‘Thursday’ on Wednesday from Tuesday

Here is an extremely low quality video in which it is just about possible to make out Example joining Pet Shop Boys on stage last night at their London O2 show. It’s a song called ‘Thursday’, which is one of the best tracks on their upcoming album ‘Electric’.

We had a chat with Neil Tennant about this song (and some other things) a couple of weeks ago and he told us about how ‘Thursday’ took shape. He and Chris were working on the track with producer Stuart Price and decided that it needed a rap after the second chorus, and while the track was a work in progress with they used a Nicki Minaj acapella as a sort of placeholder thing. When it came to getting it properly tarted up Stuart got in touch with Example, with whom he was also working, and Example added his own bits, including some new melodic touches which Neil and Chris then incorporated into other areas of the song.

So that’s quite nice isn’t it?

Hey guess what, another thing that happened when we went to do the interview was that NEIL SHOWED US THE SECRET PET SHOP BOYS STORAGE DUNGEON OF DOOM.

Here’s a picture we took.

“An exclusive that Stereogum didn’t get,” Neil ‘hooted’ at the time. (Amazing, obviously, although we do have serious issues with people who don’t peel the stickers off plastic storage boxes.)

We’ll put some more pictures up when we publish the full interview.

(Incidentally, if you’re in the Manchester area and can get your hands on tickets for tomorrow night’s Pet Shop Boys show you should really go along – setlistwise it’s the best PSB show we’ve seen since the Savoy shows.) (And there a lasers ‘aplenty’.)

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‘With no’ further ado: a quite good new electronic pop duo

Avec Sans are Alice and Jack, and they’re one of our favourite newish bands. We first got into them last year and like a lot of the best pop things ever they make smart, straightforward electronic pop with proper choruses, good lyrics and a lady (that’s Alice) doing the singing. They’re a bit like a two-person version of CHVRCHES with better songs.

‘The Sans’ have just premiered their new video, for a tune called ‘Hold On’, over on Notion and now here it is on Popjustice.

“‘Hold On”s weightless synth-pop is clear-cut in its intentions: to captivate and intrigue with equal measure,” say Notion. “What’s more, it succeeds stunningly.” Very true, and very useful too because it means we don’t have to faff around figuring out how to discuss the song and can, instead, spend the time embedding other examples of Avec Sans’ amazingness.

LIKE THIS ONE. (Which is called ‘The Answer’.)

AND THIS ONE. (Which is called ‘Heartbreak Hi’, quite a good name for a pop song when you think about it.) (By which we mean it’s a play on rubbish 90s TV series Heartbreak High but also works in the context of the song’s “hello heartbreak, hi” lyrics.)

AND THIS ONE. (Which is a cover of a Bon Iver song but let’s just gloss over that for the time being.)

So to sum up, what you have just head are four very good songs from a very promising new act. Would you like to hear some more? They have a SoundCloud where you can download some stuff. And a Facebook where you can also download some stuff. And a Twitter where they mainly just plug stuff they’re doing but not to worry.

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