Single Review: White Elephant - Wallenberg

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<a href="http://wallenberg.bandcamp.com/track/white-elephant">White Elephant by Wallenberg</a>

Apparently this song dropped on Bandcamp back in March this year but it has only just hit BlackPlastic's inbox.

BlackPlastic doesn't really know anything about who or what Wallenberg is / are but this tune feels like pure zen. According to the bandcamp site it is based on the expression of a 'white elephant' - that is an expensive object far greater in 'value' than usefulness... Only the white elephant in this song is actually rather grey and therefore has no spiritual or materialistic value. Yet it is able to carry a dude and a banjo, so maybe it is useful after all?

Apparently this has something to do with the effort involved in writing music.

All this is frankly superfluous because what is important is that the song itself manages to capture a fantastic otherworldliness, intelligent, Eastern and spiritual.  It's certainly worth a quick listen in the player above. If you like it support the artist and download it from Bandcamp.

BP x

Album Review: Moondagger - Deastro

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Deastro's slept-on début rocked BlackPlastic's world gently last year when it was released exclusively on eMusic - it's emotive electronic distortion hit a chord and made us go a bit wobbly.

An if Keeper's was a pleasant surprise then Moondagger is a bone fide love bomb. Made of the kind of tunes that BlackPlastic would happily lose their head in for days this is an album that separates the wheat from the chaff of Deastro's previous work to deliver something that really qualifies him as a unquestionably individual.

Moondagger is full of the soppy electronic punk records and the result is a perfect soundtrack to runaway to. Imagine the Pixies meets New Order on the way back from the keyboard store. Exactly.

If Moondagger falls just short of classic status it is only due to a slightly inconsistent overall flow and slight lack of consistency but it is worth noting that this still represents a significant step change from the last album. With tunes like the anarchic and bonkers 'Daniel Johnston Was Stabbed In The Heart With The Moondagger By The King Of Darkness And His Ghost Is Writing This Song As A Warning To All Of Us' Moondagger simply has bags of charm.

At its best - on the irrepressibly enthutiastic 'The Shaded Forests (Gift Givers Version)' or the melancholic 'Kurgan Wave Number One' - this is spine-tinglingly good. 'Kurgen Wave Number One' is so unapologetically bang on the money that you can actually feel the sting from the love turned sour that inspired it just by listening. Music that evocative has to be worth something.

BP x

Moondagger is out now on Ghostly International, order from Amazon.co.uk on CD, MP3 or LP [affiliate links.

MP3: Root of All Evil - Evil Nine mix

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Over the past week BlackPlastic has mostly been loving Evil Nine's free downloadable mix, Root Of All Evil, which supposedly celebrates duo Pat and Tom first meeting 20 years ago to make the cover of a Soviet-era workout record.

 

Regardless of the reason for the mix the tracklisting speaks for itself:

  1. Units - High Pressure Days
  2. Gary Numan - Films
  3. Payback Interlude
  4. The Splash Band - Halloween II
  5. November Group - Shake It Off
  6. ANNA - Systems Breaking Down (Dub)
  7. Dark Star Interlude
  8. Hypnosis - Oxygene
  9. A. Rodionov - Modern Pentathlon (Suite 5)
  10. Art Of Noise - Moments In Love
  11. Doctors Cat - Feel The Drive (Instrumental)
  12. Tasmanian Fahrenheit Interlude
  13. Mark Lindsay - Shogun Assassin
  14. Units - Digital Stimulation

The result is dark, eighties drenched synth sounds for a gloomy Tuesday (or whatever day you read this).

Head over to Marine Parade's artist page for Evil Nine to download the mix - sorry, for some reason they have no permalinks so you may have to browse a bit if you have found this some time down the line future kids.

 

News: John Hughes dies

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In a bizarre twist of fate BlackPlastic just found this video the other day and was about to share it anyway (despite the fact it has been around for a few months) when the news broke that John Hughes has died.  The writer of all of those great 80s teen movies - the Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink - his greatness cannot be disputed.

In tribute check out this beautiful mashup of scenes from a few of the 80s brat pack movies and Phoenix's 'Lisztomania' - it's lush.  The movies included are The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Footloose and Mannequin, of which the first two are Hughes' work.

If all this leaves you wanting to recapture more of Hughe's spirit through music might BlackPlastic recommend M83's lovely, lovely album Saturdays = Youth.

Album Review: FabricLive 47 - various artists mixed by Toddla T

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Broadly speaking Fabric albums can be divided into two categories - thoughtful and carefully considered or balls-out party starters. Toddla T's mix, perhaps unsurprisingly, falls into the latter. FabricLive 47 is a mix of grime, breakbeat, dancehall, dubstep, house and, occasionally, pop.

As BlackPlastic mentioned in our review of the recent Scratch Perverts' Beatdown album there is sometimes a tendency to get caught up in the 'now' without any concern for the actual quality of the tracks. There seem to be plenty of positive reviews forBeatdown, which suggests BlackPlastic's opinions aren't shared by all, but we would simply say: this is a far better postcard overview of dance music in 2009 than that album.

The difference is that the tracks generally feel much more like they will stand the test of time and whilst the mixing is perhaps a little less creative it's ultimately the tunes that count, right? Right...

So Toddla T has triumphed by keeping things fresh her, really chopping up the genres. Hip-hop on Stone's 'Amen' (featuring Roots Manuva) melts straight into a jump-up drum 'n' bass track Toddla creates by slamming several tracks together...

...And FabricLive 47 is at its best when it takes this approach, worrying less about what it should be and more about what it could be. There is the tongue in cheek soulful pop-dub take on Human League's 'Love Action' from Philly and then the tribal Caveman remix of Duffy's 'Stepping Stone' at the start of the album, or the soulful broken beat house of Skream's remix of Toddla T's own 'Rebel' and the blissed out Caspa mix of Deadmau5's 'I Remember' winding things up at the end. Sandwiched in the middle you have the likes of the aggressive hard-house hip-hop mash-up of of tracks (made from Bart B More & Diplo Vs Bashy's 'Millionaire Bingo', Bashy's 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' and Bingo Players' 'Get Up (Diplo Mix)') and Sticky and Lady Chann's cheeky 'Sticky Situation'.

FabricLive 47 may not exactly justify Toddla T's hype, but it certainly goes some way to explain it - it may not be sophisticated or that carefully considered but it sure is fun.

BP x

Toddla T's FabricLive 47 is released on 17 August - available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].

On the topic of Lady Chann - in advance of her performance at FabricLive this Friday for The Heatwaves Funky Bashment takeover of room three we also have two tracks from Lady Chann available for download.

First up is Lady Chann & Sticky's 'Sticky Situation' as a free MP3 download - Download 'Sticky Situation' [right click, save as].

Also, made exclusively for this event, we have a medley from Lady Chann & Busy Signal - Download 'Medley' [right click, save as].