Jamaica
Imagine a rock band produced by French electro producers Justice. Too late. It’s already happened. Jamaica are a duo produced by Xavier De Rosnay of Justice who were formerly known as Poney Poney. Their sound is immediate, lean Gallic rock with a glass-thin edge.
Listen / Watch the video for I Think I Like You Too’.

The National’s Ohio song
With the highly anticipated High Violet album coming in May, the Brooklyn band have released a teaser cut from the record. Bloodbuzz Ohio feels like another step up for this already revered indie group.
http://www.highviolet.com

Plan B’s soul turn
Formerly a gritty London rapper, Plan B has set his sights on becoming a young soul crooner, and my, it actually works, falsetto and all. If it at first you don’t succeed, go the Smokey Robinson route.
Listen to tracks at Soundcloud.

Using Pledgemusic.com, the eyeliner-wearing dreadlocked one is hoping to release three albums and put on some “unusual and elaborate theatrical experiences” with the money raised. 15% of the total will also go towards the charity DePaul.

The three albums include a studio version of songs written for a recent production of Mother Courage & Her Children, an EP of songs based on Huckleberry Finn and a collection of songs inspired by Paul Auster’s book The Book of Illusions recorded by Steve Albini featuring Neil Hannon, Ed Harcourt and others.

To encourage pledges, Duke offered exclusive items including signed albums, a private concert, a sightseeing tour, dinner, a write a song session and a phone call all with Duke himself. It appears to have worked as those items are gone and in total he has received 573 pledges or 118% of the funds he originally asked for.

Last week, I featured (with a question mark) what was claimed to be a new Daft Punk song from the movie soundtrack to Tron Legacy. As reported by Pitchfork, it turns out the track is a fake but it’s not the only French dance music-related skullduggery happening on the net.

A new track from Justice was sent out to music bloggers last week by the Ed Banger record label. Called Beginning Is the End, a number of the big US music sites like Pitchfork, Gorilla vs Bear, Stereogum and hundreds of music blogs posted the song with a fairly lukewarm reaction. As it turned out, the Gallic dance number was a trite predictable and it was revealed as a fake by the band on Facebook. The culprit had managed to fool hundreds of people by faking an edbangerrecords.com email address.

Which begs the question – what were these fake artists hoping to do by cheaply mimicking two of the biggest names in dance music? It’s safe to assume it wasn’t for their own notoriety as they haven’t revealed themselves so perhaps it’s simply a game of chaos and manipulation?

Perhaps being mistaken for a fake is the new badge of honour? I received an email shortly afterwards from a band boasting that Kanye posted their song thinking it was Daft Punk and to check it out. Let’s nip this one in the bud before Wolfmother, who sound nothing like Led Zeppelin are number one every week ad infinitum.