Album Review: Cosmogramma - Flying Lotus

Sometimes you just have to go back.

BlackPlastic can't be everywhere all at once and that is why we never got around to reviewing Flying Lotus' latest album Cosmogramma. But sometimes an album keeps pulling you back in and that is how it is with Cosmogramma. To pass it by forever more would leave a little itch in the soul.

Flying Lotus is one of those artists that seems to continually expand his horizons whilst still retaining enough focus to make each release different, challenging perhaps, yet still ultimately accessible and magnificent. He once made instrumental Hip-Hop but Cosmogramma could never be so conservatively labelled.

Opening with in-your-face aural-enema 'Clock Catcher', followed by a couple of heavy-set funk numbers it is track four, the Eastern sounds meets soulful strings of 'Intro//A Cosmic Drama', before Cosmogramma shows its true colours. From this point things become increasingly psychedelic - next track 'Zodiac Shit' is a half bass-heavy, half string-laden epic.

The obvious talking point: Thom Yorke's guest turn is actually remarkably subtle - his soulful vocal used sparingly yet worked into the very fabric of the song itself. And more than anything this freeform approach reminds BlackPlastic of jazz. 'Arkestry' is wandering trumpet and rolling drums and it feels like big band gone loco. The result is a little bit staggering.

'MmmHmm', featuring Thundercat, is probably Flying Lotus' most J Dilla moment yet. The first of a run of three beautifully varied but complimentary tracks, joined by funky house-inspired 'Do The Astral Plane' and the blues-y 'Satelllliiiiiiiteee', it marks Cosmogramma's highest point. But there is so much else hear - we haven't mentioned the ping pong sampling 'Table Tennis' featuring Laura Darlington or the dizzy closer 'Galaxy in Janaki', for starters.

Clearly increasingly inspired by his heritage (it's all too often pointed out that Flying Lotus was great-nephew to Alice and John Coltrane), as Flying Lotus gets more experimental his music gets more and more generous. BlackPlastic comes back to Cosmogramma now because it still has so much to say... Every listen feels just a little bit fresher.

BP x

Cosmogramma is out now on Warp, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: Future Balearica - various mixed by FETE

In which people like you and I can reclaim the Balearica tag and the damned whole White Isle for out own.

This isn't one of those compilations you see advertised on TV with Judge Jules providing the voiceover, although to be fair it isn't strictly in keeping with the kitchen-sink-ism kitsch that originally defined Balearic either. Instead it is, as the subtitle suggests, a collection of 'new chill and warm laid back sounds'.

And that pretty much works for BlackPlastic. Occasionally it feels a little deliberately inclusive - slotting The XX's 'VCR' in at track two will certainly help shift units - but actually within the context of the (excellent) mixing it actually works.

So this is a very laid-back mix for daytime lounging and evening warm-ups that would be in danger of feeling formulaic if it wasn't for the fact that enough of the songs are pretty much fantastic. Of the fantastic the most sublime is unquestionably DJ Kaos' 'Love The Night Away', remixed here by Tie Dye it is just the right mix of hippie vocals, retro disco vibes and sunny melodies. Within the context of the mix it works so damn well that it justifies the mix on its own.

Less successful are the slightly formulaic folky numbers that close the mix and Animal Collective as a closing track almost feels a little too obvious but it does the trick.

Future Balearica isn't going to change anyone's perception of chilled out dance music but it certainly manages to do a lot more than many other similar albums. And you can be sure it would sound pretty sublime on the beaches of Ibiza.

BP x

Album Review: Serotonin - Mystery Jets

If Twenty One threw a splash of eighties passion on the prog-rock experimentalism of the Mystery Jets' debut then Serotonin, with it's Talk Talk-esque cover, is an eighties-soaked emotional Molotov cocktail.

The trade-off is most apparent on second track 'It's Too Late', the first proper ballad the band have ever indulged in. And an indulgence it is - one that has turned off some reviewers and may alienate some older fans. How you feel about this one track will probably affect much of your view of Serotonin itself - it's either an unimaginative mainstream retread or, in it's unashamed honesty and willingness to leave aside unnecessary agendas, an irresistible emotional anchor for the album that lets the boys love for the eighties bask in centre stage.

And maybe BlackPlastic is just a sucker for a romantic agenda, but we can't help but plum for the latter. To accuse Serotonin of lacking variety would be fair, yet the result is an album that feels in many ways even tighter than its predecessor if less exciting. From the running-so-fast-you-might-trip opening of 'Alice Springs', with its rousing chorus of "I'd stand in the line of fire for you / I'd bend over backwards for you / I'd do anything that you want be to do / 'cos I don't have nothing if I don't have you my love" this is an album wearing its heart on its sleeve:

Sometimes some people love some other people. And the Jets have clearly fallen head over heels somewhere along the line because every song on here deals with this most basic of emotions in one way or another.

On the whole it's a storming success - the beauty being in the variety of takes on love that the album illustrates. 'Flash A Hungry Smile' is bumbling and hopeless bare-cheeked lust. Title track 'Serotonin' feels like coming up from underwater - the drugs analogy is obvious but BlackPlastic will place faith in the reality being that this song is noting the similarity of love to drugs, and celebrating the former's natural ability to mimic the latter rather than the other way round.

Best of all is 'Show Me The Light' - a celebratory anthem-to-be complete with bouncing house beat. It's the sound of boundless enthusiasm: sure, things may not work out... But then, they might, right? It's so blinkered and keen that it's bloody difficult not to be won over.

Serotonin may feel like a curveball after the maturity and relative subtlety of Twenty One. It is certainly less ambitious but it's inability to do anything other than express just how much it has a crush on you is pretty charming. If you've ever gone a bit gooey over someone you may find it tough to resist the feeling of Serotonin.

BP x

Serotonin is out now on Rough Trade, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: Movement In A Storm - James Yuill

Okay, BlackPlastic admits it. There are times when we would much rather a hug with the right person, a sweater and a cup of tea than a night out on the sauce raving past dawn. Maybe we are getting old. Maybe it is just all about maintaining a balanced lifestyle.

Either way, some of BlackPlastic's favourite music is the stuff that sounds like it has been made for listening to whilst wearing sweaters and hugging cute girls on dance floors. And that is exactly the type of music that James Yuill makes.

Stuck midway between Hot Chip and Metronomy, Movement In A Storm is a needy thinking man's electronic soundtrack bliss. Last year's popular Prins Thomas mix of 'This Sweet Love' is as good an introduction to Yuill's work as any. It doesn't feature here but the same considered melodies run throughout 'Foreign Shore' and beyond.

What makes Movement In A Storm so great is the combination of musical flourishes - check the the twinkling bells and crunchy thick bass lines that open 'On Your Own' - and gut wrenching lyrics. These really are songs to well-up to: 'Ray Gun' is without doubt the sweetest song BlackPlastic has heard that is named after fictional weaponry and it is Yuill's lyrics that betray his innocence as he croons "Never was my ray gun on you". Geeky, sure - but that is kind of the point.

Movement In A Storm lacks the utterly irresistible immediacy of it's predecessor Turning Down Water For Air insofar as there being nothing quite as thrillingly head-over-heals-in-love as 'Left Handed Girl'. Yet what you do get is, in essence, more of the same with a bit less instant accessibility but a bit more consideration. And when it is this good BlackPlastic won't complain - we'll be on the dancefloor in a cardigan.

On that note, if you haven't checked out 'Left Handed Girl' then you really should - it is on Spotify.

BP x

Album Review: Latin - Holy Fuck

The start of Holy Fuck's new album sounds like big things happening. '1MD' opens the album on a building crescendo of distorted melodies. It is initially calm but it quickly becomes apparent that this is merely the calm before the storm.

And a storm it is: 'Red Lights' barrel-rolls in like a professional hit man, slinky bass lines and snappy drums painting the sky. And it's obvious that Holy Fuck continue to create a kind of music that many try to make but few succeed in delivering.

There are echoes of Gang Gang Dance, !!! and others here but no-one manages to create quite the same psychedelic acid trip and make it sound so real. Latin is an album that builds to a fever pitch - midpoint track 'Silva & Grimes' is rabid driving music for thunderstorms, incessant and rapid fire and faster than anything that precedes it. It feels like a kind of climax on first listen but that's only because you don't know what is still to come.

'SHT MTN' is low-slung, squealing and industrial and then 'Stilettos' is pedal-to-the-metal-with-the-top-down. Closing on 'P.I.G.S.' only increases the sense of bewilderment. This is mechanical art-rock for destroying cities. A solid groove builds and eventually hits a melodic breakdown midway through before heading stratospheric. This is music for space, not puny-Earth - it sounds like an ode to the majestically uncontrollable power of the Saturn V. This is being strapped to five-megatons of explosives and flicking the match.

Latin is not just a selection of fantastic tunes, it's a epic journey sandwiched into 40-minutes.

BP x

Latin is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].