Baby It's Cold Outside...

Okay, so BlackPlastic is a bit late with this one but I may as well tell you about the Christmas / Snow themed CD I recently put together for the fantastic CD Mix Club over at the videogame forum Rllmuk (the CD club is like a CD-R secret Santa, only it happens 10 months a year).

Anyway, many individuals seem to hate Christmas music, but BlackPlastic thinks that is a little unjust. Whilst it is by no means religious BlackPlastic does enjoy the spirit of Christmas and thinks the sensory experience (i.e. the sounds and smells) make it what it is. Anyway, here is a selection of tracks that capture the sensation of being inside in the warm whilst it snows outside and in truth this is inspired almost as much by BlackPlastic's recent trip to Reykjavik as Christmas itself:

1. Gwen Stefani - Cool (Richard X Mix)
2. The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song
3. Johnny Boy - You are the Generation Who Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve
4. Eels - Christmas is Going to the Dogs
5. Architecture In Helsinki - What's in Store?
6. The Go Team - The Ice Storm
7. Sigur Rós - Glósóli
8. Gemma Hayes - Helen
9. The Concretes - Warm Night
10. Aim feat. Kate Rogers - The Girl Who Fell Through the Ice
11. Jóhann Jóhannsson - Flugeldar II
12. Au Revior Simone - Through the Backyards
13. Ladytron - All the Way
14. Danny Elfman - What's This?
15. Mojave 3 - Bluebird of Happiness (Ulrich Schnauss Remix)
16. Vince Guaraldi - Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal)

The eagle-eyed amongst you may notice that the Danny Elfman track is taken from Tim Burton's film The Nightmare Before Christmas and the closing track is from the pleasant 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' cartoon from 1965. The soundtrack to 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' is available on emusic. It's all composed by jazz genius Vince Guaraldi and is laid back Christmas-y perfection.

A few people were given copies of this CD for Christmas but due to the notorious printer ink crisis of December 2005 I was unable to print the artwork in full colour. Click ion the image above to download it and print it out (Hint: It should be 12cm x 12cm at 300dpi just in case something goes wrong...).

Have a good New Year and feel free to suggest any fantastic Christmas music by adding a comment. You don't have to sign in, it's free and it *just* might change your life. And for the record you can't beat 'Fairy Tale in New York'.

December song of the month...

Yes, yes... Shock horror, it's only the third and BlackPlastic has actually got around to posting a song of the month!

Secret Machines - Still See You

BlackPlastic absolutely loves the Secret Machines. Now Here is Nowhere is such a fantastic album that words do not do it justice... Fantastic thick guitars enveloped in swirling, whooshing noises, a coherent theme runs thoughout the album making it all sound so much more like an album than most. Sadly it has been listened to so many times that for it to have the same effect as the first few listens BlackPlastic has to leave it on the shelf a couple of months.

It was with great satisfaction then that when BlackPlastic finally got around to listening to Secret Machines' debut mini-album it discovered 'Still See You'. Two minutes and forty-nine seconds of pure joy. That is the only way to describe this song. The first half slowly builds through gentle, almost oriental sounding guitars into a rocket of emotions blasts of at one minute thirty. At this point the song seems to literally hit the floor running, sounding like the verb that is motion. Brandon Curtis' vocals are completely breathless and when he sings "You know I still, still see you" it is impossible not to melt in the pure brilliance that is this song, it is entralling. As 'Still See You' fades out it sounds like the band probably just went on playing for eternity, riding their own wave of spaced-like sounds. Press the skip back button and play it just one more time, you know you want to!

Just buy it.

Buy it, it's fantastic!

Buy it at Amazon here. Or anywhere for all I care.

Buy it.

Scratch Massive - Naked

These days BlackPlastic is constantly inundated with emails asking, "What is absolutely the best mix album to be released this year?". Just this week a total of three have fallen through our letter box.

Now whilst BlackPlastic appreciates that everybody else is rather busy selling you the merits of New Jack Swing due to its use of soulful harmonies combined with sheer attitude, sometimes you can't go wrong with a bit of French house. Cue Scratch Massive, French dons of rock influenced house (or should that be the other way round?), releasing the rather enjoyable Naked mix, recorded live in some club in France, not a pure house record you might argue. And you would be right, but who wants something so predictable anyway?

The mixing may at times be a little cut 'n' shut but it is very hard to fault an album with such fantastic music on it. From the first track, Pixeltan's 'Get Up/Say What', everything is killer. Dieter Schmidt's 'Morse Code From the Cold War' is so digi-cool that BlackPlastic wants to turn into a series of noughts and ones, whilst the two minutes of acid that Soldout's 'I Don't Want To Have Sex With You' subjects you to are almost certainly the most exciting thing that will happen to your stereo this year.

Moving on, you'll find Soulwax's 'NY Excuse', the only Soulwax tune that was a Nite Version before Nite Versions existed, and 4 Hero's ridiculous 'Mr Kirk's Nightmare Energize 96', a song that obviously pre-dates Dego discover subtlety or soul. !!! (that's "chk chk chk" to you, damn fool!) get cut-up on our arses in the form of 'Intensidifier Sunraccapellelectroshit mix 03', a song that is pretty much as "out there" as the title suggests, and by the fourth minute it is twice as good as anything they've released since 'Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story)'. Scary title of the album award goes to Out Hud, with 'Put It Away, Put It Away, Put It Away, Dad', featuring a vocal that is almost too pitched up to be comprehendible but sounds like a voice saying, somewhat disturbingly, "no, noo, noooo, nooooo". WhoMadeWho do there silly cover thing that they are, since this year's 'Satisfaction', increasingly becoming known for, in the form of 'Flat Beat'.

Scratch Massive even play two of their own songs, albeit in a remixed state, in the form of the Sex Schon mix of 'Make It High' and the fantastic break mix of 'Girls on the Top', the pair of which playfully twirl in-and-out of each other. Huntemann samples the Beastie Boys on 'Bodyrockin'' and throws in a filthy and dark bassline. By Naked's close everything has gone completely bonkers, with Death In Vegas' 'So You Say You Lost Your Baby', featuring Paul Wellar on vocal duty (an offense BlackPlastic will let slide this one time), being chased off by Nina Hagen on 'Naturträne', a punk-opera to finish things off properly. Indeed.

Anyway, what are you doing? Go and buy it, it's the best compilation of the past twelve months... at least!

Amazon don't stock this, but you can get it from Play here.