News: Seriously Social / Bugged Out 'Dream Party' Competition

BlackPlastic hearts Bugged Out almost as much as we heart dreaming up ridiculous party / 'high concept' night clubs and so it is with great joy that we heard about Seriously Social's dream party competition with Bugged Out.

The idea is simple - you've got £30,000 and Bugged Out DJ Johnny Burgess... the world is your oyster. Every idea is considered by a panel of judges before the best 25 go before a public vote. If your party idea is selected then you get to do it for real!

BlackPlastic has already entered... Expect photos if we win!

To give you some inspiration here is Johnny recounting his favourite ever Bugged Out night (it made BlackPlastic a bit emotional):

My favourite Bugged Out night. Daft Punk, Liverpool, 1998. 
From Bugged Out my most enduring memory is from 1998. It was the fourth birthday and we had tried to get Daft Punk to DJ at it. They had played for us since our first year but we kept getting vague 'maybe's and then a  'no' from their manager Pedro Winter. So we printed the flyers and posters with the existing line up and carried on with the promotion. Then the week of the show Pedro got in touch to ask if we would be interested in Thomas Bangalter coming over to play a live set. Thomas had just had the biggest club hit of the summer as Stardust with Music Sounds Better With You and also that Gym Tonic tune. Of course we were up for it. Then the day before the show Pedro rang again and said that Guy Manuel would like to come along too so perhaps we would be interested in squeezing Daft Punk onto the bill after all. So when people turned up to the club they were greeted with the news. There was no twitter back then and people didn't even check websites that often so we announced it with the words Daft Punk scrawled on the existing posters in marker pen! Thomas played Music Sounds Better With You live from the DJ booth and then him and Guy-Man started their DJ set with Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday. I think I had something in my eye at that moment. As it was a last minute booking I don't think we really paid anything other than their train fares and hotels so we left them a box set each of The Beach Boys Pet Sounds on their hotel beds as a way of saying thanks. Different times indeed...

To enter simply head over to the Seriously Social Facebook page, become a fan and submit your entry. Closing date is Monday but it only takes a minute.

BP x

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.