Video: Sex War Sex Cars Sex - Ulterior

The press release for Ulterior's 'Sex War Sex Cars Sex' contains quotes that compare Ulterior to Gary Numan, Killing Joke, Suicide and Jesus & Mary Chain and judging by this single those references are pretty on the money.

The band look like they mean it in this video - this isn't the usual knowingly sly nod to the past - and on the four-minute climatic build of 'Sex War Sex Cars Sex' this sounds less like a 2010 take on early 1980s electronic industrial punk than the real thing. BlackPlastic digs it, although whether we'd want to listen to an entire album of angst-ridden electronica remains to be seen.

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Video: The Suburbs (Arcade Fire Cover) - Huski

This neat little cover version of Arcade Fire's opening track from new album The Suburbs dropped into the BlackPlastic message box this week. Normally messing around with Arcade Fire would be close to sacrilege but in all honesty this slightly darker take on the original is pretty tasteful. The video itself was made by filming a bike journey - the result is nicely in keeping with the feeling of the original song.

More over at the Huski site.

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Comment: That's Cool, But Can You Make It More Sh*t?

The DFA have recently completed a retrospective of all of their designed materials at the Tom Dunne Gallery in Sidney entitled That's Cool, But Can You Make It More Sh*t? Which is aces.

Sadly BlackPlastic didn't get to go, it being on the other side of the world, and it is already over but this video gives a little insight into the awesomeness that was it.

The look of the DFA output has always been pretty much consistently superb and it is perhaps symbolic of the attention to detail that the people behind the label have - something that generally comes through in the music. BlackPlastic would argue that this approach has defined what we would consider some of the very best labels (Factory and Output, for example) - it particularly comes through in the way that the releases on all of these labels generally fit together visually and yet still stand apart on their own.

On the video James Murphy mentions his intentions to release a book - here is hoping that happens at some point.

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Video: Don't Be Late - Heretics

Heretics are a new synth pop band from bath with hints of post-punk, shoegaze and electro. They are currently working on their debut album but in the meantime you should check out their video to 'Don't Be Late' above. Think Frankie Goes To Hollywood getting into a fight with Gary Numan.

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Video: Valley of Abra - Alba Lua

Hailing from Bordeaux Alba Lua are a three-piece comprising of Pepo Durantez (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), Pascal Hoerner (lead guitar, backing vocals and bass) and Renoi Jacob Mathieu (drums and percussion). 'Valley of Abra' is taken from their debut EP Ballad of Joseph Merrick, which was recorded in Barcelona a couple of days after the band saw Neil Young, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth play at the Primavera Sound Festival. Tellingly 'Valley of Abra' features a thrilling mix of shoe-gazey pop and blissed-out summer sunshine.

The press release for this mentions that Vice described it as 'Syd Barrett sound tracking a spaghetti western, i.e. eccentric, reverb-heavy, dreamy pop music' and whilst BlackPlastic generally think Vice are a bunch of twats when it comes to music reviews they kind of got Alba Lua on the money. We have spent the last few days wandering around in Rockstar's rather ace Red Dead Redemption video game, set in the Wild West, and 'Valley of Abra' would make a fantastically psychedelic addition to the soundtrack.

Alba Lua are currently working on a new EP and an album is expected in early 2011.

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