The Impossible Thrill
Alpha

Ever had your heart broken so badly that all you wanted to do was crawl into bed with a bottle of vodka and stay there for a week? Well pop pickers, this is the record for you! Alpha create aching ballads smothered in lush pillows of strings and electronics that glide along at a drowsy, languid pace like The Carpenters on morphine. Unfortunately it appears that Alpha have forgotten to write any actual hooks to hang all this sonic bliss onto, compared to the rythmic pull of their first album these songs tend to melt into one long, sensual haze with all the solidity of the morning mist. However, minor details like hummable tunes seem a tad irrelevant when music as painfully gorgeous as this folds over you and you feel like you're curled up in a warm bed, vodka in one hand and a bottle of sleeping pills in the other. [alphaheaven.com]

The Strange and The Familiar
Fonda

There's something very poptastic about the sound of ringing guitars combined with bright female vocals, so when Fonda launch into one of their sparkly tunes and the guitars swirl around Emily Cook's angelic voice I feel like a schoolboy in a sweet shop, all giddy that the universe could contain such delicious colours and flavours. Located somewhere on the musical map between California happy and British gloomy, they mix up 60s girl-group charm with crashing waves of dreampop guitar sonics and come out the other end sounding like a power pop Cocteau Twins – or are they a psychedelic Go-Go's? Whatever they are, Fonda serve up a kaleidoscope of pop treats as zesty as a bag of lemon bon-bons. [fondamusic.com]

Inspiration Information
Shuggie Otis

For a soul man in the early '70s the size of your afro was a pretty good indication of how stone groovy you were, and judging by the size of his Shuggie Otis must have been the stone grooviest brother on the planet – you could house a family of four in that thing. Re-issued amid a blaze of "forgotten genius" fanfare, Shuggie's eccentric funkadelia has the same big-afro vibe as Sly Stone's 'There's A Riot Goin' On' album, a stripped-down, blissed-out groove driven by primitive drum machines and scratchy rythmn guitar. I could do without the hippy noodling of the instrumental tracks but he approaches the heights of Stevie/Curtis/Marvin genius territory with the sweet soul-pop of songs like his original version of 'Strawberry Letter 23' which sounds like the template for the flower-power funk Prince was to make a decade later. [luakabop.com]

604
Ladytron

Arriving in your stereo via the Trans-Europe Express, Ladytron come across like an offshoot of the Baader-Meinhof Gang dedicated to building a futuristic pop utopia based on the radical teachings of Kraftwerk's 'Computer World' album. They exalt the shiny, black-clad, designer future dreamt of by such heroes of the synth-pop revolution as Gary Numan and Giorgio Moroder. It will take more than drum machines and high cheekbones for them to construct their brave new world so they come to the barricades armed with a collection of sleek pop tunes so decadently catchy they will have the youth of New York, London, Paris, Munich talkin' about Pop Muzik and dancing amid the burning rubble of flannel shirts and guitar rock. Say it loud, I'm Eurotrash and I'm proud! [emperornorton.com]

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