I can go for The xx's new sound (yes can do)

The clues to The xx's electronic direction were there. Just listen to the Burial vibes of Chained a few years ago.

But their recent single On Hold is almost a club anthem. Almost. The Balearic build-ups are tempered by their melancholic sheen. There's such a spine-tingling ambience about them. Not bad for a track that samples Hall & Oates's I Can't Go For That (No Can Do).

Good old Jamie xx. He gifted us one of the best electronic albums of 2011 and 2012, the best live experience of 2015, and he's now turning his main band into a music factory for proper bangers innit. Largin' it. Sorted. Let's disco.

The album came out this week. Let's see how electronic it is. Meanwhile, here's the On Hold video. It's probably worth considering this NSFW: one of the bright young things has very few clothes on. Less of a new direction, more of a nude direction, amiright?!



Further Fats: Mercury Music Sausages (2010) (in which I replace "xx" with "sausages")

The Mercury Music Prize is the best prize in the history of EVER

The Mercury Music Prize got it exactly right this year with The xx, which just proves what I've always said: the Mercury is the best prize in the history of EVER.

Its judges were spot on in noticing The xx's chilling and moving eponymous debut was the best album of the year. The decision panel is erudite and wise and every member deserves to be rich, to be creatively fulfilled and have extremely enjoyable sex lives.

I have been blogging about the Mercury since 2006 (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009/2009 and 2010) and I have been nothing but positive about it. The bit where I said "we need a new Mercury Music Prize for people that give a crap about electronic music" and the bit where I said the short-list "was chosen by a bunch of beered up old men with bellies poking out of their bermuda shirts and tofu caught in the straggly bristles of their jazz beards, whose net contribution to world music is the noise emitting from their farty bumholes, and whose critical faculties have long since been pensioned off due the fact that every single one of them has a fading poster of Avril Lavigne in their rancid toilet"? I never said any of that. It's just your imagination.

I do love The xx, but back in Fat Roland world, the Mercury Music Prize holds as much relevance as Piers Morgan giving blow jobs to CNN executives behind a photocopier in a rat-infested Atlanta newsroom.

I mean, would Tristan Perich's new album make the cut? It sounds beautiful even though it is emitted 'live' from one microchip and is controlled by algorithms on a circuit embedded into a jewel case. I can't imagine the Mercury judges discussing this album at the back of a Mumford and Snooze concert. Have a look:


Tristan Perich: 1-Bit Symphony (Part 1: Overview) from Tristan Perich on Vimeo.

While my guitar gently sods off

The recent news that pop music is outselling rock music is as an important a cultural change as the renaissance, the industrial revolution and processed cheese.

For too long now, the tyranny of the guitar has ruled over us. We have bowed and scraped to our six string masters, as if rebelling against the jangly bastards was as bad as strangling Bill Wyman to death with a jack lead.

The indoctrination starts early. Pony-tailed parents soundbomb their Smiths collection at pregnant tummies to 'train' their newborn into having good taste. Any gawky teenager showing a creative bent has a guitar and a Nirvana chord book shoved into their hands.

Turgid

And what has it given us? The Beatles, who were responsible for the worst haircuts ever and fixed Liverpool into the '60s for all eternity. Turgid rock behemoths like the Rolling Stones and Status Quo, who somehow made stadium rock acceptable and are therefore responsible for Coldplay. And James Blunt. James Blunt.

Official Charts Company figures show a third of sales in the UK are now pop, compared to rock's tawdry one-quarter share. We have rendered our Fenders to the dustbin. Given ebows the heave-ho. Turned rage against the machine into a polite letter of complaint.

Because pop music is more enamoured with the keyboard as opposed to the guitar, this means electronic music fans win. The keyboard wizard is supreme: Adamski can finally rest in the grave of his forgotten career.

Breakcore

Okay, it's only pop music and not, say, ambient or dubstep or breakcore. Having Lady Gaga and JLS at number one is not great - we'd obviously prefer it if Aphex Twin went platinum, and I'm not talking about his hair. But an unpopular, painful compromise is the step in the right direction. It's true. Just ask a Liberal Democrat.

There are dangers in this brave new world. If rock bands start ditching their guitars, we could be saddled with more Ben Folds Fives and Keanes. They need identifying early. I would suggest border police at the door of every recording studio, with faceless but sinister staff asking everyone "are you now or ever have been a guitar player?"

They would lie of course. But then the cunning officer, feigning informality, would mutter a comment about E flat minor seventh not being the sexiest chord. The secret guitarists' instant and obvious revulsion would see them dragged out the back, cut to pieces with an overly-sharp plectrum and buried in their own guitar case with the word "IRONY" emblazoned across the top in glam lettering.

Windmilling

Having said all that, The Who were quite impressive weren't they? All that windmilling and smashing stuff up. And I quite liked Madchester. The XX and Lonelady have a kind of amazing energy, y'know? In fact, guitar bands are fantastic. Who wrote this crap?

Vive la rock music! Guitar bands are brilliant. If I find you buying pop music, I will slice you. I will smother you with Lady Gaga's hat until you are nothing but a vegetable blithering "ro mah ro-mah-mah" in the corner of an institution.

No, seriously. For too long now, the tyranny of the keyboard has reigned over-- (nurse's note - Fat Roland has gone to sleep now. You can visit him again when he's rested.)

House music and really big eskimo hoods: some recent singles

Pantha Du Prince's dreamlike house haze on his spanking new album Black Noise has got me in the mood for some four-to-the-floor action. Never mind all that cut-and-paste broken beat crap. This week, I want my beats fixed up and looking sharp. Here are some recent house singles.

Raffertie

Raffertie (pictured) is Planet Mu's top drawer dance guru, beloved of grungy club types as well as the glossy hacks of Mixmag magazine. Recently, he's been getting some big-time snogs from Huw Stephens, Rob Da Bank and Dame Mary Anne Hobbs. Which is nice.

7th Dimension is Raffertie's newest single, and while the title is not as classic as last year's Wobble Horror!, there is ample to restrain your thumbs from twiddling. It's a whooping high-energy flare of rave house, convulsing from snare stab attacks and swirling, persistent vocals.

The b-side, String Theory, sounds like a melancholic Way Out West experimenting with a wobble-board for a bassline. 7th Dimension is the better cut, and reminds me a little of Hospital Records' more zealous moments - without the junglism.

Floating Points

His bubbly 2-stepper J+W Beat enjoyed more than a play or three on my phone last year, so unfurl the bunting because electronic polymath* Floating Points has dropped a brand new track called People's Potential.

He's not just torn a leaf from Luke Vibert's book: he's photocopied way beyond the legal limit to produce a thumping, nagging acid work-out with wailing synths and both hush puppies planted solidly on the dance floor.

Track it down if you can, but I warn you, it's a limited edition one-sided white label. And they're harder to find than Lil Wayne's self-respect.

The XX

I've saved the best for last: a superb cacophony of remixes of one of the best indie bands of the past 12 months. There are several remixes of The XX track, Islands. And they're all fab.

Untold culled the coldness of The XX, secreted it in an igloo somewhere north of Alaska, hurled it into Heston Blumenthal's deep freezer, and fashioned a dubstep remix so startlingly chilly, your ears will ice over at the mere notion of listening to it. Pardon? Exactly. It's tribal, like Zulu, but in eskimo hoods, really big eskimo hoods.

The Blue Nile's version of Islands shimmers and ripples, simple piano and electric guitar adding a nagging theme to the sparse vocals, while Nosaj Thing interprets the track as astral ambience. Delorean flings us back to the warm world of 90s intelligent techno, and, finally, Falty DL makes it sound like Tricky's record player's broken.

Okay, I veered away from house music at the end, there, but I don't like my beats too neat: if it ain't unfixed, I'm gonna broke it. You can quote me on that. (Please don't.)

* I only call him this because he can play the piano too.