Album Review: Fabric 43 - Various selected and mixed by Metro Area

Metro Area's breed of obscure disco and raw 80s funk is always a little in danger of coming across as chin stroking wankery. When it works, as on the sublime 'Caught Up' on their self-titled début (in reality a compilation of EPs), it is utterly fantastic but a mix album just might be a case of over-egging the pudding if it takes itself too seriously.

Which is why Fabric 43 is odd, on two counts. Firstly it features a Fabric first as far as BlackPlastic is concerned: a comedy intro. And secondly because, despite this, it still falls flat.

There are glorious moments - World Premier's 'Share The Night (Breakdown Mix)' is everything that can be right about Metro Area. It is light, funky and impossible to not dance too. The instrumental of Disco Four's 'Move To The Groove' is so ridiculously camp that it is irresistible and the juxtaposition of the pop of Heaven 17's 'Penthouse and the Pavement' plays off the inherent disco of one of Sheffield's whilst loosening up the mix.

The problem is really one of sequencing. BlackPlastic hates to say it but there is too much here and too much of it sounds the same. These cuts are ALL good and within the right mix could standout and be a high point. The problem is that there is a lack of navigation, no peak and no development.

On a more positive note the mixing goes some way to making up for this as the blending between some fairly different tracks (in terms or rhythm and melody if not always style) is considered and smooth.

And so Fabric 43 is good.  It will happily see you through a car journey or a dull morning in the office. It just isn't as great as a mix from Metro Area should be.

BP x

Single Review: Paris - Friendly Fires (again)

Let's keep this brief as we have all but bestowed single of the year status on this track already anyway but it is worth noting the re-release, which comes packed in with a couples of remixes.

The Aeroplane Remix lifts the foot of the gas slightly to create a more electronic but slower paced track. Befittingly it sounds French (Aeroplane are actually from the home of Soulwax and the Glimmers, Ghent in Belgium) but importantly it gives those lovely Au Revoir Simone vocals a bit more space. The result is a bit melancholic and beautiful, a soundtrack for the journey home from Paris rather than the trip out.

The Justus Köhncke Remix is similar in many ways but twists things in a slightly different direction. It still feels retrospective but has a touch more positivity. It lacks those Au Revoir vox though but what it does have my friends, is space. Bags of it. Over it's ten minutes it is one of those pieces of music that is more about the parts that aren't played than those that aren't. The drum kick is nice and fresh and it combines well with some warm melodic instrumentation to make a sophisticated big room sound that is much more understated than you would expect from a remix of a track as exciting as Paris.

Both are awesome and compliment each other well. Grab on iTunes, eMusic, Boomkat or in Woolworths (joke, they've probably closed down since I wrote this).

BP x

Album Review: Music Components - Rebotini

It's nearing Christmas, a time when BlackPlastic has to go digging a little harder through the racks than normal as the release schedule dries up.

The benefit of such dry spells is that they sometimes lead to you finding something a little different, like a copy of Rebotini's Music Components which BlackPlastic came across in Toulouse recently. Rebotini is part of Black Strobe, a group that (once they went their separate ways with Ivan Smagghe) seemed to lose all sense of what made them fantastic and so turned into a goth techno band as an outlet. Their début album, Burn Your Own Church, was not without charms but wasn't want people wants particularly either. Music Components, in some ways at least, goes back and delivers on the original promise.

This is an album of musical constructions produced using a selection of classic synthesizers. It's entirely instrumental, filmic in nature and jet black. An in that sense, it is a better realization of Black Strobe's promise that Black Strobe themselves are. The snide vocals of a 'Me and Madonna' would have been great but the throbbing electronics here are enough to deliver.

This isn't an album that needs much to be said - if you liked 'Inner Strings' and the thought of an album's worth doesn't sound boring then this is worth seeking out.

BP x

Single Review: Dream On - Christian Falk feat. Robyn

Even all this time after the haunting melodies of 'With Every Heartbeat' first pricked up BlackPlastic's ears Robyn still holds a special place: worth at least five Britneys, her music is access, beauty and lightening in one. And yet it is all also old...

As fresh as the last album sounded much of it had existed in one form or another for years and the same is true of this latest piece with Christian Falk. But what makes Robyn one of BlackPlastic's favourite popstresses is the fact that even tracks that have been around a while still sound newer than anything Brit or Xtina have released in pure time.

'Dream On' is your life support system but rather than being made of wires and tubes and maths it is people and friends and wave upon wave of familiarity and reassurance, layer upon layer. As Robyn confirms:

"Rest you weary heads - All is well: You won't be strip-searched, hung-up tonight.
You won't be cut-up, bleeding tonight.
You won't be strung out, cold, shaking to your bones wishing you were anywhere else but right here."

The lyrics may seem cold but the delivery is anything but and when Robyn confidently assures BlackPlastic that they won't want to be anywhere but here our instincts are naturally to trust her: there is nothing but joy here.

BP x

Album Review: Secret Machines - Secret Machines

Secret Machines are back, this time with an eponymous, self-released follow up to 2006's Ten Silver Drops. The pop sensibilities have lost out to a heavier sound, more reminiscent of the glorious Now Here Is Nowhere, yet the sure scale of some of Ten Silver Drops' larger moments (the lovely 'Alone, Jealous & Stones') are maintained.

The effect is an album that feels like one-step-back to Ten Silver Drops' two-steps-forward but trust BlackPlastic when we say this is a good thing. The slight lack of unified direction that album suffered from is no longer a problem. What is left is a focused, taught album of progressive rock tracks, be it the space opera of 'I Never Thought To Ask' or the psychotic breakdown of 'The Walls Are Starting To Crack', that will make you feel like you are living in a David Bowie movie.

The self-released aspect may make this trickier to come across but it's still available via the usual channels (iTunes, Amazon) and, as with the rest of the Secret Machines catalogue, it is well worth picking up. Nobody does epics on this scale and as the closing 'The Fire Is Waiting' kicks in the band sound more like a rocket ship departing the launch pad than any of their earth-bound contemporaries.

BP x