Competition: Win a copy of Seconds' Tell Them EP

You may recall my review of Seconds' rather nice Tell Them EP from last week. Well now here is your opportunity to find a bit more out about the electronic duo as well as win a copy of the EP. The short video above provides a nice intro to the band, explaining the origin of their name.

If you are yet to listen to the EP you can check it out via Soundcloud below. And whilst you do that you may as well enter a competition to win a copy! I have two copies of the vinyl release to give away - to be in with a chance to win one simply send an email to Competitions@BlackPlastic.co.uk including your name and postal address with the subject line "Please Sir, can I have some more?".

The deadline for entry is midnight on Sunday 8 July 2012 and winners will be selected at random. This competition is only open to UK residents.

EP Review: Dance With The White Rabbit - Ahmet Sisman

On this, his debut release on Culprit, Ahmet unleashes some tech-house that demonstrates the impact of his German residence at the same time of hinting at an earlier influence of Sisman's youth spent growing up in Turkey.

The title track is big room stuff, a vocal skittering across big, warm synths and a building melody. It's actually the opening where this is best though, the clattering freeform drums that feature there giving the track a more lively, soulful vibe.

Sisman's other original track on this release comes in the form of the darker 'Hello To Alice'... Spotting a theme yet? It's a deeper sound than we get on 'Dance With The White Rabbit' and edges it as the more interesting of the two, opening with sexy gasps and climaxing with the clean, refreshing chords in the middle break.

This package comes with two remixes of the title track, one from Nico Lahs and the other from Audiofly. The former is more progressive, removing the looping big room feel and riding a thick bass line. Audiofly's mix goes deep and low, giving the track a tighter feel and some slightly chaotic cosmic keys.

Dance With The White Rabbit is out 4 July through Culprit.

Stream 'Hello To Alice' below:

Album Review: Lucifer - Peaking Lights

Here's a confession: I lost the promo of Peaking Lights' debut album.

Whilst other more established and better organised music blogs were falling in love with with this duo I was falling over myself to figure out exactly where their album had gone.

I found it in the end though, dubby and sunny and seemingly increasingly lost in the moments it had experience in my absence - full of heady dreamy days and sunny hedonism.

The youth of today have seemingly become lost in a sun trap of day dreams and... Well, dreams. Listen to any of the bands you are supposed to give a shit about these days - Beach House, Washed Out, Kindness - and they all feel trapped inside their own lazy ambition.

What I really want. More than anything else. Is to keep on dreaming.

Peaking Lights' new album Lucifer feels like the removal of a veil. A pulling back of the curtain as you enter the tripped out dream world duo Indra Dunis and Aaron Coyes inhabit on this second experiment, their 45-minute sun dance.

And the dance kicks in proper on the intoxicating 'Beautiful Son', an epic crescendo of sunny keys, loving bass and assured guitars that forms a tribute to Dunis and Coyes' son, Mikko. It forms a high that won't let you come down. Not yet.

The intoxication kicks in proper at that point with 'Live Love', which quickly pioneers a groove-based dub adventure. 'Cosmic Tides' will leave you somewhere between enthused and relaxed, a slow move to climax that feels like little work was involved and yet it demands like an un-moveable force. There are traces of Peaking Lights' inspirations all over this record, in the fuzzy guitar lines of Stereolab and the subtle traces of paranoia peddled by Lee Perry. 

This is an album that, even more than their last, sees the listener on a disconcerting journey to discovery. Repeated listens will take you further and deeper, like a ever descending version of Christopher Nolan's Inception. Just ensure you pack a map and a torch for you return trip from dreamworld.

Lucifer is out now on Weird World, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

Stream below on Spotify [account required]:

Album Review: DJ-Kicks - Digitalism

http://designcollector.net/digitalism-simply-dead/The DJ-Kicks albums have had some decent entries over the years, particularly lately, so it is somewhat of a surprise to see this new entry come from Digitalism, who are unable to check either the 'so hot right now' box or the the 'highly respected in their genre' box of the likes of Soulclap (upon release at least) and Apparat respectively.

Instead Digitalism seem to be on the verge of irrelevance. More than perhaps anyone else they came closest to mirroring Justice's stellar popularity back in the 2007 / 2008 Euro house distortion bubble (in both senses of the word distortion). And as they say, the harder they come... Justice's second album is one of the most derided sophomore efforts in recent memory and critically at least Digitalism's I Love You Dude faired even worse.

This DJ-Kicks offering at times suffers from the same noise-core fatigue but more often than not just misfires into slightly tired, boring territory. There are a slew of Digitalism tracks and remixes here and some of them are typically noisy - see 'A New Drug' and 'So Totally Good', for example. The trouble is that what made this sound appealing in the first place was its relative novelty and the way it combined it with allusions to pop music. 'Pogo' was a massive pop record wearing a punk leather jacket and cranked to 11. 'Digitalism In Cairo' could almost have been Daft Punk in their prime. None of that is here - nothing tempers the noise and as such nothing comes close to that initial buzz.

So Kölsch's 'Lorely' is hard and kitsch but devoid of any charm and Grauzone's 'Raum', remixed by Ata, sounds like the angular sounds of Zongamin about ten years too late. And what to say of Digitalism's remix of the Rapture's 'Sail Away', already a song that felt like Bono forcing a sherbet dip down your throat? Here you can witness it being turned into an overblown electro weepy ballad - it so badly wants to be a lighters in the air moment. Hell, it probably is if you are 17 and think Deadmau5 invented trance.

There are a few better moments. The squeaky bass and distorted shuffle of 83's 'Hey Today!' actually achieves what a lot of this album attempts and Alex Gopher's 'Brain Leech' has the feeling of walking away from a loved one at the end of a glorious day yet still feeling rejected... It achieves the pop-electro nexus that the Ed Banger and Kitsuné fraternity seem to have lost entirely.

Whilst this album may not be a total misfire it certainly isn't a convincing return to form and it represents a low point in the recent history of DJ-Kicks releases. But then again maybe this album isn't for fans of that series in the first place.

DJ Kicks by Digitalism is out tomorrow on !K7, available to order from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

EP Review: Tell Them - Seconds

The original version of this EP from electronic duo Seconds is a lush laid back electronic pop song. It reminds me a lot of James Yuill's saccharin yet melancholic 'This Sweet Love', with the interplay between a lilting guitar and the soft vocals of guest vocalist Lines Luti (A.K.A Little Children) striking a sparse, melodic note.

This is a different record though of course. The production is darker and the vocals slightly more haunting. It's a melting pot of house and proper folk song writing that will appeal to fans that complain about a lack of 'real' music as much as it will to fans of dance music.

The EP includes three remixes, all from Charles Webster,  entitled "Earl Jam" Dub, Club Mix and "Earl Jam" Interpretation. The dub is typically vocal free, a building progressive track of sparsely arranged synths whilst the "Earl Jam" Interpretation is that again but extended in length and scope with the vocal back in place. The club mix keeps the vocal and gives it an almost samba influence bass line. Of the three the "Earl Jam" interpretation is best - a track that gradually builds into the kind of tight, elastic piece Simian Mobile Disco do well.

Tell Them is out now on Baasaal records, available to buy digitally from Juno.

Stream below on Spotify [account required]:

Album Review: Fabric 64 - Guy Gerber

Guy Gerber eschews expectations and takes Fabric 64 as an opportunity to make a compact, groove-based single artist album. He isn't the first to make his entry into the Fabric CD a single artists affair though - both Ricardo Villalobos and Omar S have produced Fabric albums that only consist of their own music. They are both, in fact, two of my favourite entries to the long-running series.

Gerber has declared Fabric 64 his 'break-up' album. Created in a short, two month period (as Fabric releases apparently have to be) shortly after the end of a relationship it is a snapshot of his emotional state during that period and it has a greater degree of focus than an album created over a longer period of time would be capable of. This is a generous album both emotionally and purely in terms of the music offered, for much of the 16 movements and 72-minutes contained could have been made into a 'proper' album, with all the associated press and attention that usually brings.

It also works well as a mix album though. This may not be a peak-of-the-night DJ set but Fabric 64 is no slouch either, taught electronic kicks propel the album onwards even when the music is introspective and forlorn, as on 'Shady Triangle'. Melancholic music can create a deep, emotional well to drown in but Gerber sidesteps this to create a soundtrack that trips and stumbles between sadness, resignation and apprehensive hope at different turns throughout its course.

The whole album locks together like a jigsaw to make a tight, continuous groove so whilst there are momentary highlights it also forms a cinematic whole. This just could be the progressive house answer to the Drive soundtrack and all that which the movie has touched - the music scrubbed and sanded down in an attempt to remove every touch of humanity, yet the emotion shines through as strong as ever.

It is there in the melodies that punch through the dark synths on 'A Blade Through My Piano' and again on the building opening track 'Store-House Consciousness'. And the vocals and wet synth of the Clarian North featuring 'Running Through The Night' betray nights spent with nowhere to go and no-one to see.

It is on the Deniz Kurtel collaboration that closes this album, 'Just Wanna See You Happy', that Gerber finds (and makes) his peace and yet it still feels like a conflicted moment - not marked out with the same tears that track much of the album but hardly at ease either. Fabric 69 doesn't just use the mix album to create a single artist album - Gerber has used it to make a concept album too (and a good one at that).

It is an album which says a lot about its maker. Put it on a pair of headphones and ride across the city, shutting out your surroundings and it just might say something about you too.

Fabric 64 is released on 28 June, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links].

EP Review: Aus - Nina Kraviz

Image source: MixmagAnother dance EP for you, hot on the heels of my recent reviews of Vidinovsky's Night Sun and Tanner Ross' Straight To The Moon. This one comes from the much hyped Nina Kraviz, out on Rekids.

I've been a fan of a number of Kraviz's previous releases - she takes the moody elegance of the minimal music that has been pushed by the likes of Crosstown Rebels over the sat few years and adds a bit of welcome femininity, pulling it back towards a house sound. This single, featuring the vocals of King Aus, is a great representation of that sound.

The original version of 'Aus', taken from Kraviz's eponymous debut album, is a deep and dubby house track that bubbles with a firm but sassy intent to party. King Aus' vocals are pure tribute to the movement of electronic music, paying homage to the dance floor and noting that "the dancers are really the ones that push the beat". The rhythms here feel tight and acrobatic whilst warm Rhodes keys provide dense layers of sticky melody. It's a delicious mix.

Remixes come from Rhythm Odyssey, Matt Edwards (of Radio Slave) and DJ Qu. None of these quite hit the same peak for me - they loose the delicately and intangible sexiness buried within those drum tracks of the original - though they are still generally worthy of inclusion, especially as the original is under five-minutes long.

The Rhythm Odyssey mix boils away with an acid bass line as the centre point whilst DJ Qu gives the whole thing a tech-house makeover. Edwards' mix is heavily percussive and probably the most interesting, stretching out the vocals and sliding in layers of paranoia, though it is not helped by Edwards' weird obsession with layering the noise of a Mac using its eye-sight camera throughout the mix. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time I suppose.

Aus is released on 25 June through Rekids.

EP Review: Night Sun - Vidinovski

Night Sun drops later this month on the notoriously choosy and patient Argumento imprint. Since their first pressing in 2010 only a handful of releases have come out over the years - their focus clearly being on quality rather quantity.

That approach is reflected perfectly in this new EP from Vidinovski. Here the focus is truly on house music for the heads - there are no tricks here, just the soundtrack for big room dance floors and heavily vibrating floorboards. For all its subtlety this is big music that captures those fleeting moments of pleasure - losing yourself to the music, a crowd at one and the sense that you never want to come back from this.

There are three original tracks on offer. 'Night Sun' is made of ripples of warm, bubbling bass and aerial synths that wash over live sounding drum claps to make a surprisingly organic feeling uplifting tech-house track. In comparison 'Charge Point' is a little more tense, retaining a similarly tight and claustrophobic rhythm section complete with a couple of driving scattergun moments whilst the song makes a slow build to an epic break like a cry from the middle of the jungle. 'Period' is a little more functional, without the natural warmth of the title track of the excited of 'Charge Point', but it provides a deeper, more dubby sound should you want it.

A remix of 'Night Sun' from Ethereal Sound label boss Anton Zap is also included within this package. It's a little more intimate than the original, the drums toned down to a more straight forward four-four and a minimal rim shot whilst Zap reigns in the reverb. It doesn't have quite as much flair as the original but is perfect for that back room vibe.

With Night Sun Argumento have served up an undeniably quality release.

Night Sun is released on 22 June on Argumento.

EP Review: Straight To The Moon - Tanner Ross

Image source: Zaber RidersThis new one out on Double Standard is pure gloss and sweat. Tanner's EP recalls smooth electronic R&B from the late eighties and early nineties conjuring an infectious retro set of smooth grooves. It feels like it almost could have been there.

Straight To The Moon opens with the ensemble cast number 'Blame Game', featuring Slow Hands, Pillow Talk and Jesse Rennix - the latter two sparring syrupy vocals that keep the soul flowing. Next up is 'Frequent Flyer' featuring Jules Born - it's a heavier, funkier track that melds 'Billie Jean'-esque wandering bass lines with a more up-to-date production style. The result is thick and infectious, lazy and sun bleached and therefore perfect for days doing nothing in the warm summer sun.

The instrumental title track is more cosmic - basically little more than a locked groove tweaked out over four-minutes that sounds like Com Truise with a Flock Of Seagulls haircut. 'Straight To Mexico' is more laid back - swirling keys and drums stabbed through a honey thick bass. Soul Clap's Lonely C turns up on 'Be Chillin'', a dubby affair with distorted vocals that is the one track here that struggles to justify its position.

Things are rounded out with instrumentals of 'The Blame Game' and 'Frequent Flyer'. Overall Straight To The Moon feels a little like one idea played several times over but it's so perfectly suited to summer pool parties and slow, hot days that it's hard to resist.

Straight To The Moon is released on 18 June through Double Standard.

Comment: Carling Summer Sounds competition

Carling approached me a few weeks back to introduce me to their new beer, Carling Zest, which includes a hint of lime... Perfect for the summer (or so they tell me!)

To get people feeling that summer vibe Carling have made a tool for that 'bottled summer' experience - it's a soundboard that you can use to make make sound and music collages up into a track. The results are kind of interesting, I went for a fairly percussive mix using the fan and the bees as bass, though my timing started to slide... you can check it out here. Have a go at your own by following this link - the best video will win tickets to V festival this year - if you make a mix be sure to share it in the comments below!

Altogether more listenable are the efforts Carling got three professionals to put together... To be fair, listening to these it is clear they were not restricted to a YouTube player based system with only a record button and a loop functionality but still - they are pretty good. You can listen to the tracks by DJ Yoda and Jaguar Skills here but DJ Food's is easily my favourite - check it out above.

The beer itself is also pretty decent - real ales are generally more my thing but Carling Zest will be great for summer barbecues and the added lime was less synthetic tasting than I thought it might be. It's also a really low ABV (2.8%) which is nice for a lazy afternoon drink when you don't want to have anything too heavy.