Album Review: It's Blitz! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Some bands just seem to get it right - they don't fail to hit the mark on their first album despite an over-hyped début EP, they don't choke on album number two and they always manage to develop just enough to keep things interesting but not so much so as to lose what made them great.

Rush released following a leak online and some pesky pirates doing their thing (how does this stuff still catch labels off-guard?) the Yeah Yeah Yeahs return with their third album, out now on MP3 and at the beginning of April on CD.

Back with David Sitek on production duties, It's Blitz! manages to push the envelope in the right way. There is without doubt a development of the sound - things are, on the whole, a little softer and a touch more electronic - but it is the contrast that shines. The strings and delicate piano of 'Runaway' into the snappy funk of 'Dragon Queen'. The reveal of 'Dull Life' where Karen O. removes the mask and lets the anger shine and the beautifully tender 'Skeletons' with it's subtle wandering electronic melodies. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have never struggled to deliver truly astounding ballads (just revisit 'Maps') and there are several here.

It's Blitz is a short album yet it packs in all the ideas and ambition you would expect for a band that have left three years since their last full release. From the opening 'Zero', one of the best album openers in years, the quality doesn't let up. Yeah Yeah Yeahs have done it again.

BP x

Album Review: Fabric 45 - Omar S

Double Fabric props this week with a look at the next two Fabric albums. First up: Fabric 45 mixed by Omar S.

Less a mix album, more a continuous career retrospective: Fabric 45 takes its cue from Ricardo Villalobos' and Pure Science's sets, featuring no tracks from other artists. An outsider in his own scene (and hometown of Detroit) Omar S has long refused to compromise on quality or delivery and it is from this quest for perfection that the approach for Fabric 45 was derived: in the Omar's opinion these are simply the best tracks in the past few years. A bold statement.

It is always a dangerous path for a mix - it paid dividends in Villalobos' case as the variety in his own work shone through but it is difficult to imagine many artists who would benefit from some variety in this type of setting.

Omar S' disc is an interesting one. Initially dry, if excellently paced, what starts out as a fairly straight forward techno mix soon starts throwing in the curve balls. Whilst the general quality of the techno is great it probably wouldn't be able to sustain BlackPlastic's interest all on its own.

The changes are subtle - So 'U' adds a vocal and jacking, funky acid line, 'Oasis 13 1/2' veers close to house with a simple piano refrain and a skippy garage beat and 'The Maker' is soulful with a deep house female vocal. Best of all, Fabric 45 ends on proper full on house track 'Set Me Out' - it sounds like vintage Masters At Work (yes, before they lost the magic) with soulful male vocals and female BVs backed with a lovely minimal (small 'm') house beat... It really is that good and the fact the tunes are created on all analogue equipment really comes through.

The homegrown variety in this mix lifts it from being just quite good to great, turning it into much more than just another techno mix.

Available at Amazon.co.uk

BP x

Album Review: Dance Mother - Telepathe

Listening to Telepathe's début album is like being mugged by a group of cute 16 year old girls. The sound of candy-floss vocals cussing and spaced-out ambience with a malicious edge becomes strangely alluring by the album's close.

Production by David Sitek (Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV On The Radio) gives 'Dance Mother' a clear edge and it is always refreshing to hear Sitek's sound applied to different musical styles. Telepathe make loose, cosmic disco influenced electronic music with female vocals reminiscent of the cute yelps of Architecture In Helsinki, only spray painted jet black.

The result is an album with bags of atmosphere. Defined by space more than anything, it is effortlessly contemporary yet sounds like it will age well, refusing to be compounded by anything as rigid as time. With reflections of the African rhythms vibe everyone thought was the next big thing last year, Dance Mother captures the same feeling of nature and water that Foals' début did (also originally to be produced by Sitek before his mix was abandoned).

At it's best 'Dance Mother' feels like the reclamation of urban society by nature. The beautiful 'In Your Line' sounds like an abandoned warehouse becoming slowly overrun by nature, rain tearing down the roof above and vines gradually pulling down the walls.

Available on Amazon.co.uk on CDand MP3.

BP x

Album Review: Immolate Yourself - Telefon Tel Aviv

Taking elements of post-rock, the sounds of early M83 and late Ulrich Schnauss - plus maybe even a pinch of mid-career BT - Telefon Tel Aviv snuck out their new album 'Immolate Yourself' a few weeks back.

BlackPlastic may have only just got around to commenting but Telefon Tel Aviv just might have gone and made the best straight up electronic album in a while. The strength here is really in the polish and attention to detail - the ambient melodies could easily have missed their mark if it wasn't for the layers of distortion and punchy drums that refuse to become enveloped in sound - each beat and stutter, each fragment of sound adds texture and detail.

With the rhythmic touches of breaks, the melodies of ambient house and the production quality of the best minimal techno 'Immolate Yourself' feels like a photographic image that literally stands up off the page.

The result is pretty glorious. The opening Birds lures the listener into an album that never gives up and whilst they know better than to stray too far from the template there is enough variety - in the 80s sheen and bubbling bass of Helen of Troy for example - to keep things interesting. Yet most of all it is the feelings Telefon Tel Aviv convey in their music that stays with the listener after 'Immolate Yourself' has drawn to a close.

Intelligent, emotive and modest.

Available on Amazon.co.uk here.

BP x

Album Review: Farewell Good Night's Sleep - Lay Low

Sometimes BlackPlastic goes off-piste. Electronic music may be our bread and butter yet there are occasional albums that fail to fall into this genre yet still deserve some attention.

Lay Low is Icelandic singer Lovisa Elisabet Sigrunardottir and Farewell Good Night's Sleep is her first album to be released in the UK (but her second album proper). Recorded and produced by Liam Watson, who has previously worked with The White Stripes, it smacks of the same laid back laziness of fellow Icelander Emiliana Torrini but with added Jazz. Fact: BlackPlastic loves laziness and BlackPlastic loves jazz.

Not much happens on Farewell Good Night's Sleep: if you want to level criticism at it then that's your best bet. Other than that Lay Low has crafted a joyful, gently strumming album that sounds like it should be the soundtrack to a road trip buddy movie involving lots of drinking and aging. It feels like sipping whisky and holding a cigar whilst dancing in the dark. It's moody yet playful, considered and understated.

Farewell Good Night's Sleep: an excursion you don't want to come home from.

Download the MP3 of Last Time Around (right click, save as).  'Farewell Good Night's Sleep' is released on 9 March.  Available to pre-order at Amazon on CDand in MP3.

BP x