NORA ROY: Misery Game EP — a singer-songwriter on acoustic guitar in rocking indie pop style. Nora Roy lists her influences as “PJ Harvey, Dolly Parton and Brian Eno,” and the music keeps that promise — particularly PJish in the vocal stylings. All the songs are good, my favourite is probably “She,” a good place to start if you just want to play one. You’ll enjoy this and play it lots.
LAIBACH: The Sound Of Music (Mute) — It’s been a while, but this is the sort of cultural trolling we’ve been missing. Inspired by their 2015 trip to North Korea, where The Sound Of Music is popular and used to teach English. The video above (“Lonely Goatherd”) is precisely what it’s like. “Sixteen Going On Seventeen” is deeply wrong and works perfectly in every detail. This is Laibach when they’re inspired to abuse their powers the way they were meant to be abused. Also above: “My Favorite Things.”
So which of the Laibach tracks should be this year’s Christmas Number One ?