News: Check out BlackPlastic on Sound Club

About 18-months ago I made a commitment to myself to spend more time listening to full albums — both new, and old. The nature of BlackPlastic.co.uk is that I naturally spend a lot of time listening to singles. If I’m not careful, this can lead to me missing out on the widescreen scope of a great album, and so I made a pact to myself — every week I would try to commit to listening to an album, at least a few times, to get under (or back under) the skin of it. I can’t say I’m always successful — work and family can sometimes take up my time (and realistically, energy and headspace), and I suddenly realise I have gone a week or two without doing it. Still, I listen to more albums than I did a few years ago, and in that sense it has been a successful personal commitment.

A few months ago, I was making a regular trawl of LinkedIn when something caught my eye — someone I used to work with had launched a website called Sound Club, positioned as like book clubs, but for albums. Having browsed the site for a bit, I decided I would start my own club, focused on music released between 2000 and 2010, at the intersection of dance and rock culture. I named it Disco Pogo For Punks In Pumps, honouring the late and great Jockey Slut (though that crew recently went on to launch a follow-on zine, simply called Disco Pogo — it’s great).

Since then, on a semi regular basis, I’ve stuck an album on for the listening pleasure of a small group of followers, and generally written a bit about why I think it is interesting and worth a listen. Sometimes there is discussion, sometimes there isn’t, but I always enjoy re-listening to an album, and writing about it.

This week, my club has been featured by Sound Club, and so I want to share it. I’m also planning to start sharing the posts I make there over here, on BlackPlastic. That serves two purposes — a bit of healthy cross-promotion, but also ensuring the writing both lives on, and helps to highlight albums that deserve to be highlighted once again. The current album on the club is The Juan Maclean’s Less Than Human, and I will share the write-up shortly. In the meantime, go and check-out the club here — sign-up to the site, join the club, and let me know what you think of whatever album is playing at the point when you dove in!

Listen: On My Mind by Carolina Chase

Somewhat unbelievably, On My Mind, is the product of an artist who is just 15-years-old. Hailing from Los Angeles, Carolina Chase began writing songs at the age of nine, before releasing her first collection of music by the age of 12. This latest release comes ahead of Chase’s debut album, Warwick.

On My Mind is an emotive piece of indie pop that sits at the intersection of emotive piano balladry and epic electronic music. With a vocal that evokes the delivery of Lorde, the song’s gentle piano gives way to sounds altogether more intense.

The electronic portions of On My Mind feel like they are the product of Second Toughest of the Infants-era Underworld. With synth stabs that echo those of Born Slippy (Nuxx), things gradually descend into the glitchy, wobbly bass tones put to effect on that album’s Pearl’s Girl. Whether a fifteen-year-old from LA is deliberately channeling the British alt-dance of Underworld is a mystery but, regardless, Carolina pulls together the constituent parts of her song into something remarkably cohesive and effective.

Chase notes that the song is about learning to let go of focusing on what others think, and instead embrace your own sense of self, as she describes:

'I wrote (the song) after I learned the harsh truth that trying to win over people who wanted me to lose would never help me succeed. This song details the journey of letting go of those people, and becoming my own person.’

Check out On My Mind below, and look out for the album, Warwick, in September.

In addition to listening in the post, you can find almost all the music BlackPlastic covers on the music player of your choice. Add the dedicated playlist below:

Apple Music

Spotify

Listen: It’s Enough by Atmos Bloom

Opening with low slung bass and bright guitars, the latest song from duo Atmos Bloom sits somewhere between post punk and shoegaze.

Atmos Bloom is the product of Tilda Gratton and Curtis Paterson. The pair met when Gratton auditioned to play bass in Paterson’s band at university in Manchester. What started as a musical journey, channeling the likes of Sonic Youth and Pavement, evolved into something bigger. The pair are now life partners, based in London.

It’s Enough feels perfect for our current UK heat wave — bright guitar melodies weaving amidst Tilda’s beautiful, hushed vocals. The result is something like the Sundays with New Order’s Hooky on bass.

Having created their debut album, Flora, during the pandemic, the duo are now set to release a new album, Everythingness, via Spirit Goth on 24 July. Here on It’s Enough, Atmos Bloom reflect on the pressure to meet the various expectations others place on us, and the realisation that you don’t need to meet the demands of others to be enough.

In addition to listening in the post, you can find almost all the music BlackPlastic covers on the music player of your choice. Add the dedicated playlist below:

Apple Music

Spotify

Listen: Ether by Banyan

Having appeared on BlackPlastic with their 2023 song, More to Say, Banyan are back with a new slice of blissed-out electronic music in the form of new single Ether.

Whilst both Ether and More to Say channel the same rounded, soft synth sound, this new release has a driven feel to the percussion. The result is a song perfectly suited to the moment where the sun touches the Mediterranean horizon. It is reflective, dramatic, and beautiful.

Lyrically, Ether deals with the experience of having found someone who you expected to be your person, only to have it fall apart. The song is racked with disappointment, with a chorus focused on the experience of walking on sand in the rain. It isn’t difficult to make the metaphorical leap to sandcastles eroded, like the dreams of a future with someone you had a deep connection with.

Talking to Banyan, the duo describe their approach to creating the record in a way that supports and compliments the lyrics, something that feels like it reflects their experience in providing remixes for other artists:

‘We put a lot of love into the nuances and details on this record and took a very delicate and intentional approach while producing the sonic world around the lyrics. We wanted to impart a tinge of hope into the production while being careful to also retain the emotional depth of the lyrics.’

The result is an emotionally charged record, wistful and hurt, yet with an eye to the future, and the potential it holds.

In addition to listening in the post, you can find almost all the music BlackPlastic covers on the music player of your choice. Add the dedicated playlist below:

Apple Music

Spotify

Listen: Sugar in my Drink by Tricky FM

Opening with a dialling tone, one-sided snapshots of a phone call and warm, widescreen synths, Trick FM’s new single evokes a kind of late ‘90s / early ‘00s electronica. Fractured drum beats and ambient found sounds create an assembled sound that evokes urban Britain.

What is surprising is that Tricky FM is the musical pseudonym of Hana Freed, based in San Francisco. Whilst Sugar in my Drink basks in the kind of open skies and warmth I associate with the Bay Area, I haven’t heard anything quite like this from a US artist before. Cymbal crashes flip from one channel to the other, centring the listener amidst all the colours Freed is painting with. The result is warm and hopeful, as reflected in vocals that depict someone cautiously embracing a love and newfound self-respect. Everything feels good, and yet the only question is whether that, in and of itself, is a problem.

When I first heard Sugar in my Drink, it reminded me of Underworld’s Scribble. Both because of how they similarly combine drum & bass with thick, uplifting synths, and also because both songs make the use of the found phone call recording aesthetic. The snatched words of Scribble always captured my curiosity — a little mystery box within a record. Here, Freed adds backstory and texture to her performance in a way that connects us to her story, and it adds to the emotional stakes of her performance.

Having established herself across a variety of clubs, venues and punk bars in the Bay Area and beyond, Hana established her sound with her debut album, Peace, Love, Unity, Rave, on Cherub Dream Records. That record arrived amidst urgency and anger. The follow-up, Twin Star Fantasy, is born the other side of this reckoning — within a newfound stillness. That is reflected in the quiet contemplation snatched amidst the rolling drums here on Sugar in my Drink. The result is a dynamic yet beautiful listening experience.