Listen: Death Drive by Eliza Edens

One of my triggers in alt-rock is a sense of texture, and the first time I heard Death Drive, the latest single from Eliza Edens, I was blown away by the detail.

Texture adds a vibrancy to a musical recording, particularly when it comes to real physical instruments. The bright details here make Eliza and her band’s performance feel real, intimate and grounded. The bass and guitars float right in front of you, and you can almost feel the air moving in front of your face as you listen. The drums thump with a grounded pulsing energy. The whole thing feels expensive, and created with care. It all underpins a vocal performance from Edens, at terms intimate and vulnerable, then soaring on a wave of overdubbed harmonies.

That vocal is focused on Edens’ preoccupation with near-death experiences, and living dangerously. As she sassily sings here, “Maybe I was flirtin’ with the limit but baby that’s how you win it.”

Shortly after the two-minute moment there is a slight, yet noticeable, drop in pace. It is as though the band simultaneously got caught in something that caught them off guard. They almost miss a beat and fall into a stagger. The moment seemingly reflect Eliza, confronted with a thought, as she contemplates her own mortality and the afterlife. She quickly shrugs it off, and like a moth to a flame, goes straight back to thinking about all the ways in which she could be embracing reckless abandon. Overall, she creates a thrilling feeling - vivid, real, and alive.

Check out Death Drive below.

In addition to listening in the post, you can find almost all the music BlackPlastic covers on the music player of your choice. Add the dedicated playlist below:

Apple Music

Spotify

Listen: No Hands by Christian Medice

The latest single by NYC-based and Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer Christian Medice, No Hands sees the artist weave a nostalgic course through layered instrumentation. Low bass and ethereal chords establish the scene before gentle guitars meander.

Medice is no stranger to diverse genres, having featured as a co-writer on Pink’s album Beautiful Trauma, alongside production credits spanning pop, alternative, indie, and K-Pop.

Here, on No Hands, there is something of the earthy richness of Vampire Weekend. It is Medice’s vocal that creates the emotional foundation for the song, his performance capturing the thrill of a freewheeling bike ride through the city. The verse gives way to a chorus that sees the song’s title repeated with the thrill and pace of someone calling it out as they fly past you on the street, careering wildly with their arms spread wide. You can almost feel the wind on their face and see their wide smile.

The cycle ride depicted on No Hands feels like both a retelling of a real event, and a metaphor for a feeling of freedom and abandon. Describing the creation of the song, developed in partnership with his friend and collaborator Jordan Greenwald, Christian says:

‘The first time I heard Jordan's track, I was instantly inspired. I wrote the verse and pre-chorus right away, and it immediately felt like there was something special there. The story brought me back to the period when I was living in New York City right out of college — being young, figuring things out, and not always knowing where life was taking me. We kept coming back to the song over the next few months and letting it grow naturally.’

Check out Christian Medice’s No Hands below.

In addition to listening in the post, you can find almost all the music BlackPlastic covers on the music player of your choice. Add the dedicated playlist below:

Apple Music

Spotify

Listen: BMW by Dreaming of Citra

Having emerged out of the Manchester music scene in late-2021, five-piece Dreaming of Citra combine pop melodies with a kind of clear-eyed shoegaze influenced indie rock.

Here on new single BMW, the outfit employ their sound to create a vivid-yet-otherworldly aesthetic. Steely guitar riffs intermingle with a wandering bass guitar hook, as vocalist Rae opens with a description of getting, and then crashing, her new dream car. Vivid snapshots of journeys — behind the wheel, on horseback — act as analogies for the experience of following, and travelling. It is almost always journey we remember as much as the destination, and it is the people we travel with that are most important.

Rae’s vocals create a beautiful centrepiece here on BMW. The near spoken verse gives way as she gently sings, ‘I need to know you’re safe’, before sliding into a rhythmic chant, ‘Travel round the world for you’. The overall sound is hypnotic — a stream of consciousness that overwhelms with its sense of ethereal fragility.

Check out BMW below.

In addition to listening in the post, you can find almost all the music BlackPlastic covers on the music player of your choice. Add the dedicated playlist below:

Apple Music

Spotify

Listen: Be Good Tonight by Sonic Anonymous

Sonic Anonymous is positioned as ‘weird, existential, late-night synth pop for the burnt-out generation’. Here on Be Good Tonight, we have an introspective piece dealing with grief and fatigue.

Opening with a single extended chord, Be Good Tonight gradually surfaces, like something emerging from water, uncovering hushed falsetto vocals and a gritty electronic bass line tinged with acid. Cinematic synth washes combine with steely guitar sounds to create a futuristic, emotive soundscape. Produced by two-times Grammy nominee Tomas Morton, and mastered by Joe LaPorta, the sound on display here is refined, and subtle — brimming with polish, economic in what it achieves with relatively little.

Adding to the sense of emotion, the song itself is positioned as a posthumous plea to the artist’s late brother. Having served in the military, he ended up homeless in Las Vegas as a veteran, passing away as the result of an overdose. The lyrics are a stream of consciousness, something Sonic Anonymous describes as ‘as fever-dream loop of intrusive thoughts’. In his own words, he describes the song as ‘…Turning a private tragedy into a heavy, late-night anthem for the emotionally exhausted’.

The sound here invokes the kind of blissed out electronics I love — emotionally reflective lyrics and a blend of Junior Boys, Underworld, and (stay with me) The Blue Nile. Check out Be Good Tonight below.

In addition to listening in the post, you can find almost all the music BlackPlastic covers on the music player of your choice. Add the dedicated playlist below:

Apple Music

Spotify

Listen: Horse With No Name by Tone Ranger

Tone Ranger is the musical project of Alex Simon, who resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Simon moved to the desert back in 2018, with an ambition to capture its stark beauty within his music. Here he channels that ambition into an ambitious cover of America’s classic slice of US-influenced folk, Horse With No Name.

For the uninitiated, the group America actually hailed from the UK as Air Force kids who formed a band in London before moving to LA. Despite their origins, the group established a blueprint that came to define much of the Americana sound of the 70s.

For Alex Simon, Horse With No Name came to define the American desert’s epic mystery. Having established his own sound using a blend of Electronica and Americana, something he dubs Electrocana, this felt like a cover that destined to happen. Describing his thoughts on the song, Alex said:

‘Horse With No Name is an amazing song. It evokes the desert more strongly than any other song in the Classic Rock cannon and of course, it’s got a really catchy tune. Horses galloping, soft harmonies, a lot of open space to play with. A psychedelic desert masterpiece. Living in the desert of the Southwest, in the lands that inspired the song — I’ve always felt such a personal connection to it. It’s been a dusty journey of its own, creating this cover.’

The result is a subtle reimagining, despite the electronics. Simon retains the beautiful vocal layering, performed by himself, together with his wife Gabriella who, fittingly, comes from England. Subtle synth melodies and soft bass establish a canvas for the pair’s performance, together with the odd guitar riff. The result feels like a version of America’s original, cracked by the desert sun and dug out of the sand, modern yet timeless.

In addition to listening in the post, you can find almost all the music BlackPlastic covers on the music player of your choice. Add the dedicated playlist below:

Apple Music

Spotify