Album Review: Cosmic Balearic Beats Vol. 1

We're in a bit of downtime at the moment as the release schedules have dried up a little but BlackPlastic thought, "Why not take a minute to talk about one we missed?"

Yes, it's another cosmic disco / Balearic compilation and yes, this one has an exceptionally dull title which is more befitting a Ministry of Sound show-me-the-dollars compilation. But: this one is from Eskimo and they just do it so much better than everyone else.

Cosmic Balearic Beats has been out since September and BlackPlastic is confident it would have truly shone in the dying weeks of an Indian summer yet even as the rain pisses down, drowning this foresaken island, this sounds great. Blended into a beautiful mix, each subtle shift in sound is glorious and the overall feeling is pure sunset on a beach.

There are highlights - Homerun's 'The Killer Storm', Spektrum's 'Fit Together' and 'Estrella' by Lullabies In The Dark - but it's not about these. Cosmic Balearic Beats Vol. 1 is all about the whole. Bad title, great album.

BP x

Album Review: Keeper's - Deastro

Push a button, turn a key, fire an engine. Stronger maybe but invincible, not. Less susceptible to weakness yet still caught off guard by glimpses of ghosts. Things may be fractured but with these principles and people on our side it'll take much more before anyone gives up. The individual calculations never mattered, it was the net effect that was important so as the acid burns the back of your throat remember: it. didn't. go. how. I. planned. it.

Seperate worlds but we're gonna make it.



This is what listening to Keeper's feels like. Keeper's is the début album from Deastro. It is shoe-gazing emo-chip-tune. My Bloody Valentine meets Postal Service. It's currently exclusive to eMusic.

BP x

Album Review: The Adventures of Cowboy and Miniman

There seems to be new public enthusiasm for the cut and paste (dare we dredge up the genre-definition of 'big beat'?) pop shinnanigans in the vein of The Go! Team and The Avalanches of late - just look at the success Sonny J is currently seeing in the UK. It is into this mini-genre that Des Peres unleash their latest album, The Adventures of Cowboy and Miniman.

Only this one is schizophrenic. Veering from moments where it relishes in its own sense of explosive pop abandon on 'Dynamite' to the moody LCD Soundsystem with a guitar solo of 'Landed On The Edge Of The World' this is an album not afraid to try things. The album opens with the hip-house party jam of 'Sudden Thought', complete with lush orchestration and cheeky raps yet the closing track is a nice little scratchy punk-funk number. If variety is the spice of life then Des Peres have no worries.

As an album, The Adventures of... can be summed up by the camp 60s freak-out of 'Little Man Falls Out Of The Sky". Sampling the song used as the show's theme-tune, it's like Beck on Eurotrash. Or is it actually just like a McCartney Beatles tune? Who cares, either way it's a lot of fun and reflective of the rest of the album.

Fractured it may be and Des Peres' The Adventures of Cowboy and Miniman may not be the endless summer holiday of The Avalanches Since I Left You, nor is it quite the cotton candy napalm of The Go! Team's début but it is all theirs and, best of all, it is a whole barrel-load of fun.

BP x

Five songs of the year

It's practically 2010 so it's well and truly time to wrap up our final 2008 lists with possibly the most fun one to put together... Our favourite songs:

5. Ice Cream - Muscles

Ice Cream, as a food, is not big and it's not really particularly clever. However, it is a lovely instant pick me up that melts in your mouth all too quickly. Seriously, everyone loves Ice Cream right? Same goes for this song: from the opening "wooh... ahhh" refrain through to the closing yelps ("I don't need your number, I just want to dance with my shirt off!") no other song acted quite so much like a security blanket for BlackPlastic this year. It's disposable and trivial but it's also gorgeous and super lovely: Ice Cream is gonna save the day. Again.

4. So Haunted (Knightlife's Sun-Soaked Reprise) - Cut Copy

Cut Copy's In Ghost Colours is just too right as a body of work for us to strip one track from it for "best song" honours so we will kind of cheat and go with a remix. Ever since the So Cosmic mix hit everyone has wanted this: the glorious italo-enthused re-imagining of So Haunted. The guitars have gone but otherwise this is a remarkably respectful re-edit. What makes it so great is that little freestyle bit at the end: it's like a five-minute holiday romance.

3. Space and the Woods - Late Of The Pier

Space and the woods still sounds just as good as it did when we first heard it, its raucous synths impervious to ageing: the sound of a fist fight with aliens whilst floating in space in a foil suit. Without doubt the highlight of one of our albums of the year, it demonstrates so much in such a short space of time that experiencing it should be considered homework.

2. Paris - Friendly Fires

We have gone on about it again and again and again (and, ahem... again... sorry). It still makes us go all gooey. The drums and cowbells are still lush, the synths still cosy, the fact it was self-produced astounding. France's capital may be over-priced and lack good restaurants or it may be the capital of romance and passion. Either way it has a song better than it deserves.

1. L.E.S Artistes (xxxchange Remix) - Santogold

BlackPlastic has listened to this song so much, put it on so many mix CDs, told so many people about it that it doesn't seem believable that it came out in 2008. Yet it did, and thank heavens for that. Spank Rock's xxxchange delivers a truly stellar remix again, discarding the fuzzy guitars of the original in favour of skyscraper levelling basslines. This version of 'L.E.S Artistes' retains 100% emotional punch but comes off more like the soundtrack to some Terminator war of the future. It ditches all the elements that potentially caused Santogold's début album to be overlooked - "I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up" indeed - an album of tunes like this one would have been a glorious thing.

BP x

Five compilations of the year

Third of four in BlackPlastic's lists of 2008 and the focus for this one is on the best compilations and mixes of the year.

5. Top Ranking: A Diplo Dub

Diplo and Santogold's Top Ranking managed to do them both a disservice as it took Santogold's LP proper (produced by Diplo) and nabbed the best bits then pissed all over what remained. It was a trawl through some of the most exciting tracks of the past couple of years combined with some classics. Panda Bear AND Devo's 'Get Stiff' in the same mix? Yes please.

4. So Cosmic

2008 was all about the free online mix and by far the best of these was Cut Copy's So Cosmic. Okay, so technically this first hit the streets in 07 and we are beginning to sound like a broken record but it didn't appear online until 2008 and it is just. too. good. to. overlook. Beautiful.  And available here.

3. Cosmic Disco?! Cosmic Rock!!!

A big two-fingered salute to the myriad of Italo / Cosmic disco compilations out this year from Eskimo Recordings with Daniele Baldelli and Marco Dionig, Cosmic Rock was the real deal - a mix by someone that was there, unfettered by the desire to recontextual everything through modern eyes. Sure, at times it may have been cheesy but it was never anything other than awesome.

2. Fabric 41 mixed by Luciano

Sure, it may be little more than a Luciano DJ set commuted to CD but when the material an mixing is this good, who cares? The sublime breakdown into M83's 'Church' remains a highpoint of the year.

1. Notwave

Following the two remixes discs and a quiet period Notwace was a breath of fresh air from DFA. the concept itself was good - imagine what New York's experimental No Wave scene would have sounded like if it had never gone away - but the tunes were what made it. Every one not just different to anything else you'll hear on a compilation released in 2008 but sufficiently different from the rest of the album to make listening a joy.

BP x