Album Review: Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair

Without doubt the most anticipated release from the DFA stable this side of Sound Of Silver, Hercules and Love Affair (the album) already has one classic single in the form of 'Blind'. A disco atonement for your sins, a unifying stomp of a record, 'Blind' seems destined to cross-over. Does this long-player give it the ammunition it needs?

First off let's get the awkwardness out the way: vocals on many tracks here are provided by Anthony of Anthony and the Johnson's. Every other blogger and journalist feels the need to mention this so BlackPlastic best not break tradition. BlackPlastic has its own opinion on Anthony and the Johnsons and it mostly centres around the fact that their music is pretentious and a chore to listen to, anyone who thinks otherwise must be determined to impress someone. It is the musical equivalent of self-flagulation: it might get you closer to God but it's still painful.

A digression.

Hercules and Love Affair represents a much more suitable vehicle for Anthony and this fact is obviouse from the off: 'Hercules' Theme' is a gorgeous spoon of sugar molasses, a throbbing disco funk bassline carries Anthony's vocals along but the strings and bass provide all the star-quality on this summer anthem in waiting. Elsewhere 'You Belong' is classic Chicago house and Anthony's vocals feel right at home. You should alreasy know 'Blind', but in case you don't it is a mournful disco cut for the 21st century, an anthem for the dancefloor and for your heart, all soulful strings and tearful vocals.

The songs without Anthony are equally strong. 'Athene' is all sparkles and sounds organic whilst 'Iris' sounds like delicate letter to yourself.

What Hercules demonstrates best is a deft touch. The production is immaculate and, to his credit, DFA's lesser-known label co-founder Tim Goldsworthy's touch is all over it, the considered and deliberate touch here very reminiscent of his other work. Hercules and Love Affair seem destined for big things - BlackPlastic cannot wait to see the mainstream reaction to a record so fresh and different, yet so approachable and enjoyable.

BP x

Album Review: Light Sound Dance - The Bang Gang Deejays

BlackPlastic heart Modular and has meant to give some love to Light Sound Dance, mixed by their resident party crew Bang Gang, for pure time. Music may change but good taste remains constant.

We'll be brief: Light Sound Dance (see what they did there? No? Nevermind...) contains almost every track that has filled a dancefloor in the past 18 months.

The beauty is in having them all in one place and as such you can find SebAstian's destruction of The Rapture's 'Get Myself Into It' doing the bad thing all over Punks Jump Up's 'Beep Beep', the Nite Version of Soulwax's 'KracK', Mehdi's ubiquitous 'Signatune' and two remixed Klaxons tracks.

But what this mix is two things:

1. The less obvious choices. Plan B's 'More Than Enough' fits in very nicely, thank you, and it is fantastic to hear Modular label mates The Avalanches again in any form. Hear we get them twice, once with their bells, whistles and kitchen sink remix of Wolfmother's 'Woman' and once on the forever gorgeous and pulse quickening 'Live At The Dominoes'.

2. The somewhat rustic, cut and paste, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough approach. This mix is one of those that genuinely sounds like a ball was had whilst it was made. Light Sound Dance sounds like a good friend playing all your favourite records at once. It's not as defining an Album as As Heard On Radio Soulwax Part 2 but, with 70 songs across two CDs, it just might be the closest anyone has come to that feeling since.

See you on the dancefloor.

BP x

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.