Album Review: Ciao! - Tiga

There is a lot of talk at present of an electroclash resurgence. A second wave. With new albums from DJ Hell, Kittin & The Hacker and Peaches it is perhaps easy to see why. What is strange though is that many of these acts have distanced themselves from this sound already - Miss Kittin's rather good I Com was a move into a purer techno sound and whilst the follow up Bat Box may have been a misguided move into goth it the techno sound of the former disc she is known for as a DJ. Hell's last album, NY Muscle, was an attempt to distance himself from the obvious trappings of the electroclash genre and Tiga's debut wasn't remotely close to electroclash anyway. The only track Tiga has done that could be labelled as such is his collaboration with Zyntherius on their cover of 'Sunglasses At Night'.

What's more it seems that some semi-amateur hacks (and BlackPlastic puts themselves into the category) seem content with using the 'resurgence of electroclash' as a tool to beat up on Tiga specifically. In their recent review of Peaches I Like Cream Fact magazine said Tiga's comeback was best off ignored.

Which is total, complete, pathetic horseshit. Horseshit because it reeks of lazy sideswiping - an off the cuff comment to pad a two paragraph review. So here's the deal: Tiga's debut, Sexor, was a great record. And Ciao! is better.

To call Ciao! electroclash is to exposure yourself as a knowledge-less pretender to the whole world. This isn't electroclash, it's definitely closer to techno than that. What's more it has ideas and songs and the production is always spotless.

Every track, whether it is the quirky and hard 'Mind Dimension', a revision of Tiga's own 'Move Your Body' but much better, or the anthemic tears-on-the-danefloor closer 'Love Don't Dance Here Anymore', delivers something a little different. The production work of a team consisting of Soulwax, James Murphy, Gozales, Jesper Dahlbäck and Jori Hulkkonen shines through but Tiga still makes this all his own.

How does it compare to Sexor? There's no contest. Ciao! is a noisier, more assertive album. 'What You Need' is grinding and distorted to the sassy quirkiness of 'Shoes'. There are also several house ballads - 'Turn The Night On' and 'Speak, Memory' for example - that manage to actually deliver. Ciao! Is an album with both more variety and consistency than Sexor.

Ciao! may not be redefining genres.  It may not be confounding expectations or giving wannabe hoxtonites something new no-one has heard of. But what it does do is consistently deliver ideas and deliver them well. If you are would rather snigger at the back because Tiga isn't the fashionable wünderkid he was once then so be it - BlackPlastic will be on the dancefloor having more fun.

Available now from Amazon.co.uk on CD , LP  and MP3 .

BP x

Single Review: Minor Riot - 10 Rapid

Having recently got props from Evil Nine and Streetlife DJs you might know what to expect from 10 Rapid, and you'd probably be right...

'Minor Riot' is a dirty little hand grenade of a track.  With horror movie synth strings and a lovely little bass line that builds and builds to the crescendo it's all quite reminiscent of Justice's 'Phantom', if with a little more subtlety.  It's also clearly been built for the dancefloor, with the kind of pacing that will slot right into the build-up of many a DJ's set.  The beauty of this kind of track is that it is pretty much genre-less, happy to slot right into a breaks set but just as happy within the kind of nasty house set that the likes of Adam Freeland now tends to make.

'Minor Riot' is out now over at Beatport.

Also worth checking out is 10 Rapid's mix of Caged Baby's track 'Forced'.  It's a nice, messy little track and there's a fantastic bassline that breaks through every now and then, sidelining the vocals before they gradually filter back in.  It's a catchy track and shows that 10 Rapid can work with vocals and definitely builds on the original.

Download 'Forced (10 Rapid Remix)' by Caged Baby on MP3 (right click, save as).

Check out more 10 Rapid at their MySpace.

BP x

MP3 / Single Review: Sound Reaction - Grum

Put quite simply: This. Shit. Is. Hotttt.

Grum's been knocking around for those in the know for a little bit now but this track seems destined to take him over the top and turn him into a bone fide success, particularly as he's been lapping up airplay from Pete Tong et al.

Grum describes 'Sound Reaction' as "big, fun, noisy, and designed for the dancefloor. A mixture of rave and electro with a hint of disco. I'm very into 80s new wave and italo and came across this sample...it all just grew from there really."

He'd pretty be right but let BlackPlastic distill this for you into one easy soundbite:

'Sound Reaction' is nasty funk with a killer Daft Punk style bassline for summer-time goodtimes.

Download 'Sound Reaction' - Grum on MP3 (right click, save as).

Also well worth checking out is the Phantom's Revenge remix.  It adds a lovely high-hat rhythmic edge and filters the bassline nicely.  The result is a little harder but just as fun.

Download 'Sound Reaction (Phantom's Revenge Remix)' by Grum on MP3 (right click, save as).

Both mixes feature a really nice, summer vibe - it's very reminiscent of Fred Falke and Van She Tech. BlackPlastic looks forward to hearing more.

Check out more from Grum on his MySpace.

BP x

Album Review: Begone Dull Care - Junior Boys

Junior Boys: the auditory equivalent of perfection through design. A Junior Boys record feels like slipping on a perfect new jacket, firing up a sports car in the show room, turning on that pristine new MacBook Pro.

They have always had that feeling and, in all likelihood, probably always will. Above all Junior Boys produce shimmering 80s influenced pop music and Begone Dull Care does not meddle with this formula. If you didn't like either of the first two albums then you are unlikely to like this.  If you have accused their sound of being over-produced then you still will.

Having said which, if you don't like either of the first two albums then BlackPlastic has concerns for your ability to judge anyway.

Begone Dull Care is more of the same in the best possible way - it takes what was great and refines it. It is a more positive, slightly more upbeat affair, and more than ever this feels like a duo in mastery of their sound. By focusing on just eight tracks here it truly sounds like an album where every single beat, bleep and vocal has been obsessed over.

The whole thing is very beautiful, with the kind of rarified sound BlackPlastic would expect from a Blue Nile release or something similar, where years have been poured into each song. The shimmering pop feels fare to cared for to be 'just' another album.

If BlackPlastic were mean it would suggest that, maybe, a little live instrumentation could have made this great album classic. Just listen to what a touch of trumpet did on closing track 'Lullaby' from Morgan Geist's Double Night Time last year.

BlackPlastic isn't feeling mean however so we simply say: some music dulls with repeated listens. Like a child force fed cotton candy: the novelty wears off. Other albums reward the listener for making repeated visits, growing, maturing with age. Begone Dull Care falls into the latter case. Get it now because when you play this in ten years it will sound so much better for the memories it will then hold.

Available at Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP .

BP x

Album Review: Smoke the Monster Out - Damian Lazarus

Having started the label Crosstown Rebels and produced some of the best mix albums in recent memory the concept of an artist album from Damian Lazarus was an interesting one. Usually you would have an idea of what to expect from a DJ or an artist album by checking their own productions but in Lazarus' case, in BlackPlastic's knowledge at least, there were no tracks produced by him released prior to this album.

Anyone who has heard lead single 'Moment' will know exactly what to expect. And that's the unexpected... Because Smoke the Monster Out is a musical journey about as far from the dancefloor as anything Get Physical have released previously. Out not long after Bronnt Industries Kapital recent Hard For Justice it shows the label to be much more creative and less risk averse than BlackPlastic would have previously thought.

'Moment' is not a dance track so much as a brain seizure. With a piano intro and a melodic vocal, presumably Lazarus himself, it starts off like the delicate ramblings of a Spiritualized or Lou Reed track before descending into a dubby cacophony of snatched vocals and bass. The album's main guest vocalists, the Sweidsh twins from Taxi Taxi, repeat Lazarus' opening line over time-stretched versions of themselves. It sounds Lazarus not giving a damn about where he came from and, frankly, it's a breath of fresh air. It's inventive in a totally unexpected way. Acting as a counter-weight to 'Moment' is Lazarus' cover of Scott Walker's 'It's Raining Today', an epic ballad positioned one track away from the album's close as if to mirror the position of 'Moment', one track separated from the album's opening.

Some tracks are (a little) more straight up - 'Memory Box' is less good, but it's cockney-yob minimal is more what you would expect of this album. At the same time there are curiosities in different forms, with 'Diamond In The Dark' being one - a duet of computer synthesized vocals combined with Lazarus' own over a gentle backing. 'Neverending' is different again, a celebratory stomp of a dance pop record.

Smoke the Monster Out may occasionally backfire in its attempts to be different but on the whole it is a total success. Not since Joakim's equally bonkers Monsters & Silly Songs has an album captured so many ideas in one place whilst simultaneously confounding all ideas of what a dance album should consist of.

Smoke the Monster Out's greatest achievement is that it sounds cohesive despite taking a inconsistent approach. The moods and ideas are fractured but there is an overriding dub-drenched paranoia that weaves its way through the whole thing.

Available on at Amazon.co.uk on CD , LP and MP3 .

BP x