellent string puppet show with the added attraction of seductive siren voices. 'Deux Paradis' navigates its way to a slow building climax with the repeated refrain made up of the last two verses. It will fill you with shivers and ripples of pleasure.
This album is a sparkling joy from start to finish.
Taster Track : Enchantia
Cine-Pop : Radhika
Best for : Gentle Scottish dream indie pop amongst friends
Radhika is a new Scottish Indie dream pop artist with an Indian background. In itself that's enough to pique interest.
She soundtracks the kind of dreams that you don't want the alarm clock to disturb. They're uniformly gorgeous, easy on the ear but tricky to pin down. Just as you think you've labelled it in your head, along come a few unexpected influences. Teenage Fanclub's Gerard Love and The Pastels Mitch Mitchell wander into the record. Why wouldn't they?. They may be unexplained but they make the dream better and happier.
These are songs that weave and gently twist like smoke from an evening campfire on the beach. Melodies cling to you like cellophane you can't shake from your finger. The vocal arrangements are delicate and completely absorbing, whether she duets with herself or with others. It means that her vocals tantalise as they move towards enchantment. 'Feline Bandits' gives you so much to follow that it feels like a trip into fairyland.
This may be Radhika's debut but the songs have an attractive and relaxed confidence. She's at home in her dreams but she's willing to drop them to allow her Indian heritage to come to the fore on the garden folk of 'Tum Hi Ho' They float rather than soar and the effect is quite beautiful. 'Nowhere Near' in particular shows that her songwriting skills beneath the adornments are more than enough to sustain a run of strong albums.
The Cine-Pop flavour foretold in the title is heard explicitly in the recurring 'Theme For R.A.D.H.I.K.A,', but the songs also have the innocence and appeal of films such as 'Field Of Dreams' and 'Local Hero'.
Cine-Pop is a truly lovely album, a gentle escape into dream territory and one that takes you into a world that will leave you wanting more. Scottish indie pop has a new star.
Taster Track : Feline Bandits
The Boys of Dungeon Lane : Paul McCartney
Best for: A pop genius successfully capturing memories rather than hunting public acclaim.
You're Sir Paul McCartney. You're 84 years old. You were a quarter of the band still widely believed to have been the best in the world ever. You've continued to make music for 64 years, and you have nothing left to prove to. What do you do? You make, perhaps, your most personal album in the style of music that was your first and enduring love.
It's good, but that's not really the point. McCartney is of an age when he takes stock. He's no longer trying to change the world but to recall the life he has lived and pin it down. He doesn't need to take risks, to prove his ongoing relevance or lead the way into the musical future. The feeling is that we're getting a feeling of McCartney as he is now at 84.
It's an appealing venture into nostalgia. It's not bitter but understanding, particularly in the recollections of his parents and childhood. You feel he's wanting to preserve the time before he was famous, when he was simply Paul rather than Macca. Musically, there are a few memorable forays into Wings territory including 'Mountain Top' and 'Come Inside' but this is essentially a return to his first loves of ballads and rock and roll. Sometimes, as in 'As You Lie There' they're mixed into the same song.
Songwriting in 2026 is different from songwriting in 1962. Even though the songs sound as if he has re-discovered his old box of songwriting tricks in the loft, and has dusted them off to be used again he doesn't sound retro. You can't take the techniques he's picked up from acts such as Blood Orange and Youth out of the man, but they're never overdone. They never distract from this being a McCartney album.
His voice holds up, perhaps with a little help from his friends and with songs currently suited to it. His voice is affecting on the quieter, slower numbers and perfectly at home on the rockier one. He even duets with Ringo on 'Home To Us'. Don't think for one moment though that this is how the Beatles would have sounded if they were still together. This is two scouse lads sharing memories and having fun.
At 84, you begin to think the unthinkable. If this is his swansong - and Willie Nelson shows that it doesn't have to be - it's not a bad one.
Taster Track : Days We Left Behind
EPs and Songs
There's a clutch of very good singles around at the moment. Try these.
Beth Orton's 'Otherside' is a slow build and an immensely satisfying one. It's a moment of epiphany and letting go as she loses herself in the acceptance of grief. It's almost a hymn, but it's the most ecstatic study of desperation and loss you're ever likely to hear.
The thing about Kevin Rowland's singing is that it is a wilfully challenging barrier to cross. The new song from Dexy's Midnight Runners' My Life In England Pt1' throws it in your face from the start. His words are stretched and twisted as far as they can go, as if they're being dragged out of him. Fortunately, he doesn't keep them up for the whole song because they sit above a slice of classic Dexys pop in the vein of 'Come On Eileen', but gentler. This is a quieter and happily reflective song, his anger and passion momentarily stilled. It's driven by Philadelphia strings and a singalong chorus. Possibly the best song ever about moving to Wolverhampton!
There's a new album out from Bell X1 later this year and if 'But First, Love', the first song released from it, is anything to go by it will be one of their best yet. It's acoustic magic, as delicate and intricate as ever but not off-puttingly complex. The vocal interplay is gorgeous, the shuffling beat is perfect and the guitar playing is to die for. It's the best thing they've done for some time.
There's more meditative beauty from David Boulter in 'Sleepy Thoughts'. He seems to have moved away from songs about places he remembers from childhood, although he still seems linked to a past time more than the present day. The breathy flute is a lovely addition as it carries you into the mildly threatening conclusion which feels like ceding control to a general anaesthetic. Perfect end of the day listening.
'The Cruel Father' is presented by Bring Your Own Hammer and features Lavinia Blackwall, Neil Farrell and SJ McArdle. It's a classic traditional folk theme dressed up in modern musical clothing. It's a slice of traditional storytelling, cut straight from a BBC1 Sunday evening Cornish costume drama in song form.
Maud Anyways' 'Light' rolls by like a colossal spacecraft crossing galaxies. Her voice is yearning, and even fragile, but indomitable. It's classic mid-paced shoegaze riff builds to an epic conclusion that you'll cling to until the last tones of piano fade away. It feels like a mere fraction of its six minute plus running time and is over far too soon.
'Hello Young Lovers' from 'The King And I' is from BMX Bandits new album. It's performed with a straight face and is sweet, string laden and a lullaby to love. It's a guilty pleasure waiting to happen. Julie Andrews would approve.