digitalanalogue - "NO. 99 ('I Love To Go A-Wandering')". To a certain degree, humans are programmable machines. Particular inputs result in particular outputs. Give me bubbles, I will hiccup. Give me bright light, I will blink. Give me joke, I will laugh. The Scottish group digitalanalogue has assembled this song from slow chords and sampled voices. There are echoes of Stars of the Lid, Jon Hopkins and the Happiness Project. There are lanterns raised and lowered. There are no jokes, bubbles or bright light. It makes me feel something - makes me, like it's throwing switches in my chest. I might resist or struggle, I might resent the manipulation, but there is no denying it: this music, deftly crafted, accomplishes an end. It is more end than means, I think; a treatment, or maybe an innoculation. [buy from Song, By Toad Records]

Stromae - "Formidable". As I enter my second year with this song, our relationship has changed. Lately I am even more struck by how stricken it is. I am inured to its beats and dance - yet Stromae's shaky voice, his bitter laugh, it is as they are changing with each repeat. The Belgian singer's heart is sinking. It is not the sadness that becomes more profound - it is the anger. More and more that's acrid in the song; more and more smoke that fills the derelict house. When some relationships end, they gradually fade away, blank to white. Others: what's left, the husk, it rots. Its shadow spreads across the floor. [buy this splendid song / view its splendid video]