Album Review: Underneath The Pine - Toro Y Moi

Toro Y Moi's debut was one of my real highlights of last year... That rare thing: an album that lives up to the blogger hype (yes, appreciate this is a blog and so I would say that...)

Full of funky J Dilla style loops, soulful low-in-the-mix vocals and tight eighties flourishes Causes Of This stands out as the best of what the chill wave genre can offer. It may have had the odd moment of weakness but its highlights more than outweigh them.

Underneath The Pine is unexpected. It would have been easy to just focus on taking Causes Of This and re-making it without the sub-par moments: an easy route to sophomore critical success. Instead Toro Y Moi appears to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. The funky slabs of eighties synth are gone, replaced with a more natural sounding fuzzy seventies vibe, and the hip-hop influence has all but disappeared.

The result feels like the Carpenters covered by Animal Collective. The production here is immaculate and Chazwick Bundick's talent in this area really shows - this is a tight record. 'New Beat' is a part stomping funk number, part freeform jazz experiment and 'Divinia' is a gentle, slow paced ballad marked by it's piercing piano refrain. 'Got Blinded' is perhaps Bundick's finest vocal performance yet, his falsetto tones sounding more vulnerable than ever.

But is this the point? Underneath The Pine sounds like a frigging brilliant psychedelic album by a seventies soul artist. Which is admittedly fantastic. But ultimately this isn't the album we wanted - it's interesting, sure, but Toro Y Moi appears to have lost something along the way.

This week I got into a debate following the piece on Justice's new single over whether artists are okay just staying the same or if they need to continuously move on. My view is that progression is crucial but what I hadn't considered is the importance of time. Justice has let years fall away but have come back as if nothing has changed in the world. Toro Y Moi has done the opposite - a year after his first album we have a follow up that feels like it skips an important bridging album.

Underneath The Pine is a lovely album - it just wasn't the album we wanted.

BP x

Underneath The Pine is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

MP3: The Red Kiss (The Magician Precious 80's Dub) - The Aikiu

Aikiu is the result of a collaboration between Alex Aikiu and his friends Julien Vichnievsky and Cedric Pilooski. Alex was born in Paris but grew up in Africa and this music apparently draws from both his early love of pop culture and his experiences in Africa.

'The Red Kiss' is drenched in 80s references, and this remix from former member of Aeroplane, The Magician, really ramps those up. The result is a heady rush of Phil Collins drums and Rick Astley vocals. We're not too proud to dance to that sort of thing round my way and this makes me sort of glad that the Aeroplane split gave us two different versions of the trademark Aeroplane sound rather than one.

And just check out that look: Strong or what?

Download 'The Red Kiss (The Magician Precious 80's Dub)' by Aikiu on MP3 here [right click, save as].

Video: Lego - OK

This is just pure brilliant guitar pop music with a pure brilliant little pop video and I can't help but love it... 'Lego' is the kind of sugar buzz destined to come with a comedown but the way the little puppet band rock out in the video pretty much makes me not care.

OK are from Cardiff and this has apparently been out for a little while but just dropped on CD last week. You can grab it on Amazon on MP3 now [affiliate link]. If you fancy finding out how the video was made check out this little making of.

BP x

Live: London Electronic presents Nicolas Jaar Live at Fabric

Nicolas Jaar's debut album Space Is Only Noise continues to capture the imagine in a way no other album has been able to match so far this year (yes, it is early days)... There is something about the variety on display - one moment it is throwing obtuse lyrics at you in a monotone voice reminiscent of something the Merrit might use on a Magnetic Fields track, the next it's turned into freeform jazz.

Jaar is playing live in London on Wednesday 30 March and it should be a little bit special. Resident Advisor voted Jaar's as the second best live set last year and his focus on atmospherics rather than dancing should make the show unlike pretty much anything else that has graced the venue - particularly as this is a live set, not a DJ set.

London Electronic is focused on taking electronic music away from the weekend and the DJ booth, giving artists the opportunity to play live on centre stage. They will apparently be running events irregularly throughout the year so look out for them.

Tickets cost £12.50 and can be bought from Resident Advisor.

BP x

News: Justice return with 'Civilization'

Having been on hiatus for four years Justice are back with a new single (artwork left) and an as yet untitled album. The single drops on Ed Banger / Because on April 4 but you can check it out now as it is used in the Adidas advert below, directed by Romain Gavras, who also directed Justice's controversial 'Stress' video.

I can't hope but feel a little disappointed with this... Firstly the Adidas tie-in just feels a bit lame - an advert for a sports brand is hardly the most exciting way to announce your return - and more importantly it just sounds so very like the first album.

Hopefully hearing the full track (and the rest of the album) will prove us wrong...

BP x

News: Junior Boys to release new album

I've long been a fan of the Junior Boys sound - there is something about Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus' approach to songwriting and production. When at their best there music has an incredibly polished sound - not something I'd usually appreciate but in their case it really creates a spellbinding mood.

Thankfully a new album is on the way - entitled It's All True it will come out on Domino on 20 June 2011 but Domino are giving away album track 'ep' now. Head over and give up your email address to check it out.

'ep' is classic Junior Boys stuff - sun kissed vocal melodies and warm synths, it's kind of pointless to resist and whilst it doesn't suggest much of a departure in terms of sound it definitely has me excited for the album.

BP x

Competition: Win Deniz Kurtel's Music Watching Over Me

Deniz Kurtel's album Music Watching Over Me dropped this week on Crosstown Rebels and we have to say - it's a bit of a grower. From the stable of Wolf + Lamb her debut is further evidence of a real movement building around the duo, particularly hot on the heels of Nicolas Jaar's excellent album, Space Is Only Noise.

As with Space Is Only Noise, this is an album of atmospherics. The difference is that its sights are set squarely on the dance floor. The tracks marry a stripped down techno aesthetic to the more lively rhythms of house - the result is subtle but classy and timeless. Particularly strong are the US Garage stomp of 'Best Of' and the dark and brooding 'Vagabond', which actually sounds like it could be by Chloe - which is no bad thing.

We'd definitely recommend seeking this out but if you are feeling lucky BlackPlastic have three copies up for grabs. To be in with a chance of winning one simply send an email to Competitions@BlackPlastic.co.uk with the subject line 'Just because I enter competitions, it don't mean I'm cheap' [now closed, thanks for entering!]. Winners will be selected randomly at midnight on 23 March 2011. Please include your full name and address on entries so we can send out the prize if you win!

BP x

Music Watching Over Me is out now on Crosstown Rebels, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD (though out of stock at the time of writing) [affiliate link].

Competition: Win tickets to see Tame Impala's London Roundhouse gig

Regular readers will know that Tame Impala's InnerSpeaker was one of our favourite albums of last year and as such BlackPlastic is pretty excited about the Aussie prog rockers' forthcoming gig at the Roundhouse in London on 22 June. Particularly in light of the rather fantastic Erol Alkan re-work of 'Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind' that has been on regular rotation in our stereo for the past couple of months. Erol strips things back just a notch, adds even more fuzz to the bass and adds some lovely Chemical Brothers style ravey drum rolls. We like:

Tame Impala - Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind (Erol Alkan Rework) Radio Edit by Erol Alkan

What makes a good gig even better? The fact that as a BlackPlastic reader you could go with your significant other / mate / freeloading colleague / bloke you once met at the chippy* of choice. We have two pairs of guestlist places to give away - just send an email to Competitions@BlackPlastic.co.uk with the subject line 'I too am a fan of the White Album' by midnight on 28 March [now closed, thanks for entering]. Winners will be notified by email and will have their name added (plus one) to the guestlist (so please include your full name).

If you can't wait, won't wait or just don't win you can still get tickets here.

News: Glastonbury announce the Emerging Talent Competition longlist

Glastonbury have announced the longlist for the Emerging Talent Competition. This features the list of the 123 acts through to the next round to be considered for Glastonbury's Emerging Talent Competition - the winners of which will guest the pyramid stage at the festival this year!

Included in the list are the three acts shortlisted by BlackPlastic.co.uk having gone through over 150 entrants:

1. Encounters [link fixed]
2. Run Toto Run
3. After After Hours

Look out for a feature post on each band over the coming weeks but in the meantime check them out - all three are fairly varied but represented the most exciting bands out of all of those BlackPlastic checked out.

BP x

MP3 Download / Album Review: DJ Kicks - Various mixed by Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap

Originally Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap's DJ Kicks album was apparently due to be a 'versus' style affair but the respective duos obviously felt too much mutual love to compete and instead what we have is a four-way collaboration.

And the love here speaks volumes - this is a flirty, youthful house mix. Both Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap have been on the verge of greatness for some time - with increasingly regularity BlackPlastic will hear a lush slab of disco house somewhere only to go on to discover it is one or the other (or both) of the pair. This DJ Kicks installment seems destined to push them further into the collective consciousness.

Short-skirted and irrepressible, this is an album a little impossible to resist. It's not perfect - there are times when it feels like it's playing you for time... Just like a girl drawing out the thrill of the chase there are some spacers here - the equivalent of deliberately unanswered phone calls or text messages that never get replied to, the odd track just feels like a waste of time and the programming is so flawless it can become a little sterile. But like the heady days of a blossoming relationship the overall experience feels exciting enough to forgive the artists involved - from blissful ambience of opening intro 'My Man's Gone Now' this is a remarkably considered album.

Things are at their best when everything goes a bit twisted and paranoid. Soul Clap's 'Lonely C', featuring Charles Levine, is alienated and distraught (check out the download below) - making the huge, fat bassline of H-Foundation's 'Tonight' all the more welcome when it arrives. And this isn't a mix afraid to drop the bpm and get sleazy - Nicholas Jaar (whose album we reviewed earlier this week) seriously messes with mix album conventions on his tribal and dubby 'Don't Believe The Hype'.

Zev's 'We All', featuring Greg Paulus, is one of the real standout moments, with a collection of warm acid lines and big empty snares encircling the listener, but it is Benoit & Sergio's fairly messed up 'Walk And Talk' that steals the show. A big, warm tech-house monster - it's the most beautiful song about having a ketamine addled girlfriend BlackPlastic has ever heard. Yes, really.

Occasionally caught out by it's own attention to detail it may be, but when Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap's DJ Kicks album dares to let the chips lie where they fall, as one should with this sort of collaborative effort, it manages to hit all the right notes.

As a taster, download 'Lonely C' by Soul Clap featuring Charles Levine here [right click, save as].

BP x

Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap's DJ Kicks album is released on !K7 on 15 March, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].