February Song of the Month...

This month BlackPlastic is mostly going to be bigging up everybody's brand new favourite band, Hot Chip. February's song of the month is 'Keep Fallin'', taken from their killer electronic music long-player, Coming On Strong.

Frankly Coming On Strong is good enough that you could almost have every track as a song of the month, but there is something about the funked-up gangstar swagger of 'Keep Fallin'' that makes it stand out. Bass lines and drums ripped out of a Daft Punk tune, had they turned into the best band on the planet rather than a tired joke, combine with Prince-esque vocals about Stevie Wonder ("Don't you know that even Stevie Wonder sees things? Don't you ever wonder how the hell does Stevie Wonder see things?") and almost haunting melodies. The result is something funny and timely yet at the same time packed with enough feeling that you can't help but really like it.

And then the song disolves into twenty seconds of Kazoos. Fantastic.

To buy Coming On Strong at Amazon click here.

I hate everything

The Observer Music Monthly ran its annual poll of the best albums at the tail end of last year and something about it bothered BlackPlastic.

The chart featured such artists as Charlotte Church and, worst of all, Mercury Music Prize thief Anthony and the Johnsons. This in itself did not offend, what was too much is that the readers' list finished off with a mocking list of some of the artists who had been voted for just once. Amongst the tat were Cut Copy. Now whilst BlackPlastic admits that he never got around to voting, that so many people regard Charlotte or Anthony better than the frankly very enjoyable Cut Copy is what is laughable, not the fact that someone actually DID vote for our antipodean friends.

Cut Copy produce lovely warm melody's comprised of elements of Prince, post punk and pure pop. If you like Anthony and the Johnsons more than Cut Copy you ARE actually dead inside. Stop wasting our time.

Review of 2005

No song of the month for January, instead just bask in the sublime beauty that is the BlackPlastic song of the year...

Without further ado it's time for a round up of all things great 2005. Rather than going for something overly complicated and constructive BlackPlastic will highlight the best artist album, song and mix album of the year along with a list of notable stuff...

Album of the Year:
Arcade Fire - Funeral
A record so fundamentally fantastic it defies explanation. BlackPlastic tries and tries again to cover mainly electronic music on this blog, but music as good as the likes of this and Secret Machines are just too good to ignore. Funeral is one of those records that somehow evokes both the past and the future at the sametime, sounding at once like a childhood lost in the seventies and the year 2056. When singer Win Butler sings "but sometimes, we'll remember our bedrooms, and our parents' bedrooms, and the bedrooms of our friends" on the post apocalyptic 'Tunnels' it is difficult to know what he's going on about yet very, very easy to care anyway.

Funeral is the sound of a new new romantic movement sometime in the future. It evokes visions of children playing amoungst burning cars and the breakdown of society amidst a rebellion. It is the best album ever released in 2005 AD and if it doesn't affect you, you are dead inside.

To buy at Amazon.co.uk click here.

Mix Album of the Year:
Scratch Massive - Naked
Okay, the cat was let out of the bag when BlackPlastic reviewed it last month, but it is so great that it couldn't be kept a secret any longer. Which is not to say it wasn't close, there have been several very strong mix albums this year, but Scratch Massive just managed to edge it. How you may ask? By doing what all the best mixes do - taking the goal posts and running. Many highlights have already been highlighted on these pages already but there are some that haven't, the old-school hip-house of Lidelltown's 'I Make You Dance' for one and Soldout's 'I Don't Want to Have Sex With You' is so great it deserves a second mention.

Best of all, Naked was mixed live at a club in Paris so you know it was just thrown together without any remastering or trickery. The crowd must have been electrified.

Song of the Year:
The Juan Maclean - Dance With Me
It shouldn't be this easy. It shouldn't be this easy to make a piece of electronic music that is so full of feeling, and it certainly shouldn't be this easy to choose your favourite song of the year, yet it is what it is. Since the album, Less Than Human, was released back in July no-one else has stood a chance. A collaborative piece produced by ex-junkie Juan Maclean and super-producers the DFA 'Dance With Me' is just about the best piece of electronic music released in years. A simple piano piece rubs along with a tweaking synth-line and bumping bassline for over 14 minutes, and it is all set off by some fantastically simple vocals courtesy of LCD Soundsystem's Nancy Whang (who keeps cropping up on the song's of the year - see last year's 'NY Excuse' by Soulwax).

BlackPlastic was recently discussing on a thread over at Rllmuk what this year's Maps was (the beautifully honest, falling-down-the-stairs-almost-album-closer from the Yeah Yeah Yeah's debut Fever To Tell), and this is easily the closest you can get. Amidst an album of abstracter sounds and electronic wizardry 'Dance With Me' stands out as being so considered. If Less Than Human takes its inspiration from robots then 'Dance With Me' is the sexiest machine ever made, just listen to Nancy as she half sings, half says the lines "There's something I've got to tell you / but I don't know where to start / I can't find the words / so let me just show you" before breaking out her real singing voice to sing "come on over and dance with me".

Just feel the honesty. 'Dance With Me' is something truly, truly special.

To buy at Amazon click here.

Albums of Note:
LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
The Juan Maclean - Less Than Human
Sigur Rós - Takk...
Soulwax - Nite Versions
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock And Roll
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
Ben Folds - Songs For Silverman
Etienne De Crecy - Super Discount Volume 2
Prefuse 73 - Surrounded By Silence
Goldfrapp - Supernature
Common - Be
The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
Apparat Organ Quartet - Apparat Organ Quartet
Doves - Some Cities
New Order - Waiting For The Siren's Call
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Whitey - The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Is A Train
M83 - Before The Dawn Heals Us
Death From Above 1979 - You're A Woman, I'm A Machine
DJ T. - Boogie Playground
WhoMadeWho - WhoMadeWho
Hot Hot Heat - Elevator
Tom Vek - We Have Sound
Vitalic - OK Cowboy
Chemical Brothers - Push The Button
Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic
Eels - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
Gemma Hayes - The Roads Don't Love You

Mix Albums of Note:
Damian Lazarus - Suck My Deck
Erol Alkan - A Bugger Out Mix By...
Freeform Five - Misch Masch
Optimo - How To Kill The DJ Vol. 2
Optimo - Psych Out
Damian Lazarus - Rebel Futurism 2

Songs of Note:
M83 - Don't Save Us > From The Flames (Superpitcher Remix)
Volcano! - Apple Or A Gun
Etienne De Crecy - Fast Track
Doves - Black and White Town
Eels - Old Shit / New Shit
Common - Love Is...
Freeform Five - No More Conversations (Richard X Remix)
The Fiery Furnaces - Single Again
Tiefschwarz feat. Matty Safer - Warning Siren
Art Brut - My Little Brother
Royksopp - 49 Percent (Mixes)
Tom Vek - Nothing But Green Lights
The Chemical Brothers - Close Your Eyes
Test Icicles - Circle Square Triangle
The Cardigans - I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer
Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds
Imogen Heap - Find And Seek

Pop Singles Guiltily Enjoyed:
Amerie - One Thing
Madonna - Hung Up
Jennifer Lopez - Get Right
Sugababes - Push The Button

And a big fuck off to...
Hard-Fi.

EDIT:
I forgot about Ladytron's album Witching Hour and the Willy Mason song Oxygen. And more sutff probably.

Baby It's Cold Outside...

Okay, so BlackPlastic is a bit late with this one but I may as well tell you about the Christmas / Snow themed CD I recently put together for the fantastic CD Mix Club over at the videogame forum Rllmuk (the CD club is like a CD-R secret Santa, only it happens 10 months a year).

Anyway, many individuals seem to hate Christmas music, but BlackPlastic thinks that is a little unjust. Whilst it is by no means religious BlackPlastic does enjoy the spirit of Christmas and thinks the sensory experience (i.e. the sounds and smells) make it what it is. Anyway, here is a selection of tracks that capture the sensation of being inside in the warm whilst it snows outside and in truth this is inspired almost as much by BlackPlastic's recent trip to Reykjavik as Christmas itself:

1. Gwen Stefani - Cool (Richard X Mix)
2. The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song
3. Johnny Boy - You are the Generation Who Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve
4. Eels - Christmas is Going to the Dogs
5. Architecture In Helsinki - What's in Store?
6. The Go Team - The Ice Storm
7. Sigur Rós - Glósóli
8. Gemma Hayes - Helen
9. The Concretes - Warm Night
10. Aim feat. Kate Rogers - The Girl Who Fell Through the Ice
11. Jóhann Jóhannsson - Flugeldar II
12. Au Revior Simone - Through the Backyards
13. Ladytron - All the Way
14. Danny Elfman - What's This?
15. Mojave 3 - Bluebird of Happiness (Ulrich Schnauss Remix)
16. Vince Guaraldi - Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal)

The eagle-eyed amongst you may notice that the Danny Elfman track is taken from Tim Burton's film The Nightmare Before Christmas and the closing track is from the pleasant 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' cartoon from 1965. The soundtrack to 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' is available on emusic. It's all composed by jazz genius Vince Guaraldi and is laid back Christmas-y perfection.

A few people were given copies of this CD for Christmas but due to the notorious printer ink crisis of December 2005 I was unable to print the artwork in full colour. Click ion the image above to download it and print it out (Hint: It should be 12cm x 12cm at 300dpi just in case something goes wrong...).

Have a good New Year and feel free to suggest any fantastic Christmas music by adding a comment. You don't have to sign in, it's free and it *just* might change your life. And for the record you can't beat 'Fairy Tale in New York'.

December song of the month...

Yes, yes... Shock horror, it's only the third and BlackPlastic has actually got around to posting a song of the month!

Secret Machines - Still See You

BlackPlastic absolutely loves the Secret Machines. Now Here is Nowhere is such a fantastic album that words do not do it justice... Fantastic thick guitars enveloped in swirling, whooshing noises, a coherent theme runs thoughout the album making it all sound so much more like an album than most. Sadly it has been listened to so many times that for it to have the same effect as the first few listens BlackPlastic has to leave it on the shelf a couple of months.

It was with great satisfaction then that when BlackPlastic finally got around to listening to Secret Machines' debut mini-album it discovered 'Still See You'. Two minutes and forty-nine seconds of pure joy. That is the only way to describe this song. The first half slowly builds through gentle, almost oriental sounding guitars into a rocket of emotions blasts of at one minute thirty. At this point the song seems to literally hit the floor running, sounding like the verb that is motion. Brandon Curtis' vocals are completely breathless and when he sings "You know I still, still see you" it is impossible not to melt in the pure brilliance that is this song, it is entralling. As 'Still See You' fades out it sounds like the band probably just went on playing for eternity, riding their own wave of spaced-like sounds. Press the skip back button and play it just one more time, you know you want to!

Just buy it.

Buy it, it's fantastic!

Buy it at Amazon here. Or anywhere for all I care.

Buy it.