Album Review: Beat Pyramid - These New Puritans

Hotly tipped for 2008 yet having spent a longtime bubbling under the surfaces of the Nu-Rave current, These New Puritans finally get around to releasing their debut album.

Well known for their soundtracking of fashion shows, These New Puritans usher in Beat Pyramid with a dose of trademark pretension in the form of a two part track, 'I Will Say This Twice', which bookends the album. Indeed looking through the tracklisting and artwork quickly reveals a band that may be trying just a little too had to carve out an image.

Still, never judge a book: Beat Pyramid is a good effort. Early tracks 'Numerology' and 'Colours' feature the trademark angular guitars but the switches and cuts into a more melodic bridge in each track lifts these efforts into something more worthwhile.

More exciting are the floaty 'En Papier' and the just re-released but almost-as-old-as-old-rave 'Elvis'. The former manages to add to IDM clicks and distortion and a dash of post-rock melancholy to the proceedings whilst the latter is simply a clattering cacophony or a record, the juxtaposition of the incessant spoken vocal component to the more reflective breakdown creates a real highlight. It is always the more reflective moments that get closest to greatness - see 'Mkk3' for example.

What this demonstrates is either a band that are trying too hard, unable to concentrate on creating a consistently great record due to all the time spent worrying over details, or simply an average band that got lucky in a couple of places. BlackPlastic hopes this is a case of the former but there is still much to play for.

BP x

Album Review: Made In The Dark - Hot Chip

Whilst Hot Chip insist on making albums at the same rate that other bands pay their publicist to make MySpace posts (once every 16 months-ish) it is always a joy to get a peak at the next thing to come out of their cannon. Both 'Shake a Fist' and 'Ready For The Floor' have been doing the rounds for pure time now - in fact if you put a pin in a calendar at the exact mid-point between sophomore release, The Warning, and Made In The Dark you probably have the date when BlackPlastic first got jiggy to the bad-ass synths of 'Shake a Fist'. BlackPlastic knows, you're jealous and you want to be our friends. Add eleven more cuts and you have an album.

Made In The Dark features several tracks that the band have recorded live, all in one take, as if they needed to prove their slight-OCD tendencies, and as such things sound a little rawer. Opener 'Out At The Pictures' has been made to open festival sets. It sounds like that wonky pub-rock band you Dad tried (failed) to make on your Casio keyboard when you were seven and it makes BlackPlastic want to stomp its feet and down pints of beer.

The synths on 'Shake a Fist' still scare the crap out of people round BlackPlastic's way yet it all manages to make a little more sense within the flow of the album. 'Ready For The Floor' still sounds like fly girls having good times with cheap keyboards.

Made In The Dark stands out the most from The Warning in that it sees a return to the ballads of Hot Chip's debut, Coming On Strong. Whilst The Warning had slower, more contemplative moments none compared to emotional honesty of 'We're Looking For A Lot Of Love' here nor the frankly slightly scary darkness of 'Crap Kraft Dinner' on their debut. For the most part the slower tracks work fantastically well, breaking up the album and giving a little more depth. Not even BlackPlastic is sure where things are serious or ironic but that is likely to be half the point. Indeed, part of Hot Chip's charm is their refusal to be neither wholly serious nor a novelty band. 'Made In The Dark represents perhaps Hot Chip's finest effort at a ballad since 'Defeated By Technology' backed the 'Playboy' EP.

Both 'Wrestlers' and 'One Pure Thought' stand out as obvious choices for a future single. 'Wrestler' is a camp flirty love song that represents perhaps Hot Chip's most unadulterated pop moment yet. 'One Pure Thought' on the other hand sounds like Duran Duran getting lost inside Pulp's 'Sorted For Es and Whizz' on children's Saturday morning television. Scrazy, but honest fun ladies and gentlemen. The chorus owns everything it touches and as BlackPlastic has previously pointed out, like most good songs it sounds like three songs forced to live together amongst their will. BlackPlastic could listen to this for several days.

So there you have it, another Hot Chip album, another pop masterpiece. Is it as good as The Warning? Possibly. Is it good enough to soundtrack lots of TV programmes? Definitely. Will it improve your life? Of course.

Album Review: DJ Kicks - Booka Shade

Just like buses good DJ-Kicks albums are known to come in threes. Possibly. And as such it is with little surprise then to which BlackPlastic responded to the news that the latest installment, hot on the heels of Got Chip's still-on-heavy-rotation effort, is from Germany's kings of minimal, Booka Shade.

Unsurprisingly the mix on offer here is an entirely different kettle of fish. For every left turn on Hot Chip's album Booka Shade instead illustrate a smooth, considered blend.

Which is not to say there are no suprises... There are. Take Heaven 17's 'Geisha Boys and Temple Girls'. Or Yazoo's 'Situation' for that matter, coming as it does out of the paranoid fog of Booka Shade's own 'Estoril' sounding like a combination of Yello's 'Oh Yeah' and 'No Way Back' by The Adonis. It's just that these tracks are still blended in to the whole and maintain the constant, contemplative mood.

It is this contemplative mood that at one point threatens to ruin, and then saves the same mix. In the middle third a slight over-abundance of icey electro and moody minimal-techno tracks almost make things too melanchollic... The John Carpenter track, 'Arrival at the Library', overlaid with the vocals to Mlle Caro & Franck Garcia's 'Far Away' is a case in point.

Yet whenever things are in danger of getting too formulaic, or blue, or spikey the mix subtle moves off in another direction. Take Brigitte Bardot's 'Contact'. Just as it becomes too much it (somewhat begrudgingly) gives in to Booka Shade's 'Numbers'. And what a track to give in to...

Every DJ Kicks album features an original composition from the DJ and, as their first vocal track, 'Numbers' (much like Hot Chip's shimmering 'My Piano' before it) is a bit special. A moody yet slinky request for your phone digits, 'Numbers' is a love song that is not about the person being propositioned, but surely some other individual... The one that makes the vocalist want to forget. And it's contemplative again, but this time in a refreshing way. Add some strings and you've got something you'd be only too happy to pick-up on the rebound.

Of equal brilliance is Hot Chip's newly released remix of Matthew Dear's already brilliant 'Don & Sherri' (sorry, there is a theme here... It's that Hot Chip are awesome). The original maybe a wonky IDM freak-out, equal parts love-song, stalker anthem and onslaught of creepy paranoia wrapped up into a pop song package. Hot Chip pick it up and run with it and you soon have a bitter-sweet anthem and the lyrics take on numerous hidden depths as Alexis opines the lines 'How could I let you forget me when you don't even know me already?' Hot Chip's take on this song is so good, all naked vocals and twinkling melodic synth stabs, that it is an absolute no-brainer why Booka Shade passed up on label-mates M.A.N.D.Y.'s mix in favour of it here.

'Don & Sherri' and the Matthew Dear LP Asa Breed deserve their own posts they are that good. But rest-assured that as Richard Hawley's 'Last Orders' gets called you will have found much to like here. Booka Shade put in a fine effort here, convincing of their historical knowledge and programming (DJ speak for sequencing) skills. Here's hoping for bus number three.

Album Review: Fabriclive 36 - James Murphy and Pat Mahoney

When the kids all ran up to BlackPlastic last month, excitedly asking "What's the new Fabric album like, the one mixed by James Murphy and Pat Mahoney from LCD Soundsystem?" BP didn't know what to say. Other than "Bloody Royal Mail" that is.

Having digested it several times over it can now be summarised thusly: It is somewhat camp, warm, bubbly in places and fairly unpredictable. Opening and closing with Peter Gordon & the Love of Life Orchestra was a good move, with 'Beginning of the Heartbreak' rapidly evolving from a throbbing, strutting piece of kraut rock to a rocking disco loved-up on pills type 'BlackPlastic, THIS is your life' moment.

No review can do this type of mix justice as, just like The Glimmers' recent Eskimo V, there are too many left hand turns to account for. Still, Baby Oliver's 'Prime Time' is probably about riding on the Back To The Future time-travelling train back to the year 1976 and Donald Byrd offers up warm Dad-friendly hedonistic disco-house to get the feet tapping on 'Love Has Come Around'.

G.Q.'s 'Lies' is like Daft Punk 15 years too early, all twisted basslines and vocal snippets twisting around itself to create a wonderful musical collage. Still Going's 'Still Going Theme' marries lush minimal keyboards to large, echoing bass in one of the (slightly) more modern cuts included.

Fabriclive 36 is very much a product of love... At the times where it doesn't feature an excitedly loved-up vocal or a heart-stopping string riff you can rely on the fact that there'll be some obscure gem no-one you know has ever heard. This is real crate digging stuff and it has all been mixed though the first ever model of DJ mixes, giving the whole outing a very warm and analogue feel as the vinyl crackler and pops its way through the mix.

'I Feel Good Put Your Pants On' instructs the bouncy and damn funky Jackson Jones cut. Fabriclive 36 feels just like that... "Don't, don't... Please don't leave me!" cries closing the track. And you won't want to.

BP x

Album Review: Carnivalesque - Rubens

Carnivalesque marks the debut for Rubens - a combined project from Mark Flanagan and Gordon MacDermid - that sees the duo construct uplifting ambient electronic landscapes.

Reminiscent of other artists such as Ulrich Schnauss, Carnivalesque feels very much like an experimental electronic album, combining the emotional resonance of a Sigur Ros track for example with the technical approach of Four Tet. On album opener 'Vertical Hold' for example, melodies plucked out on acoustic guitars twist in and out of each other whilst a tight electronic beat pushes through to create an icy yet warm sound.

Second track and second single, 'Breaking Into Smile' nicely encapsulates the feeling of listening to Rubens with synths wash over a mixture of live and synthetic percussion to create a smile inducing record.

Whilst the record as a whole has a consistent theme, and this being a pure electronica album there are no vocals, there is no doubt that there is some emotional variety. Try comparing the opening track to 'Giraffe' and you'll find a far more downbeat Rubens apparent.

The production on display seems almost effortless - textures and layer upon layer combine with such ease that it is all too easy to overlook the substantial effort that must have gone into the compositions on offer. It is also refreshing to note that a variety of live instruments have been used to give the sound more depth.

Carnivalesque is undoubtedly an enjoyable record and the delicate textures and soundscapes create the perfect soundtrack to a cold winter's day. As an album it is at its most enjoyable when it departs slightly from the norm - the sheer head nodding joy of 'Vertical Hold', the considered close to the ten-minute 'Ferris Wheel' or the spacious closer 'After Now Is Next' all provide definite highlights - and as such it will be interesting to hear what the future holds if Rubens develop a broader focus whilst maintaining their apparent attention to detail.

Without doubt Carnivalesque makes a delicate and beautiful introduction to the world of Rubens.