One of our favourite tracks from KNIIFE PRRTY's eponymous debut album when we reviewed it earlier this year was definitely 'Pins Down'. The stop-start rhythm and haunting vocals without doubt formed one of the highlights of the album.
The band have now made a video for the song. It is directed by Steve Pahl and, like the music itself, it is a slightly spooky, ghosted mix of technology gone wrong but in a good way. Check it out.
Head over to the band's website for more of the lowdown on KNIIFE PRRTY.
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.
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.
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:
Units - High Pressure Days
Gary Numan - Films
Payback Interlude
The Splash Band - Halloween II
November Group - Shake It Off
ANNA - Systems Breaking Down (Dub)
Dark Star Interlude
Hypnosis - Oxygene
A. Rodionov - Modern Pentathlon (Suite 5)
Art Of Noise - Moments In Love
Doctors Cat - Feel The Drive (Instrumental)
Tasmanian Fahrenheit Interlude
Mark Lindsay - Shogun Assassin
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.
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.
