Album Review: BUGGEDOut! Presents Suck My Deck - Suck My Deck

In a revamped re-launch Bugged Out reprise their rather ace Suck My Deck series with a set from everybody's new favourite electro rave duo, Simian Mobile Disco.

This latest Suck My Deck consists of a considerably more varied take on things than both Ivan Smagghe's or Damian Lazarus' and is more approachable as a result. Things kick off with Joakim's 'Drumtrax', taken from his excellent Monsters & Silly Songs long-player, it's a slow, somewhat restrained start to an album that is anything but elsewhere.

Liasons Dangereuses and Fast Eddie are thrown into the mix to provide prove a bit of retro savvy, contributing spikey post-punk and hip-house respectively, but for the most part this is recent stuff. Simian Mobile Disco's 'It's The Beat' gets things really going - you quite possibly know it but if you don't the album's almost worth buying for this alone, building from a hip-techno start into something much more melodic when the synths kick in - it's cold, melancholic and awesome. It sounds like the surface of another planet and it just might make the hairs on your neck stand up.

The somewhat minimal yet arse-shakingly funky 'The Madness of Moths' by Vincent Markowski builds into Holden's unapologetic 'Idiot', who proves yet again that he'll be damned if he's going to be contrained by anything as conservative as a genre. If you've not heard 'Idiot' it sounds like a Atari 2600 knocking you out cold with a lump of acid before running off with your car, girlfriend and career. It's ALIVE.

In a move that makes it sound like they were born to be together, SMD gentle massage 'Idiot' into Sebastian's 'Walkman', here pitched up considerably to turn it into something even more ferocious. You can tell you've arrived when you get an article in The Guardian's Guide - 2007 is going to be Ed Banger's year so you better get used this this in your face brand of French distorted house. Not that that should represent a problem - it's fucking awesome after all.

More French craziness comes in the form of Riton's mix of Para One's Midnight Swim. With the help of Switch's midas touch Ms. Thing's Love Guide successfully mixes ragga and dance hall with cranium crushing techno. Simian then go on to utterly destroy the Klaxon's Magick, reducing it to its core elements and reverse engineering nu-rave into a series of vocal cuts and stabbing synths. It's big, very loud, very clever and guaranteed to please almost any dancefloor in the country right now.

Moving into Suck My Deck's closing section, Alter Ego make Partial Arts' 'Trauermusik' somewhat less minimal with their fairly typical yet totally enjoyable squeaky acid. Kerowack's 'Naf Monk' sounds like it was literally created to kill anyone that listened to it and from this comes last-track but one, LFO's 'Freak'. Again, you probably know it, if you don't it's a cut-up mess of acid chaos that those around you will try and tell you isn't even music. Ignore them and play this loudly. Things are brought to a close proper with the eerie, Lynchian 'Love Without Sound' by The White Noise.

They also make it sound too easy, but in the form of Suck My Deck Simian Mobile Disco have created what BlackPlastic would argue is currently 2007's best mix album. It cares little for genre and absolutely nothing at all for the state of your ears but it is utterly glorious all the same. Here's hoping there's a shorter wait for the next Suck My Deck album, and that SMD's forthcoming artist album lives up to the building hype.

Single Review: Justice - D.A.N.C.E

Everyone loves Justice right? Right... So it's with great joy that BlackPlastic tucks into their forthcoming EP, D.A.N.C.E.

'D.A.N.C.E' is fairly typical Justice with a huge dollop of summer on the side. Chirpy vocals encourage you to "Do the dance" whilst a thick bass line keeps things moving along and some strings try and sound like 'Strings of Life'. It's good, and you know that the Justice long-player will be great. Everyone in the world seems to be loving D.A.N.C.E in fact - just take a look at some of the blogs.

However, just when you think things couldn't get anymore Daft Punk B.E.A.T turns up on the flip side and, holy crap, does this sound like the bastard love child of Daft Punk and the Go! Team?! Essentially B.E.A.T is a re-tooled version of D.A.N.C.E, with absolutely massive Daft Punk bass lines, ridiculous filtered disco bits, massive join-in, "what fucking 80s song did they come from?!" Go! Team style vox and a huge glass of sunshine.

BlackPlastic now thinks Justice and MSTRKRFT are having some sort of secret Daft Punk-off in an attempt to see who can turn into a pair of robots before selling out fastest... This isn't clever, it won't change your life. It will however give you the fucking biggest smile you've had since last summer, it will destroy the Terrace at Space if such a thing even still exists and it just might make you wonder why you need an 80gb MP3 player when this is the only song you ever need to hear again.

Check it out over at The Yellow Stereo.

Guilty Pleasure: Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend

What can be said about this other than it's an absolutely ridiculous, pop-punk re-imagining of Toni Basil's "Mickey"? Avril has obviously never represented BlackPlastic's usual choice of sound and should never, ever be enjoyed without your ironic shoes on, but damn, this is catchy.

So yeah, Avril could be my girlfriend, and she's all pissey about my current girlfriend so she's decided to construct a meaningful melody about it. And there's a rap bit which is frankly the best thing Avril's ever done - the sound of an artist saying "I don't give a fuck if you don't respect me anymore, now where are the dollars?". And if that's not punk, BlackPlastic don't know what is.

BlackPlastic even feels an empathic connection with this record. Truly.

She's like, so, whatever...