Album Review:Live @ The Roundhouse London 2008 - X-Ray Spex

You'd think that now more than ever, on the cusp of a right-wing return to power and increasing dissatisfaction, with high unemployment an growing poverty, punk would be an inspiring force.

Sadly this live set from X-Ray Spex only succeeds to underline why punk had to die. Featuring their set from London's the Roundhouse last year (which itself covered every song bar-one from their only album) on CD and DVD it's a retrospective that may well appeal to the original fans but is unlikely to win over anyone who wasn't there the first time.

The problem with punk music was, for all it's noise and bravado, it was little more than rock 'n' roll played badly. And this live album only serves to reinforce that - its mixture of shouted vocals and brass at first feel fresh yet several tracks in it becomes apparent that this is all X-Ray Spex had or have.

Johnny Rotten recently appeared in the Observer's Music Monthly magazine and he mentioned how much he respects X-Ray Spex. BlackPlastic can't help but feel there are some considerably more worthwhile musical heroes people should be celebrating, but then again maybe we just aren't taking enough mescaline.

BP x

Out now on Year Zero, available on CD+DVD from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].

Album Review: Chimeric - Radian

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

An appropriate proverb when faced with the prospect of reviewing Radian's album Chimeric. From the opening distorted clicks and buzzes of 'Git Cut Noise' it is a thoroughly opaque listen. Disorientating and disturbed it is difficult to describe and, in all honesty, even more difficult to like.

Chimeric is, in essence, an avante-guarde slice of left-field experimentation. BlackPlastic would struggle to call much of it music and, if we are struggling, that doesn't bode well or many other people.

Radian have created an interesting piece of art here but we can't help but feel a little too much like they are attempting to school us. There is just no relief and no contrast and the result makes the album's relatively short 40-minute length feel a lot longer.

BP x

Chimeric is released on Thrill Jockey on 16 November, available for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP.

Album Review: Turntable Technology - Pablo

You don't know it but, if you are a 18 to 35 year old male at least, there is a good chance you are already familiar with Pablo's work. Having been responsible for the incidental music in Grand Theft Auto IV BlackPlastic had certainly heard an hour or so of his work before ever even hitting play on Turntable Technology.

The link is not obvious though. Only on the dramatic instrumental sounds of 'Rooftop Chase' does Pablo's soundtrack ability really come to the fore, although we have to concede it is a better effort than anything in Grand Theft Auto's incidentals.

Turntable Technology is a dizzying album. Two discs - the second of which is completely instrumental (featuring some tracks from the first, along with some original pieces) - and a massive 27 tracks. Frankly there is simply far too much content here to get to grips with. Recalling the turntablism and instrumental hip-hop of early Shadow, producing a record of such length is an interesting (if misguided) approach for a genre that normally focuses on playing as much as possible at once rather than dragging things out.

Inevitably the result is ultimately flawed, but it is perhaps brilliantly so. There is simply too much filler. The opening title track introduces the album's main theme - turntablism itself - through a stale monologue describing the features of a record player. Like we have never heard that trick before. It's old and tired before it has even begun and to make matters worse it's a trick the album repeats more than once. So far so yawn.

Yet elsewhere things aren't just good, they are great. 'The Story of Sampling' mixes together more raps than you would think you could recognise into one flow that genuinely works. But Turntable Technology is at its best when it abandons it's hip-hop roots as on 'Music Maestro' and the truly beautiful closing track to disc one, 'High Jazz'. Not since Shadow's first album and the Avalanche's epic Since I Left You has BlackPlastic been quite so spellbound by sample-based music.

The instrumentals on disc two are somewhat pointless when the originals are so close and they give the album a thrown together feel, which risks undermining the work that has gone in to this release. There are stand out moments from the unique tracks not featured on disc one however - the closing couplet of 'Journey's End' and 'Reincarnation' being prime examples.

Turntable Technology suffers from failing to be as clever as it thinks it is - less would certainly have been more - but the highlights are enjoyable enough to ensure the error is accepted, if not overlooked. It needs re-sequencing and editing but there is without doubt at least one album's worth of quality tunes here.

BP x

Turntable Technology is released on Soma on 9 November, available for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].

Album Review: The Man With The Case - Samuel L. Session

Sorry to any fans that have stumbled across the humble BlackPlastic blog but techno... Well, it's just inherently boring. By definition it is a genre so obsessed with detail and finish that, aside from the initial tracks out of Detroit that defined the genre, any release that proudly sports the label is pretty much unapproachable for the layman. You gotta have a belly full of pills or a head fulla maths to care.

Samuel L. Session has been releasing tracks since 1996 however, so you could be mistaken for falsely believing that this album, his first artist album, is either an exception to the rule or the turgid dirge that proves it.

Instead The Man With The Case is a bit of a mixed bag. It is unapologetically a techno album first and foremost. That means there is a lot of nothing here. BlackPlastic is ultimately left cold by the incessant beat, the measured perfection, the lack of passion. Yet there is still a little bit of charm to some of the tracks that make up this album. The highlight has to be album opener 'Time', which has the warmth of Chicago mixed with the robotic urban perception of Detroit. The result is a truly thrilling track that transcends genre-definition.

The problem is that whilst there are hints of the same passion and intelligence elsewhere on the album, the driving bass of 'My People' for example, they are ultimately spread so thinly across its length that they lose any bite. This is still just techno. Do yourself a favour - download 'Time' but leave the rest on the shelf.

BP x

The Man With The Case is out now on Be As One, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].

Album Review: Arminico Hewa - OOIOO

What happens if you mix Gang Gang Dance's distorted and shattered take on urban music and melt it down with the Battles and Asa Chung & Junray?

Something like this. A unhinged, disjointed piece of post-math-rock.

And to listen to it is to hear one of the strangest records BlackPlastic has heard in a while. Scat vocals, yelps, acid... African percussion...

Basically Arminico Hewa is every passing fad of the past couple of years played at once. Up close it is all far too much and BlackPlastic certainly wouldn't recommend playing it on a first date or listening to it whilst you sleep (unless you, your partner, or both are mental) but take a step back and it is kind of beautiful: Free of form or structure. So base it really underlines the similarity between humans and animals - just try listening to 'Irorun' and you will see what we mean.

So weird and full-on in might make you puke. Which is kind of awesome in our book.

BP x

Arminico Hewa is out on 2 November on Thrill Jockey, available for order now on Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP [affiliate links].