Episode 5: Is Duffy the new Dusty Springfield?

Hi, I'm Nate Lanxon and this is Encoded, bringing you the latest music news and videos.

The sleepy North Wales seaside town of Bangor is not where you'd expect to find the next Dusty Springfield, but that's what Rough Trade are saying about their latest protégé Duffy, who is currently all over BBC 6 Music, and who huge things are expected of in 2008.

The video for her debut single 'Rockferry', which is produced by former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, has just been posted online. The single is released on 7-inch on the 3rd of December, and is available to download now from the iTunes store.

Another band with a new video to push are Kaiser Chiefs, whose latest offering 'Love's Not A Competition (But I'm Winning)' is out now, and puts a new spin on the tried and tested 'one-shot' approach.

Shot on location last month at Columbus Circle in New York, the video was directed by visual artist Jim Canty using a high-powered surveillance lens, until now only available to the military and law-enforcement agencies. The result is rather impressive, so it's well worth checking out in full.

Tour news now, and the undisputed queen of avant-garde strangeness, Bjork, has announced that she is to tour the UK in the spring in support of her latest Album Volta, which was released in May this year. The 12-time Grammy Awards nominee has so far confirmed eight shows, starting in Manchester on 11th April and ending in Sheffield on 4th May, but with generous spacing between each date on the schedule, there are plenty of opportunities left for new shows to be added. If you're interested in catching her live, wander over to the related links.

Also out on the road will be London's Cazals, who having recently signed to French label Kitsune, find themselves supporting Gallic electro-house pioneers Daft Punk for two massive shows in lovely Japan.

The hotly tipped indie rockers will be playing at Makuhari Messe Event Hall in Tokyo on the 8th and 9th of December, and will be warming up beforehand with two shows in London at The End and Westbourne Studios. 

Over on the XFM website there's proof that our good nation is just as democratic as ever, with voting now open for XFM's New Music Awards 2007. The final ten artists along with their breakthrough albums are now up, with sample tracks and studio sessions to help you decide. The finalists include The Maccabees, the wonderful Kate Nash and The Wombats, all of whom have managed to make good headway this year, in the bleak, desolate landscape that is music. The winner will be announced on the 16th of January, so head over to the XFM website to cast your vote.

News from the other side of the curtain now, and proggy-emo boys Mars Volta have announced that they are to release a video game tie-in to their forthcoming album The Bedlam in Goliath, which will be released on 28 January 2008 through Universal.

The game, Goliath The Soothsayer, is based around the supernatural events and bad luck they experienced after guitarist and producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez bought an ancient Ouija board during a trip to Jerusalem, which included an engineer having a nervous breakdown, the studio flooding and lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala having to go under the knife for persistent foot problems.

The game will be available exclusively through Amazon.com from 2nd January until the release of the album. 

Finally, who says people don't deserve a second chance? Lightspeed Champion, or Dev Haynes to his dear old mummy, used to be the guitarist in snotty punk bad boys Test Icicles, a band who divided opinion quicker than a Marmite-covered cat, but in his new incarnation as a country-pop balladeer, he's getting nothing but good words said about him.

If you were lucky enough to catch him on one of his recent tours with Good Shoes and Patrick Wolf, hopefully you had the good sense to pick up one of the EPs of covers he was selling at the gig. These were strictly limited fare, with the Good Shoes EP featuring a cover of 'I Never Meant To Hurt You' and the Patrick Wolf EP covering his songs 'Souvenirs' and 'Tristan'. If you spent your money on a pint instead of one these gold-dust goodies, start crying into it – Lightspeed Champion will be kind of a big deal in 2008.

Well, that's all for now – check out the links and some of the fresh new music videos on CNET TV, and I'll see you next week.