A selection of new tunes to keep to suit everyone’s tastes.
Lightspeed Champion — Life Is Sweet! Nice to Meet You (EMI) 
British Devonte Hynes, aka Lightspeed Champion, has been in the performing business for five years, since his stint with dance punks Test Icicles when he was 19.
This, his second album, is a musically well-researched work.
With intelligent influences, such as Andrew Bird, David Bowie and Elvis Costello, Hynes has done well to produce an album that is diverse enough within the indie singer-songwriter genre to provide 15 songs, which are all of considerable interest — well, 11 vocal tracks and four instrumental interludes, which hold their own quite beautifully.
The album changes direction from the first single, funk guitar orgy Marlene, to a drumbeat instrumental, Intermission 2, and varsity rock in the Faculty of Fears.
The album incorporates cello, violin and a choir who pop up for purposes ranging from harmonising on the ballad, There’s Nothing Underwater, to Bohemian Rhapsody like narrative on The Big Guns of Highsmith.
Hynes is very aware of his influences and seems more to pay homage to them than to make a conscious effort to diverge in originality, which works quite nicely.
The lyrics are a hoot and, with the theme of the rest of the album, rip off his native New York City’s hipster culture and are generally crammed with trendy, but effective, self loathing. — Ilham Rawoot
Bloedskande — Bloedskande (One F) 
On the whole Bloedskande’s self-titled debut is a rough-and-ready Afrikaans punk and hard-rock album with a few curve balls like the kwela-jive Uganda, featuring Andries Bezuidenhout on vocals, and Ons Is Almal Alleen, which features country-blues singer Bacchus Nel, Bezuidenhout and Drikus Barnard on vocals.
Of the hard-rock and punk numbers, Masjiengewere comes across sounding like an Afrikaans version of Rancid, whereas Almal Doen Net Wat Hul Wil sounds like Black Sabbath meets The Clash.
Not all the tracks work; some such as Swart Sondag sound tired and really do damage to the overall impact of the album.
But at least half of the album is worth a listen if angry Afrikaans punk music is your cup of tea. But, be warned, it’s not going to change your life.
The real highlight here is Die Skip Gaan Sink, a nihilistic punk song about the death of Afrikaans that references Douglas Coupland, Chuck Palahniuk and David Lynch. Generation X indeed. — Lloyd Gedye
Funki Porcini — On (Just) 
James Braddell as Funki Porcini has been making his distinctive brand of laid-back trip-hop since 1995 when any DJ worth his salt owned and played his debut Hed Phone Sex. That album’s Dubble became an anthem for blissed-out clubbers and armchair stoners everywhere.
Now, 15 years later, we have On, a collection of tracks that are unmistakably his but probably won’t win him any new fans.
Braddell explains in the liner notes that, although he has always tried to make music that he doesn’t get bored with, his own music once finished “has always had the uncanny knack of sending me to sleep, no matter how up tempo and raucous”.
He goes on to say that he has been amazed at the response to his music over the years and that some of the new tracks are “very dear to me”, which almost sounds as though he is making excuses. Now that music can be had for free, he has had to resort to “more practical and sordid” ways of making a living, and thus the tracks on his new album are “snatches of time” when he had a few days of time in the Uterus Goldmine, his studio. That’s why this album sounds varied or disjointed and has not been developed thematically.
Moon River, the only track not composed by Braddell, sounds like someone playing a wonky theremin while channelling the original song from Hawaii.
I liked Belisha Beacon with its syncopated piano and Undermud, a muted song with a recurring, mournful piano motif.
The best track on the record is Bright Little Things, an atmospheric piece with a driving cello bassline and that theremin again. — Matthew Burbidge
Robin Thicke — Sex Therapy: The Experience (Universal) 
Robin Thicke is sick of being Mr Nice Guy. On his latest pop album, Sex Therapy, Thicke pulls out all the stops to prove that he can be hardcore.
The 17-track album is hardly sweet and, although he sings about relationships, it has nothing to do with love, as in track two, Mrs Sexy, with lyrics like “I’ve been going crazy/ I want to buy a ring and make you Mrs Sexy/ Want you to have my kids and help you make your next gee…”
Featuring artists Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Estelle and the Game, Thicke is also working on his street credibility.
But let’s give credit where it’s due. Thicke has written and produced for Michael Jackson and he has been a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show three times. — Karabo Keepile