Album Review: Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair

Without doubt the most anticipated release from the DFA stable this side of Sound Of Silver, Hercules and Love Affair (the album) already has one classic single in the form of 'Blind'. A disco atonement for your sins, a unifying stomp of a record, 'Blind' seems destined to cross-over. Does this long-player give it the ammunition it needs?

First off let's get the awkwardness out the way: vocals on many tracks here are provided by Anthony of Anthony and the Johnson's. Every other blogger and journalist feels the need to mention this so BlackPlastic best not break tradition. BlackPlastic has its own opinion on Anthony and the Johnsons and it mostly centres around the fact that their music is pretentious and a chore to listen to, anyone who thinks otherwise must be determined to impress someone. It is the musical equivalent of self-flagulation: it might get you closer to God but it's still painful.

A digression.

Hercules and Love Affair represents a much more suitable vehicle for Anthony and this fact is obviouse from the off: 'Hercules' Theme' is a gorgeous spoon of sugar molasses, a throbbing disco funk bassline carries Anthony's vocals along but the strings and bass provide all the star-quality on this summer anthem in waiting. Elsewhere 'You Belong' is classic Chicago house and Anthony's vocals feel right at home. You should alreasy know 'Blind', but in case you don't it is a mournful disco cut for the 21st century, an anthem for the dancefloor and for your heart, all soulful strings and tearful vocals.

The songs without Anthony are equally strong. 'Athene' is all sparkles and sounds organic whilst 'Iris' sounds like delicate letter to yourself.

What Hercules demonstrates best is a deft touch. The production is immaculate and, to his credit, DFA's lesser-known label co-founder Tim Goldsworthy's touch is all over it, the considered and deliberate touch here very reminiscent of his other work. Hercules and Love Affair seem destined for big things - BlackPlastic cannot wait to see the mainstream reaction to a record so fresh and different, yet so approachable and enjoyable.

BP x

EP Review: Clocks - Simian Mobile Disco

Not so long since their debut long-player proved them to be ones to watch for the future and with member James Ford benefiting from continued success following production work for The Klaxons and Artic Monkeys, SMD treat fans to four new tracks on this new EP.

All are instrumentals and as such demonstrate the duo stripped of some of the bells and whistles that garnered Attack Decay Sustain Release and what it loses in pop sensibilities it gains in velocity and efficiency, with all four cuts geared towards dancefloors and reminiscent of the technical prowess displayed in early Chemical Brothers tracks.

'Clocks' is a relatively tame, melodic effort with bouncy drums whilst 'Simple' persues a somewhat more direct line, with waves of acid and nasty electronic stabs turning it into the equivalent of Attack Decay Sustain Releases' awesome 'Sleep Deprivation' only this time it
follows a bad trip.

'3 Pin Din' squeaks and squelches its way through three minutes before climaxing in a puddle of acid. Final track 'State of Things' is a little sapling, determined to grow and grow into a big Goliath made of live sounding drums but never quite gets there.

It will be interesting to see if this more dancefloor focused effort is a direction that Simian Mobile Disco choose to follow in the future. Whilst there are undoubtably four cuts here to please the
heads BlackPlastic finds itself growing a little tired of the reverb that drenches all four and longs for something with the universal appeal of 'Hustler' or 'It's The Beat'.

BP x

Album Review: Guns Babes Lemonade - Muscles

Call this a belated Valentine's card from BlackPlastic to you: Guns Babes Lemonade is the debut album from Modular's latest (yes, we know there are 'other labels'), Muscles, and it gets BlackPlastic hot under the collar.

Muscles sounds like your best friend getting loved up and recounting all of the best nights outs you've ever had: Guns Babes Lemonade may not be clever, but golly BlackPlastic loves its sweaty little gurning face.

'Sweaty' opens the album like a night out at your shit but favourite local:

"I'm getting tired and I'm sweaty,
But I still want to touch it if you let me.
Because we hugged a few times and it was special...
And we'll be working all night because it's pumping"

The opening line is unlikely to set the world on fire on poetic merit alone but the excitable nature of the vocals perfectly encapsulated the excitement when a random night turns out perfect.

Nothing here is exactly 'new', it simply sounds like every guilty dance-pop pleasure of the last five years in one. It's sickly sweet and one has to be careful not to consume too much at once, but when Muscles declares that "Ice Cream is gonna save the day. Again" on 'Ice Cream' we can't help but want to believe.

Give us remixes, b-sides and more, more, more please!

As the album closer states:
"Hey Muscles, I love you, I wanna have your babies!"

BP x

Album Review: Reality Check - The Teenagers

Record labels still aren't doing their jobs properly as the debut album from The Teenagers seems less to have been released, more just turned up, unannounced, on your back porch. However, take comfort in the fact that The Teenagers themselves are very much excelling in their job - that is creating the music to soundtrack Bret Easton Ellis' own debut effort, Less Than Zero.

Reality Check is what you may expect - ice cold, self-referential lyrics abound amongst layers of fuzz. This sounds like a stream of conscious from a selfish 19 year old. And yet it is still good.

"Homecoming" has been re-tooled and re-edited and sounds fresher as a result. Were it not for the genuinely revealing bridge, new single "Love No" would sound like the most dishearteningly portrait of relationship dysfunction. It's still dysfunctional, but the honesty gives the dysfunction a context and a reason.

"Starlett Johanson" is still the name-dropping victory of style over substance it aims to be. "Feeling Better" manages optimism and features a picked out guitar line that it sounds like they stole from a mid-era New Order record no-one was using.

Reality Check succeeds in achieving it's goals and as a result it not only deserves respect and success, it also deserves to be regarded as one of 2008's coolest records. The question is more: where can we go now? Can this thin sheen of fame-riddled post-punk survive another album or is this more a case of 'Disappear Here'?

BP x

Album Review: Light Sound Dance - The Bang Gang Deejays

BlackPlastic heart Modular and has meant to give some love to Light Sound Dance, mixed by their resident party crew Bang Gang, for pure time. Music may change but good taste remains constant.

We'll be brief: Light Sound Dance (see what they did there? No? Nevermind...) contains almost every track that has filled a dancefloor in the past 18 months.

The beauty is in having them all in one place and as such you can find SebAstian's destruction of The Rapture's 'Get Myself Into It' doing the bad thing all over Punks Jump Up's 'Beep Beep', the Nite Version of Soulwax's 'KracK', Mehdi's ubiquitous 'Signatune' and two remixed Klaxons tracks.

But what this mix is two things:

1. The less obvious choices. Plan B's 'More Than Enough' fits in very nicely, thank you, and it is fantastic to hear Modular label mates The Avalanches again in any form. Hear we get them twice, once with their bells, whistles and kitchen sink remix of Wolfmother's 'Woman' and once on the forever gorgeous and pulse quickening 'Live At The Dominoes'.

2. The somewhat rustic, cut and paste, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough approach. This mix is one of those that genuinely sounds like a ball was had whilst it was made. Light Sound Dance sounds like a good friend playing all your favourite records at once. It's not as defining an Album as As Heard On Radio Soulwax Part 2 but, with 70 songs across two CDs, it just might be the closest anyone has come to that feeling since.

See you on the dancefloor.

BP x