Retro-Spex - Jun Ray Song Chang

BlackPlastic takes a look at a classic album with Asa-Chang & Junray - Jun Ray Song Chang.

Asa-Chang & Junray's Jun Ray Song Chang is likely to be unlike anything you've ever heard. Mixing classic Japanese styles with avant garde stylings. Imagine Aphex Twin getting it on with a pair of bongos and some strings and you are not a million miles away.

First track 'Hana' is the closest they have ever had (or probably ever will have) to a hit, mixing drums, strings and cut-up Japanese vocals into a bizarre yet highly atmospheric experience that builds and builds into a terrific climax. 'Preach' adds some brass into the mix and the "vocals" get even stranger. 'Kobana' sounds like 'Hana' put trough a weirdimizer machine, taking what was odd in the first place and running with it. 'Nigatsu' features weird disjointed and slightly scary singing and atmospheric rain building into a fantastic guitar line that sounds like the soundtrack to the most kick-ass kung-fu movie you never saw. 'Goo-Gung-Gung' is the soundtrack to a crazy computer game, sounding like Street Fighter II with an acid injection. 'Tabla Bol (Catastrophe)' sounds like you've accidentally walked into some bizarre Japanese ritual.

Jun Ray Song Chang is hallucinogenic. It is almost impossible to listen to without imagining images. 'Jippun' conjures up images of flutes and recorders turning into trees and unstoppably growing up and up and up and up and up. BlackPlastic isn't going strange. Words do not do this music justice, it just drips in atmosphere and it is unbelievable that no-one has tried to set it to animation. You just have to hear it to understand.

And on that note, why not buy it from Amazon here.

Speakers Push The Air...

Just a quick one to say that if you ever fancy a bit more BlackPlastic when you've read everything here you can also check out Speakers Push the Air. BlackPlastic writes there under the guise of one Adam Russell.

Why not check out the review of Gemma Hayes' (pictured) new album, The Roads Don't Love You here?

Just make sure you come back.

Oh, and if buy chance you fancy purchasing the Gemma Hayes album when it is released on Monday 31 October, why not click here to purchase it from Amazon?

Ladytron - Witching Hour

The guys in monochrome are back to freeze our hearts.

BlackPlastic has been a fan of Ladytron for a while now, and even the name of the site is a (partial) tip of the hat in their direction ('Black Plastic' being a song of the Light & Magic LP). Much has been made of the 'Tron's new "analogue" sound and their new (occasional) use of guitars. In truth, Witching Hour is no more than the natural progression displayed between the asymmetric pop of 604 and Light & Magic's self-knowing-pitch-black-cooler-than-thou skin-deep sheen.

Witching Hour, just as Light & Magic does, hangs together nicely as an album. Things get off to a good start with 'High Rise', synths swirling around live drums. It is easy to imagine that the new Ladytron are a more entertaining live-act. 'High Rise' is followed by latest single 'Destroy Everything You Touch'. 'Destroy...' is perfect Ladytron, cold-as-ice vocals combine with melancholic melodies to create a something far greater than the sum of its (relatively simple) parts. First single, 'Sugar', is perhaps the most obvious beneficiary of added guitars, transforming itself into a rawer creature as a result.

'Fighting in Built-Up Areas' is a definite highlight, sounding like your grandchildren getting rowdy and smashing the streets up in the name of freedom of speech, and it also marks the beginning of this album's departure into experimental territory. 'Last Man Standing' is slightly more melodic than most of the 'tron's catalogue whilst 'Weekend' is a grinding, sexy affair backed with atmospheric guitars that refuse to behave, preferring to be ambient noise rather than anything solid. 'Beauty' is stark and raw to the point where it almost sounds personal (not something Ladytron are accustomed to being) but it is Witching Hour's final two tracks that really shine.

'White Light Generation' sounds like a loved-up The Jesus & Mary Chain have joined turned up, upbeat drums joining quasi-melodic distorted guitars all lifting the same morose vocals up to a higher place. Ethereal is the word. Final track, 'All The Way' is more of the same but it almost sounds like a Christmas song if it wasn't for a deliberately mis-placed key change. It builds and builds like a flower, and it almost wants to shout, "Thank God it's them, instead of you". But it doesn't.

At its core, Witching Hour is still the same brand of emotionless electo-pop music, but that's still a good thing. The addition of organics (not the shampoo) shows they also have a bit of soul, which is no bad thing. If nothing else, check out the final two tracks. Do it.

Get Ladytron's Witching Hour here.

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October song of the month...

In the first of a (hopefully) monthly ongoing piece BlackPlastic highlights a great song that you should rush out and buy this month. This month, the first ever song of the month is...

Pulp - Babies

Up until about a year ago BlackPlastic never really thought itself a Pulp fan. One visit to the fantastic Fopp and an exceptional deal on Pulp's Hits album changed that (for £3, how can you go wrong?).

Whilst the album was bought for such previously heard gems as 'Do You Remember The First Time?' and 'Common People' the track that really captured the imagination was track one, album opener, 'Babies'. 'Babies' is pure gold. The excitement of Cocker's first physical foray as a loved-up teenager is irresistable, perfectly capturing the complete normality of 80s South Yorkshire through the kaleidoscopic lense of teenage sexual desire. When Cocker sings "I want to give you children..." you almost believe it, and by the time he cuts in with the lush, join-in, "yeah, yeah, yeah yeah" bit you really do believe it.

And the line "I only went with her, 'cos she looks like you" has got to be up there with the most romantic lines of all time.

Cocker. The voice of a man with the words of a boy.

Buy Pulp - Hits at Amazon.co.uk here.