Stream: After You - Pulp

This new track from Pulp is genius. It's great to hear something new from the band even if it does surface as a fair well at the end of their extended reunion tour.

The track was originally a demo back in 2000 but was recently re-recorded with James Murphy on production duties and the collaboration works fantastically. Their is a stripped-back minimalism to Murphy's style that gives Pulp a suitable tautness, whilst also calling to mind a few of Murphy's earlier productions. The call-outs to Hackney and supermarkets are also pure Pulp, and I miss them.

Check it out on Soundcloud below:

Album Review: Centralia - Mountains

I've followed Mountains since their first release through Thrill Jockey - Choral, their third album overall - and whilst their sound doesn't ever change massively every album feels like a treat to listen to.

Mountains are Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg and they specialise in making slow-cooked ambient soundscapes. I've probably said this before: ambient music makes me hate my ears a little bit. But when it is done well it can be truly special, and Mountains can generally be relied upon to get it right.

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Centralia - Mountains

To make this album Holtkamp and Anderegg focused on separating their acoustic and electronic instruments out, with each recorded separately. What this means is that their is no electronically manipulated sound based on acoustic sources. The result adds a little more of a human element to the Mountains sound, as the acoustic elements - the guitars, cello, organs and piano - all feel a little more exposed.

In places this combination is Mountains at their best. The desert-mirage soundscape of the closing minutes of 'Sand' - the cello rhythmically circling back into the music. The dreamy piano keys hidden behind the layers of electronic hum and gentle guitar on 'Indentical Ship'. The descent into nature's ambient noise on 'Tilt' and the contrasting electronic equivalent on 'Propeller'.

The pure electronic moments don't always work, a little clinical and with less perceptible change, but the album is tied together like a constantly changing iceberg, flipping as sounds are created and other melt away. Mountains remain a transcendent act within the ambient genre.

Centralia is released through Thrill Jockey on 21 January, available for pre-order on CD or LP from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links]. Listen to and download 'Living Lens' via Soundcloud below:

Single Review: Hemingway - Piek feat. Samuel Fitch & Mianyo

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Piek

'Hemingway' is the result of a collaboration between Piek, 

Mianyo and vocalist Samuel Fitch. And it's just the sort of polished disco-house record to kick start your January.

Piek comes from Northern Spain and has released through Azari, Cray1, LabWorks, Inmotion and his own label Paulatine, which he runs with Uner and Baum. Hemingway comes out through Fiakun initially on vinyl, with the digital release following later in the month.

The single features two versions. The original boasts a thick, satisfyingly infectious bass line that's hard to ignore, layers of loose percussion and Fitch's slinky vocals. The combination of the hard, electronic square-wave bass and live, clattering drums create a deep, organic but still modern sounding record.

M.V.I.P. - that'll be Mathias Vogt and Ian Pooley - deliver the remix, and it's a more stripped back affair. There are nods to classic house in some of the big atmospheric sounds, whilst the track is given a tight techie edge. It still has a few of the disco flourishes but it's a much deeper cut and a strong complement to the a-side.

Hemingway is out today through Fiakun on 12" and 21 January as a digital release. Preview the release on Soundcloud below:

2012 Album of the Year, Part Three: 5 to 1

Today I wrap up the final post on my Albums of the Year, confirming the five best long-players of the year.

As with yesterday's post, the headings link to album reviews where they exist, and there is a Spotify player and an affiliate link to the MP3 on Amazon.co.uk where possible.

Once again, don't forget there is a Spotify playlist including songs from almost every album on the top ten and the long-list, together with songs from some of the best single and EP releases this year. You can check out the playlist here.

5. Kill For Love - Chromatics

2012 felt like it would belong to Chromatics entirely at one point, up until Frank Ocean came along, but it goes without saying that it was the band's biggest year to date.

Kill For Love's gothic tones, all black lace and poison, may be the first thing listeners noticed upon the opening bars of Neil Young cover 'Into The Black'. It is the dalliance with futurism that made this album so essential however - a haunted reflection of a future we can only hope to avoid, and the perfect soundtrack to late night driving.

Get it on Amazon.

4. Channel ORANGE - Frank Ocean

I was never as taken with Frank Ocean's Nostalgia, Ultra as everyone else and as a result it was some time before I gave Channel ORANGE the room it takes to worm its way into your head. Unusually for a popular R&B star the appeal of Ocean's music isn't instantly all that obvious - the joints are well seasoned but the production work isn't as quick to deliver as that of either the Neptunes or Timbaland in their heyday.

The real reason Channel ORANGE is a classic album is because of the depth of Frank's mind it portrays. Whether it is the spellbound, unrequited and insistent 'Thinkin Bout You' or the paranoid and jealous slow-epic 'Pyramids', it was the words Ocean used that really made this album appeal. So rare is it to hear such attention to detail and sophistication on a record so commercially successful.

Get it on Amazon.

3. Lonerism - Tame Impala

On which Kevin Parker takes every element of his début Tame Impala release Innerspeaker and builds on them in every way. Lonerism was a psychedelic trip through its creator's mind with a soundtrack obviously influenced by the past but created in a way that is only possible right now.

No other album had as much incredibly dense and startlingly beautiful production work this year. At it's best, as on 'Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could', Lonerism sounds like we're all just dreams inside Parker's head.

Get it on Amazon.

2. Fin - John Talabot

This year the top two positions on my list were more heavily contested than during any other year. John Talabot created an electronic album that seemed to re-imagined what the format could do. Much more for the hardcore than anything from the likes of Cut Copy or Hot Chip and yet it retained a similar sense of immediacy. 

Crucially Talabot made an album that appears to be universally loved, doing something for almost everyone. Fin feels like a sign-post for the future - the raw, bluesy vocal refrain from 'When The Past Was Present' represents 2012's conflicted nature perfectly - encouragingly futuristic and yet overwhelmed with uncertainty.

Get it on Amazon.

1.  The Haunted Man - Bat For Lashes

Before The Haunted Man Natasha Khan already made fascinating pop music. By focusing on a specific theme - moving on from ghosts of the past - Bat For Lashes achieved so much more with much less.

The Haunted Man may not exactly be a straight-forward pop album, but everything from the restrained artwork to the immaculately handled production screamed that this was an album Khan had poured everything in to, determined to create a living, breathing record (in the original sense) of herself.

And it works, consistently and excellently, across the entire 52-minute duration. Every track creates a surprising moment, and yet the whole is both accessible and consistently themed - an album soundtracking the end of Khan's emotional winter, complete with snowy soundscapes.

The shadow of Kate Bush is impossible to ignore but Khan uses that inspiration to create an album of incredibly well-defined songs that are all unmistakably her own, and much more interesting than those of her contemporaries.

As with any great album there are too many brilliant tracks to call-out, but it would be difficult to avoid mentioning the naked-yet-elegantly-wasted 'Laura', a poignant tribute to the trappings of fame. The Haunted Man's greatest moment however is the title track, complete with its all-male choir, aerial synth line and rumbling bass. This may be a pop album, but it's unlike any other you will have heard all year.

Get it on Amazon.

And that's it. Thanks for staying with the site this year and please feel free to comment, call out what I've missed or what your favourites are. Normal service will be resumed next week!

2012 Album of the Year, Part Two: 10 to 6

Following on from yesterday's 2012 Album of the Year long-list I'm happy to unveil the first half of the top ten. The headings link to album reviews where they exist, and there is a Spotify player and an affiliate link to the MP3 on Amazon.co.uk where possible.

Don't forget there is a Spotify playlist including songs from almost every album on the top ten and the long-list, together with songs from some of the best single and EP releases this year. You can check out the playlist here.

10. The Dread Of An Unknown Evil - KRTS

The most recent release on my list of the year (long or otherwise) and one of most deserving. A short, entrancing album that aims to do so much more than many contemporary releases this year. Subtle and at times unnervingly entrancing.

Get it on Amazon.

9. In Our Heads - Hot Chip

This year Hot Chip finally came out from the shadow of The Warning with an album of grown up songs of relationships and growing up. In Our Heads is the sound of a band free of constraints, maturing with their fans. Where previous albums were torn between the requirement to be commercial and a desire to go deep this (almost) entirely abandoned the single format in favour of something much more adult. The cheeky token single, 'Night And Day', remains the only exception and is the only moment In Our Heads comes up lacking. 'Flutes', on the other hand, is one of the best things the band have ever released.

Get it on Amazon.

8. Shields - Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Bear managed to achieve so much more than any contemporary indie band this year by embracing a free form love of experimentation. Shields sounds like a jazz album recorded on banjos, snares and blues guitar by a band of ramshackle bearded men.

And that's pretty much exactly what it is. Free form song structures and out of step timing created an album more difficult to get to grips with than Veckatimest but at times all the more rewarding, particularly on the epic closer 'Sun In Your Eyes'.

Get it on Amazon.

7. World, You Need A Change Of Heart - Kindness

BlackPlastic is a small, personal blog and as such hopefully it is understandable that four of the top ten albums for 2013 ended up being releases that I didn't formally review. What is surprising, however, is that Kindess' debut was one of those.

World, You Need A Change Of Heart is an album that does everything I personally could ask an album to do. Full of warm, drowsy and hungover songs it sounds like a loved up festival refugee too spun-out to remember real life. 'House' is the kind of record that could make things sound better at any time, anywhere - deep, dizzy disco bass carving a party out of maudlin vocals and a tiny glimmer of hope. One day you and I will be okay.

Get it on Amazon.

6. Attack On Memory - Cloud Nothings

It's relatively rare that an album as heavy as Attack On Memory makes it onto the pages of BlackPlastic.co.uk but in this case it was just too good to ignore. Steve Albini's production mostly just gets out of the way (as always), leaving Cloud Nothings to make the album of their career.

At 34-minutes long Attack On Memory may be barely long enough to qualify as an album but it was all the better for it's economy - a tight and focused burst of aggression. The nine-minute epic 'Wasted Days' is both starry-eyed and terrifyingly taught, and in the conclusion of the "I thought I would be more than this" refrain Cloud Nothings delivered 2012's best rock song.

Get it on Amazon.

And that's the first half of my album of the year list - come back tomorrow for the final part!