Album Review: Days Away - Nonagon

Nonagon is that rarest of things - a musician giving away music that is not just passable, it's actually exceptional. Self released and available for free in 128k MP3 or sold on a 'name your price' basis for a higher quality format of your choice (pretty much anything you can think of), Days Away is an atmospheric trip through the mind of its creator, John Brian Kirby.

A varied album, Days Away is in essence all leftfield electronic music. There are a ton of influences - touches of Four Tet, traces of Amon Tobin an Burial - but on the whole it's different enough that, as an album, it stands on its own two feet.

A whole range of styles and genres are taken in - atmospheric breaks on 'Fixed Action Pattern', sample laden hip-hop beats on 'Mr Sniggles' House' and ambient drum n bass on 'South Without a Candle' - and Nonagon really gets the chance to show off his production skills. The problem with self-produced, self-released electronic albums is that without the knowledge and experience of a producer guiding things the result sounds flat and lakes pace.

With the help of Steve Hall, who mastered the album, Days Away confidently circumvents any such concerns. Take 'Underlayed By Reflection' for example, a near-on nine minute intelligent drum n bass track. Many well known DJs and producers would struggle within that framework yet Nonagon doesn't just deliver production that feels fresh and professional, the track is also fantastically sequenced, building and developing throughout its length.

If you are a fan of leftfield dance music you would be a fool not to at least check Days Away out. It's free to try after all.

Available to download from Bandcamp. If you enjoy this music please support the artist and pay for a higher quality download.

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Album Review: Kitsuné Maison Compilation 7 - Various Artists

If Kitsuné Maison 6 was the melodic one and 5 was Gold then this one may sadly go down as the phoned in one. It's true ladies and gents, the Maison series has jumped the shark.

It's hard to put your finger on but there is just a general lack of any sense of care and attention here. Maybe BlackPlastic has come to expect too much but, for the first time on a Kitsuné album, there is padding on the tracklisting.

Chateau Marmont's vocodered 'Beagle' is possibly the world's dullest 80s / French house hybrid - whoever picked this out of all the tracks in the world needs a slap. Similarly Renaissance Man's 'Rythym' seems content to deliver exactly 0.3 ideas across the length of the entire track. Worst of all is La Roux's return on Lifelike's mix of 'In For The Kill'. Fine, it's a catchy tune - we already admitted we liked it - and we know Kitsuné were there first, releasing 'Quicksand' last year. And Lifelike is ACE. But seriously - we all know La Roux isn't cool and will be over before her forth single.

However - when Kitsuné Maison Compilation 7 works, it really works. And it is on the laid back, sun drenched tracks this happens most. Two Door Cinema Club sound like Phoenix at the top of their game on 'Something Good Can Work' whilst Phoenix sound like, well, themselves at the top of their game on the blissful Classixx version of 'Lisztomania'. Even the Golden Filter almost manage to explain their hype on the slow and funky 'Favourite Things' whilst Autokratz finally deliver on the Yuksek mix of 'Always More'. The highlight though - Prins Thomas' mix of James Yuill's 'This Sweet Love' is not just good - it's a glorious summer's walk of a track, surpassing anything that's ever appeared on a Maison compilation in BlackPlastic's opinion.

Inconsistent then - some of the best tracks from the series combined with some of the worst. It's a shame - a little more QC and Kitsuné Maison 7 could have been the best yet.

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Album Review: FabricLive 46 - Various mixed by LTJ Bukem

Some background info: it has been some time since BlackPlastic last enjoyed any drum 'n' bass. A long time in fact. After the popularity of the Movement scene and a period of stellar tracks and artists around 2002 nothing quite felt right.

There just didn't seem to be anything new. Sure, there will be those that disagree but the truth is: DnB died in 2004.

LTJ Bukem's FabricLive mix doesn't really do anything new. So, in principle at least, there is nothing to see here. But... Golly, it is hard to turn your back on this disc. Flowing in through your speakers like the one that got away FabricLive 46 isn't just good - it's wonderful and undeniable. It's a reminder of what was so interesting about drum 'n' bass in the first time.

FabricLive 46 is summer barbecues, beers in the garden, dancing in the sunshine, killing time in the park and staying up all night to watch the sunrise. Maybe it helps that BlackPlastic is reminded of empty summers as a student when hearing this style of music but there are some wonderful feelings in the first half of this mix.

The sound itself is what you would expect if you are familiar with Bukem's work. His trademark 'intelligent' sound is combined with the some slightly harder, rolling bass lines (on the Madcap mix of Villem's 'Inflated Tear' for example) and there has been a lovely, warm development into a slightly more liquid DnB sound.

Admittedly things tail off a little in the latter third before coming back again for a nice climax in the filtered 'So In Need' by Syncopix. The album isn't perfect by any stretch and it still fails to match the heights of the early Movement mix albums or the superb Soulful Behaviour mix from Defunct. One thing is for sure however - this is the best drum n bass mix Fabric have released in years... Bring on the summer.

FabricLive 46: LTJ Bukem is released to Fabric First members on 1 June and goes on general release on 15 June.  Subscribe to Fabric First at the Fabric London website.

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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 .

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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.

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