Wales has a reputation for producing some brilliantly off-kilter pop, and one of our favourite purveyors of that kind of music are set to make their return this year. There is a new album from Race Horses [Twitter/Facebook] on the horizon, Furniture, which has shot straight into the upper echelons of our ‘most anticipated records of 2012’ list (figuratively speaking; we do not keep a physical list), and to flag its impending release, the band have released a taster of the album as a free download. Mates is even more poppy and infectious than the material that graced 2010’s stellar Goodbye Falkenburg; driven by some inventive drumming and powerful backing vocals, it also features one of the best uses of the marimba in a pop song that we’ve heard for quite a long time, not to mention a chorus that can be described as nothing less than preposterously good. We absolutely can’t wait to hear more, and if you need your appetite whetted for more new music, then be sure to give this a listen, and prepare to have it going around in your head for the rest of the day.