Watch: Flight Simulator by Antony Szmierek

Following on from his distinctive and cinematic piece, Chalk, featured on BlackPlastic in March, British electronic producer Antony Szmierek is back with new single Flight Simulator.

Szmierek was working as an English teacher at a college for children with developmental needs as his combination of spoken word and cinematic electronic production took off. Initial success led to him collecting the 6Music Artist of the Year award for 2023 following his EP, Poems to Dance To. Having subsequently found further breakthrough success with last year’s album Service Station at the End of the Universe, Szmierek has found exposure through a combination of Glastonbury Festival, Jools Holland, and frequent BBC airplay.

Here on Flight Simulator, the artist paints a picture of fear triggered by humanity’s hubris in the modern age. Snapshots of aeroplanes, whether real, imagined or digital, create a moment of reflection as Szmierek wrestles with the notion of control, responsibility, and fate. The meaning is open to our interpretation — is this a song about a flight simulator, or about the weight of the choices we make in life, and our responsibilities to those that our choices affect?

As with Chalk, Szmierek’s vocals here provide a grounded contrast to the music. His lyrics hit poetic highs, with just the song’s first few lines evoking so much so quickly:

‘And all the birds, they won’t stop laughing at the folly of the human race. Cuz we thought that we were angels We watch particles accelerate. If I can’t land it, then I’ll fuck it Right through my ex’s garage, And when I’m comatose It will be her voice that guides me through the panic.’

Shuffling synth sounds evoke heavenly electronics of Dan Snaith and Fred again.., as Szmierek’s performance is gently embellished with additional vocals from Imogen and the Knife. A video depicts Szmierek, sat over the shoulder of a man attempting to land an aeroplane on a supposed flight simulator, shaking as things begin to go wrong. A message is recorded into a phone as Szmierek dances with Imogen, coloured lights enveloping them, much like Paul Mescal’s character in Aftersun.

Following on from the cinematic grime of Chalk, Szmierek has made something more haunting and beautiful.

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

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Watch: Sick by Nice Boat

With a propulsive beat and grungy bass guitar, Nice Boat’s new single subverts typical genre categorisation.

With a minimal sound that is constructed around a small number of components, Sick reminds me of Death From Above 1979, with a bit of post-punk darkness, and some added garage rock grime. Deadpan vocals and a propulsive drum beat create something threatening and yet also undeniably playful.

Duo Dylan Silver and Mike Thrasher quickly becoming friends following their initial meeting, but there was never a plan to form a band, as Dylan explains:

‘Years went by, and one day Mike sent a beat my way. I figured it was a joke when he said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we were a band?”’

The economical sound the group have is very purposeful, as Mike describes:

‘We try not to think in terms of genre and instead focus on what sounds feel right in a visceral way… and that fits within our minimal instrumentation setup.’

The pair are releasing Sick ahead of their planned debut album, I Don’t Have the Bandwidth, due on 25 September via Slouch Records. The song itself is an intense reaction to a person who represents the potential to hurt or threaten you, or those you care about, as Silver lays out:

‘The lyrics were sparked by a real person from a complicated past, but the feelings reach further than that. I think we can all relate to those fleeting, flickering moments when the thought of someone whose hurt us or hurt someone we love crosses our minds and the idea of them getting hurt doesn’t feel all that wrong. In fact, it feels kinda great.’

Check out Sick below, and look out for the album, I Don’t Have the Bandwidth, in September.

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

Sound Club featured album: Less Than Human by The Juan Maclean

Following on from my recent post about the BlackPlastic hosted club on Sound Club, I wanted to share the write-up that accompanies the current album I'm featuring there. That album is the Juan Maclean's Less Than Human. Check out my write-up below, and head over to Sound Club to listen to the album and join in any discussion.

Coming out relatively early on in a run of what was arguably a golden era for DFA Records, John Maclean’s The Juan Maclean project saw him team up with LCD Soundsystem’s Nancy Whang. Together they have created multiple albums blending elements of house, techno, and electro.

None resonate for me quite like this first album, Less Than Human. Whilst it comprises just nine songs, making up less than fifty-minutes of music, this is an album that occasionally reaches epic proportions. More on that later.

AD2003 is a futurist piece of electronica, synths crash and crisp drums clash on this short intro. Shining Skinned Friend is a fuller illustration of what is to come, however - post-punk influenced drums clatter, deadpan vocals creating a robotic atmosphere, against which Whang’s whispers provide hints of humanity. It is a series layered synths that really provide the song its melodic anchor however, tones weaving amongst soft pads to create a complex, mechanical combination of sounds.

Every Little Thing opens with a clear blue stuttering synth, feeling like we are floating in space. And then Maclean drops a funky as hell bass line - conjuring a retro futurist sound that simultaneously sounds like it is from 1977, and 2037. Tito’s Way is a cacophony of noise - closer to the sort of thing label head James Murphy is known for. Drums collapse into one another, combining with a taut bassline to create a kind of stressful tension.

In my view it is here where the album drops down a gear, before coming back with the softly sanded corners of Crush The Liberation’s synths, a kind of heavenly zero attack melody, that take us back into orbit.

It is the closer, however, that acts as both the album’s, and Maclean’s career, highlight. At 14-minutes long, it represents almost a third of the entire album. Whenever I rave about this song I find many are left feeling cold by it, but there is a subtle beauty to what Maclean and Whang created. The whole album is an experiment in blending humanity with robotics - something that feels even more relevant in our age of AI than it did on release. Maclean’s synths squeak and shuffle, a series of building tones that swirl amongst themselves, exhibiting enough randomness to feel like a synthetic approximation of humanity. It is the combination of Whang, and a series of melodies from a distant piano, that anchor the song. Like a love letter between robot and person, Whang’s vocal gradually shifts from a spoken deadpan deliver to something more vulnerable and human.

“Yeah, there’s something I’ve got to tell you… hey, but I don’t know what to say,” she says, before gradually shifting to sing, “come on over, and dance with me.” It’s like a machine developing consciousness and desire, and altogether it represents an experimental piece of electronic music that is, in and of itself, a commentary on how electronic music contains deep humanity. And in the background is that piano - human, imperfect, yet beautiful.

News: Check out BlackPlastic on Sound Club

About 18-months ago I made a commitment to myself to spend more time listening to full albums — both new, and old. The nature of BlackPlastic.co.uk is that I naturally spend a lot of time listening to singles. If I’m not careful, this can lead to me missing out on the widescreen scope of a great album, and so I made a pact to myself — every week I would try to commit to listening to an album, at least a few times, to get under (or back under) the skin of it. I can’t say I’m always successful — work and family can sometimes take up my time (and realistically, energy and headspace), and I suddenly realise I have gone a week or two without doing it. Still, I listen to more albums than I did a few years ago, and in that sense it has been a successful personal commitment.

A few months ago, I was making a regular trawl of LinkedIn when something caught my eye — someone I used to work with had launched a website called Sound Club, positioned as like book clubs, but for albums. Having browsed the site for a bit, I decided I would start my own club, focused on music released between 2000 and 2010, at the intersection of dance and rock culture. I named it Disco Pogo For Punks In Pumps, honouring the late and great Jockey Slut (though that crew recently went on to launch a follow-on zine, simply called Disco Pogo — it’s great).

Since then, on a semi regular basis, I’ve stuck an album on for the listening pleasure of a small group of followers, and generally written a bit about why I think it is interesting and worth a listen. Sometimes there is discussion, sometimes there isn’t, but I always enjoy re-listening to an album, and writing about it.

This week, my club has been featured by Sound Club, and so I want to share it. I’m also planning to start sharing the posts I make there over here, on BlackPlastic. That serves two purposes — a bit of healthy cross-promotion, but also ensuring the writing both lives on, and helps to highlight albums that deserve to be highlighted once again. The current album on the club is The Juan Maclean’s Less Than Human, and I will share the write-up shortly. In the meantime, go and check-out the club here — sign-up to the site, join the club, and let me know what you think of whatever album is playing at the point when you dove in!

Listen: On My Mind by Carolina Chase

Somewhat unbelievably, On My Mind, is the product of an artist who is just 15-years-old. Hailing from Los Angeles, Carolina Chase began writing songs at the age of nine, before releasing her first collection of music by the age of 12. This latest release comes ahead of Chase’s debut album, Warwick.

On My Mind is an emotive piece of indie pop that sits at the intersection of emotive piano balladry and epic electronic music. With a vocal that evokes the delivery of Lorde, the song’s gentle piano gives way to sounds altogether more intense.

The electronic portions of On My Mind feel like they are the product of Second Toughest of the Infants-era Underworld. With synth stabs that echo those of Born Slippy (Nuxx), things gradually descend into the glitchy, wobbly bass tones put to effect on that album’s Pearl’s Girl. Whether a fifteen-year-old from LA is deliberately channeling the British alt-dance of Underworld is a mystery but, regardless, Carolina pulls together the constituent parts of her song into something remarkably cohesive and effective.

Chase notes that the song is about learning to let go of focusing on what others think, and instead embrace your own sense of self, as she describes:

'I wrote (the song) after I learned the harsh truth that trying to win over people who wanted me to lose would never help me succeed. This song details the journey of letting go of those people, and becoming my own person.’

Check out On My Mind below, and look out for the album, Warwick, in September.

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