Album Review: Tarot Sport - Fuck Buttons

Fuck Buttons' début left BlackPlastic cold. For all the experimentation it lacked focus and context compared to the abstract Beach Boys harmonies of Animal Collective. Back less than two years later with follow up, Tarot Sport is sees Andrew Weatherall on production duties (for the first time in sometime).

BlackPlastic, whilst no Weatherall obsessive, can't help but think his influence is a positive one. The resulting album is more focused, exciting and ultimately memorable.

There is no escaping the fact that Tarot Sport is much more of a dance album than its predecessor. Whilst the tracks never feel like they have been made for dancing they certainly feel more rhythmic and more electronic. One moment it will feel old school, with a progressive house vibe (opener 'Surf Solar') and next hard, epic and distorted in a way reminiscent of Nathan Fake's Hard Islands release from earlier this year.

There is still plenty of experimentation but it is the stripped back minimal (whisper it) trance of 'Olympians' that really flicks BlackPlastic's switch. Mixing epic synths, acid and distortion it feels as futuristic, global and hopeful as its title suggest.

Tarot Sport feels like running away: not to another country but rather another time. It also exceeds both the ambition and accomplishments of first album Street Horrrsing.

BP x

Tarot Sport is out now, available on CD and LP from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].

Album Review: Fabric 49 - various mixed by Magda

Fabric 49 technically hits the streets a month late because, goddamit, this is the most Halloween Fabric have ever got. Compiled and mixed by Magda (of Richie Hawtin's legendary Minus label) it's a spooky set of minimal, carved up with weird samples disorientating sounds.

If you haven't heard Magda DJ before then the sheer darkness of this album is reminiscent of The Glimmers' (or Glimmer Twins as they were then known) two Serie Noire compilations released on Eskimo five or six years back. The difference is that Fabric 49 contains much more upfront minimal techno compared to the John Carpenter soundtracks and early no-wave of the Glimmers' discs - this is a set clearly aimed at making you move.

And it still pretty much works - straddling a divide between atmosphere and dancing. Most of the tracks themselves are fairly nondescript but that is kind of the point. In contextualizing them, cutting several records together and never playing just one song at a time Magda has created something which feels like much more than the some of its parts... This is a mix that packs serious atmosphere.

It's true that things occasionally misfire and there are portions of the mix that are just too dry but when it is good, particularly on the closing third, Fabric 49 delivers something pretty special.

BP x

Fabric 49 is out now, available on Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].

Album Review:Live @ The Roundhouse London 2008 - X-Ray Spex

You'd think that now more than ever, on the cusp of a right-wing return to power and increasing dissatisfaction, with high unemployment an growing poverty, punk would be an inspiring force.

Sadly this live set from X-Ray Spex only succeeds to underline why punk had to die. Featuring their set from London's the Roundhouse last year (which itself covered every song bar-one from their only album) on CD and DVD it's a retrospective that may well appeal to the original fans but is unlikely to win over anyone who wasn't there the first time.

The problem with punk music was, for all it's noise and bravado, it was little more than rock 'n' roll played badly. And this live album only serves to reinforce that - its mixture of shouted vocals and brass at first feel fresh yet several tracks in it becomes apparent that this is all X-Ray Spex had or have.

Johnny Rotten recently appeared in the Observer's Music Monthly magazine and he mentioned how much he respects X-Ray Spex. BlackPlastic can't help but feel there are some considerably more worthwhile musical heroes people should be celebrating, but then again maybe we just aren't taking enough mescaline.

BP x

Out now on Year Zero, available on CD+DVD from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].

Album Review: Chimeric - Radian

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

An appropriate proverb when faced with the prospect of reviewing Radian's album Chimeric. From the opening distorted clicks and buzzes of 'Git Cut Noise' it is a thoroughly opaque listen. Disorientating and disturbed it is difficult to describe and, in all honesty, even more difficult to like.

Chimeric is, in essence, an avante-guarde slice of left-field experimentation. BlackPlastic would struggle to call much of it music and, if we are struggling, that doesn't bode well or many other people.

Radian have created an interesting piece of art here but we can't help but feel a little too much like they are attempting to school us. There is just no relief and no contrast and the result makes the album's relatively short 40-minute length feel a lot longer.

BP x

Chimeric is released on Thrill Jockey on 16 November, available for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP.

Album Review: Turntable Technology - Pablo

You don't know it but, if you are a 18 to 35 year old male at least, there is a good chance you are already familiar with Pablo's work. Having been responsible for the incidental music in Grand Theft Auto IV BlackPlastic had certainly heard an hour or so of his work before ever even hitting play on Turntable Technology.

The link is not obvious though. Only on the dramatic instrumental sounds of 'Rooftop Chase' does Pablo's soundtrack ability really come to the fore, although we have to concede it is a better effort than anything in Grand Theft Auto's incidentals.

Turntable Technology is a dizzying album. Two discs - the second of which is completely instrumental (featuring some tracks from the first, along with some original pieces) - and a massive 27 tracks. Frankly there is simply far too much content here to get to grips with. Recalling the turntablism and instrumental hip-hop of early Shadow, producing a record of such length is an interesting (if misguided) approach for a genre that normally focuses on playing as much as possible at once rather than dragging things out.

Inevitably the result is ultimately flawed, but it is perhaps brilliantly so. There is simply too much filler. The opening title track introduces the album's main theme - turntablism itself - through a stale monologue describing the features of a record player. Like we have never heard that trick before. It's old and tired before it has even begun and to make matters worse it's a trick the album repeats more than once. So far so yawn.

Yet elsewhere things aren't just good, they are great. 'The Story of Sampling' mixes together more raps than you would think you could recognise into one flow that genuinely works. But Turntable Technology is at its best when it abandons it's hip-hop roots as on 'Music Maestro' and the truly beautiful closing track to disc one, 'High Jazz'. Not since Shadow's first album and the Avalanche's epic Since I Left You has BlackPlastic been quite so spellbound by sample-based music.

The instrumentals on disc two are somewhat pointless when the originals are so close and they give the album a thrown together feel, which risks undermining the work that has gone in to this release. There are stand out moments from the unique tracks not featured on disc one however - the closing couplet of 'Journey's End' and 'Reincarnation' being prime examples.

Turntable Technology suffers from failing to be as clever as it thinks it is - less would certainly have been more - but the highlights are enjoyable enough to ensure the error is accepted, if not overlooked. It needs re-sequencing and editing but there is without doubt at least one album's worth of quality tunes here.

BP x

Turntable Technology is released on Soma on 9 November, available for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].