It’s Overly Concise Stage Names Wednesday! (ED. NOTE: But not overly concise theme names…) First up, an artist who’s gone to the space bar…

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Katherine St Asaph: VV Brown, responsible for one of the worst singles of the past five years, quietly got great — emphasis on quietly, because unless you follow her PledgeMusic page it’s likely no one told you. A few years ago, all alt-pop sounded like “We Share Our Mothers’ Health,” and it quickly grew predictable. Now it’s 2015 and I miss that, but it lacked some key elements: VV’s contralto, New Age pseudoscientific rallying chants, sample collages, a verse that scrubs all Girl Scoutiness from “Shake It Off,” a throughline and pulse of steely desire.
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Alfred Soto: Impressive considering what garbage her singles were at the start of the decade. This percolating dance number takes its cue from V’s caramel-colored vocal; she sounds like Joan Armatrading singing house.
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Abby Waysdorf: Yaz(oo) gone EBM-house — I am always going to be here for that. VV has the vocal power and command of Alison Moyet at her best, with the sort of booming echo that takes over rooms. “Shift” doesn’t make nearly enough of it compared to “The Apple,” which is the perfect application of what she can do, but the energy and atmospherics make it compelling anyway
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Megan Harrington: V V has the sort of voice you can imagine serving as the disembodied wizard that rules over an imagined kingdom, but on “Shift” it’s weighed down by too many plasticine zips and scratches. The bigger the stone, the simpler the setting, right? 
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Thomas Inskeep: Semi-anonymous squiggly electropop circa ’82, with a rhythm track ganked from “Pump Up the Volume.” I’ve listened 5x and still don’t know what she’s “fighting for.” 
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Ramzi Awn: I know what I’m fighting for, but thanks.
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Jonathan Bogart: A rhythm track that would do Technotronic proud, clipped speech out of the middle eight from “Vogue,” and squiggly synth decorations straight out of Richard D. James’ more commercial efforts — if it weren’t for Brown’s alto buried in the mix like any old 2010s house, it would be the perfect early-’90s electronic throwback.
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Will Adams: The dark and twitchy house hits all the right notes, but V V’s command of all the drama is what really sells “Shift”‘s empowering message. All it needs is to be four minutes longer.
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