Oh look, Rick Edwards has started a band. Not really. But look up the video for (We Are) Performance's The Living and tell me I'm not wrong.

But aside from the video looking like an E4 ident, this is a Good Song. Synthy doo-doos, I'm a sucker for a looped handclap and chuck in a bunch of pre-bridge 'hey!!!s' and toot toot I'm on board. Occasionally the band stray into sounding vaguely Killers-like (particularly evident in tracks like Reptile and Let's Start) but generally it's reined in to a time before they started singing songs about human-dancer hybrids so we'll let it pass. The Living is reminiscent of White Rose Movement and strings you along merrily on a series of delightful hooks for three old minutes or so. Fine stuff. Less convinced on the other tracks Mr Myspace has to offer, feels like they're missing a handclip or ten but a band that can produce a fine piece of pop like The Living is one to keep an eye on.

Fun fact: the band don't have a Wikipedia page. This can somewhat make review writing difficult. Or better. But they do have a funny blurb on their Myspace. Unless all that stuff about drug abuse, love affairs and mental illness is true. Frontman Joe Stretch wrote it but he's an internationally published novelist, so who can believe anything he says. In any case I'll be telling everyone it's true until Wikipedia tells me otherwise.

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Christina Aguilera has given us many hit singles but "elastic love" could or could not be on the road to being one.

In the beginning of the song you can hear electro - almost alien - sounds before the lyrics come in. Then the lyrics come in sung in a rap-inspired style, up and down three notes with a lot of overlaps and echoes. The instrumentals are sometimes a bit louder and more overpowering than her singing. The drums give the track a good disco / pop beat.

The song depicts a confused character possibly after a break up saying how confused and hurt she is by referring to her love in terms of stationery - for example, like a rubber band, because her love comes and goes.

There are lots of other bits of stationery mentioned like paper (rhymed with stapler) erasers, tape and even paper clips.

Although stationery is very useful in schools and offices, the words are probably the reason the song's chances of being erased from the hits are pretty high - although the rhythmic pulse might just staple it to people's mindsets solidly enough for it to survive.

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The new compilation from Analog Africa (who've put out 8 releases so far, including the excellently titled 'African Scream Contest') is 'Afro-Beat Airways' - a collection of tracks from Ghana and Togo between 1972-1979. Drawings on funk, soul, jazz, psychedelic rock and a whole host of other sounds, the album's 15 tracks pretty much defy categorisation. True, you can hear the styles of any number of funk bands of the same era from all over the world, but the sounds themselves here are something else entirely.

Take the Apagya Show Band's rousing 'Ma Nserew Me' for example. Blending languidly pulsing drums, and pleasingly meandering bass, with the most cut-glass organ sound you're likely to hear, its a track that seems in no hurry to get anywhere at all and yet drags you in in head-nodding style in no time at all. And this is without mentioning the vocals, that don't so much aim for a tune as provide a running commentary for the music in the best possible way.

As the accompanying information for this album attests, these are tracks that for the most part were hardly heard in the countries in which they were recorded - let alone further afield - and so information on the artists proves a little hard to come by. Take a listen to the collection of tracks on offer here though - from the beguiling lilt of Uppers International's 'Dankasa' through to Cos-Ber-Zam's fuzzy horn-laced funk - and there's every chance you'll be wanting to track down more of the same the first opportunity you get.

'Afro-Beat Airways' is out on August 2nd on Analog Africa and you're unlikely to find a better soundtrack to the summer.

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