Sia ft. Kendrick Lamar - The Greatest ★★★
RCA
Having 49 children perform a dance re-enactment of the 49 Orlando nightclub shooting victims' terrifying final moments is a risky gambit for any music video director. Yet it's a minefield Sia, her co-director Daniel Askill, choreographer Ryan Heffington and dancer Maddie Ziegler, have negotiated with relative ease. Thirteen-year-old Ziegler, who previously starred in Sia's Chandelier video, is again the star of the show here. Her rainbow tears at the end are genuinely moving. Incidentally, Lamar's verse, which appears on the official release has, for some reason, been cut from the music video.
Cass McCombs - Bum Bum Bum ★★★★
Domino
They say 'Buy when there's blood in the streets / even if the blood is your own.'" McCombs is not a natural polemicist. The Californian singer-songwriter's delivery is so laid back, his music so mellow, his lyrics so obtuse, I had listened to his new Mangey Love album a half-dozen times before I realised the opening track was a comment on race relations in America. His prescription for restoring harmony? Build that wall… No, I'm just kidding. He sounds as flummoxed and out of ideas as the next guy.
Count Vaseline - Sleep/Weep ★★★★
OCD-Tapes
Former Mighty Stef frontman Stef Murphy returns with Count Vaseline, a new solo project recorded in Berlin with producer Gerrit Haasler. Sleep/Weep is taken from the forthcoming Yo No Soy Marinero album. It sound like an Irish version of Pale Blue Eyes: which is to say it's drunk, belligerent, lonely and nostalgic, rather than soppy or romantic.
Drake - Child's Play ★★★
Republic
The sixth single from Drake's Views album has just received this 12-minute video treatment, co-starring a vengeful Tyra Banks. The biggest takeaway? If you're going to do the former America's Next Top Model presenter wrong, just don't do it in the Cheesecake Factory...
