Kate Boy - "Northern Lights". I could do without all of Kate Boy's huffing and puffing, but I love the aggressive competition of "Northern Lights"' synths - the way they jostle and shove the more human part. A cybernetic hook, chrome and current; maybe it's a sound borrowed from other acts, but it's still just as virulent.

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SOAK - "Sea Creatures". Plain folksong with all the typical adornments. Bridie Monds-Watson has the sort of scrunched-up voice that has fallen out of fashion, and of course so have glockenspiel and bongos, but SOAK is a young act, and sincere, and sometimes sincere choices shouldn't be faulted. Not when a song's lyrics are grown-up and stricken, scared and undersung, a singer just asking for someone they love to heal, to get better, to last a little longer.

[SOAK's Bridie Monds-Watson is the first signee to CHVRCHES' new label, Goodbye Records. This was released in 2012. Came to me via Milo.]