Single Review: She's Bad - Gadi Mizrahi & Soul Clap

Gadi Mizrahi & Soul Clap's 'She's Bad' is without doubt the slinkiest little soul jam to have dropped through BlackPlastic's virtual letter box in some time.

Minimal in approach it focuses on doing not a lot but doing it rather well. 'She's Bad' screams for laid back afternoons on beaches, its keys hot enough to make the tarmac go sticky under foot and the snatched vocal performance straining under the weight of a sun-baked libido. This is basically what shithouse funky house would sound like if it wasn't shit an was actually quite good.

'Beautiful Thang' over on the flip is a little less irresistible but still a pleasant way to pass a few minutes, with a thick and slightly rude bassline. It's a more dance-floor focused affair and won't permeate your subconscious in the same way but the campy vocals provide a standout moment.

She's Bad is out on Double Standard Records.

BP x

Single Review: Even Your Friend - The Chap

The Chap continue to baffle and please in equal measure on this, their latest single. The Chap have always sounded a little bit like what Fischerspooner would have sounded like if they hadn't been tosser art students who took themselves too seriously.

The ironic humour in The Chap's records is almost too abundant - to the point where it can be difficult to derive a long-lasting sense of enjoyment from their music. Yet their songs are often just about infectious enough that, try as you might, you just can't help but dig it.

Such is the case with 'Even Your Friend'. BlackPlastic is not exactly sure what 'Even Your Friend' is about - it starts off sounding like an annoyed rant at a friend or lover who doesn't know how to have fun but ends up descending into some sort of Beach Boys-esque summertime love call to arms. Whatever - it moves at 250 miles per hour and frankly leaves us baffled but enamoured enough that we can't help but have another go.

B-side 'Friendo for Life' is a twisted but laid back affair that somehow manages to sound like a chilled out dub take on boss nova. It lacks the instant gratification of 'Even Your Friend' and as such struggles to hold the attention.

Two remixes of 'Even Your Friend' are also included. The Teenage Fantasy mix strips the sing back to a dubby, ambient sequence of chords. BlackPlastic isn't sure how or why the original inspired this but each to their own - it does what it does well enough, it just doesn't feel like it has any of the spirit of the original left. The Ghostape Remix makes more sense, comparatively - again it is dubby and ambient but retains more of the vocal and in looping the "Summertime Love" refrain over a laid back beat it manages to create an enjoyably blissed out feeling.

Pleasing in places and alienating in others - Even Your Friend illustrates just how The Chap's continued efforts to experiment can deliver brilliant and confusing results, sometimes all at once.

BP x

EP Review: The Bit Parts - Youth Sounds

Brother and sister duo Youth Sounds' The Bit Parts EP treads a line somewhere between the dazed show gazing vibes of School of Seven Bells and something much more 'pop'.

Which means it is something of an unashamed pleasure. And so there is nothing challenging about The Bit Parts and in all honesty, in some ways that is a shame. The duo are clearly at their best when forced down a path other than the straight up ditty that is opening track 'As Strangers Would'. 'Smoke and Mirrors' goes for a comparatively stripped back approach - it is the distortion of The Jesus and Mary Chain applied to the Pixies quiet-loud-quiet methodology. By far the best of the three tracks here, it really allows Erika Mejia's breathy, whispered vocals to shine.

So The Bit Parts demonstrates that the Youth Sounds have promise. The choice is theirs as to whether they turn into an interesting band or simply the coolest band your mum listens to.

Head over to Youth Sound's MySpace for more.

BP x

Single Review: Foca Master Sarajevo - Soul Mekanik

This is the kind of big room bothering Balearic nonsense that BlackPlastic should probably frown upon but frankly it just pushes our buttons too right and too hard for us to resist.

'Foca Master Sarajevo', out on Wonk, is long and strong. Starting as a warm, percussive number it initially feels underwhelming if pleasant enough. The world probably doesn't need more deep and tribal house but if it did, this is serviceable. What makes 'Foca Master Sarajevo' work then is where it goes: the break that emerges three-minutes in. It transforms the track from formulaic to genuinely loveable house that feels like it truly deserves a spot on the White Isle of old, rather than the jaded joke the island's clubbing scene has become. If anything there are elements of Tears For Fears in the piano refrains and muted guitar that rear their heads throughout the track's length. And that has got to be a good thing when it comes to being Balearic

BP x

Album Review: Serotonin - Mystery Jets

If Twenty One threw a splash of eighties passion on the prog-rock experimentalism of the Mystery Jets' debut then Serotonin, with it's Talk Talk-esque cover, is an eighties-soaked emotional Molotov cocktail.

The trade-off is most apparent on second track 'It's Too Late', the first proper ballad the band have ever indulged in. And an indulgence it is - one that has turned off some reviewers and may alienate some older fans. How you feel about this one track will probably affect much of your view of Serotonin itself - it's either an unimaginative mainstream retread or, in it's unashamed honesty and willingness to leave aside unnecessary agendas, an irresistible emotional anchor for the album that lets the boys love for the eighties bask in centre stage.

And maybe BlackPlastic is just a sucker for a romantic agenda, but we can't help but plum for the latter. To accuse Serotonin of lacking variety would be fair, yet the result is an album that feels in many ways even tighter than its predecessor if less exciting. From the running-so-fast-you-might-trip opening of 'Alice Springs', with its rousing chorus of "I'd stand in the line of fire for you / I'd bend over backwards for you / I'd do anything that you want be to do / 'cos I don't have nothing if I don't have you my love" this is an album wearing its heart on its sleeve:

Sometimes some people love some other people. And the Jets have clearly fallen head over heels somewhere along the line because every song on here deals with this most basic of emotions in one way or another.

On the whole it's a storming success - the beauty being in the variety of takes on love that the album illustrates. 'Flash A Hungry Smile' is bumbling and hopeless bare-cheeked lust. Title track 'Serotonin' feels like coming up from underwater - the drugs analogy is obvious but BlackPlastic will place faith in the reality being that this song is noting the similarity of love to drugs, and celebrating the former's natural ability to mimic the latter rather than the other way round.

Best of all is 'Show Me The Light' - a celebratory anthem-to-be complete with bouncing house beat. It's the sound of boundless enthusiasm: sure, things may not work out... But then, they might, right? It's so blinkered and keen that it's bloody difficult not to be won over.

Serotonin may feel like a curveball after the maturity and relative subtlety of Twenty One. It is certainly less ambitious but it's inability to do anything other than express just how much it has a crush on you is pretty charming. If you've ever gone a bit gooey over someone you may find it tough to resist the feeling of Serotonin.

BP x

Serotonin is out now on Rough Trade, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].