Album Review: Double Night Time - Morgan Geist

Some songs sound like a tumble down the stairs into the warm embrace of a brand new lover: they are full of excitement, adrenalin an gimmicks. Others rely much less on tricks and instead focus on quality and longevity. BlackPlastic has two upcoming reviews, with one falling into each of the above categories.

Unsurprisingly, Morgan Geist's new (and to BlackPlastic's knowledge, first solo) album Double Night Time contains songs that resemble the latter template rather than the former. Put it on your CD shelf and it WILL be judging you, your frivolous Ed Banger CDs, that ridiculous Hadouken! album, the fact that you have a secret admiration for the Wombats.

Because, without doubt, this album is too good for you. What you have in Double Night Time is a beautifully crafted body of work. An album where every click, drum pattern and synth line has been carefully considered, fretted over and perfected.

Yet there are the odd duff moments, like on instrumental 'Nocobo' for example, where the ideas just seem to lack the pizazz of the releases of Geist's other project Metro Area. The occasional dry patch is more than made up for elsewhere, however. Following in the footsteps of last year's 'Most of All', which itself features here, many of the songs here feature vocals from Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan. And the result is never less than glorious - 'Detroit' is pure sophistication, shimmying on by like the best lay you never had whilst 'Ruthless City' boasts a minimal approach to pop that shows what you can do with a bass line, a bit of synth and a few snippets of the right vocal. Greenspan's vocals are just made for this shit - the subtlety of the instrumentation complimenting perfectly the understated nature of his voice.

Yet despite how good a combination Geist and Greenspan make, Double Night Time's best track is completely instrumental, the relaxed yet haunting 'Lullaby'. Minimal and intelligent, it largely reflects what makes Geist's music great on the whole. The trumpet that carries the melody through to the album's finish is a fitting end to an set that sparkles.

BP x

Album Review: Notwave - Various

The DFA still effortlessly piss all over all other record labels in the cool stakes just like your best friend's cooler older brother did when you were eleven. No matter how much they try, no other label quite manages to nail the maturity combined with experimentalism of a DFA release. Notwave sees them team up with Rong Music to revisit the NY No-Wave scene of the late seventies...

...Only instead of peddling some cuts from thirty years ago we get a fresh batch from current artists. With the exception of a cut from James Chance and the Contortions, one of the bands actually present for the original movement, these bands are drawing inspiration from a scene that passed away years ago but the tracks themselves are all bang-up-to-date.

So you get some nice, spikey, angular rock like the muted 'Unwelcome Guest' from Quad Throw Salchow and Freshro's dark and sexualised cover of Spoon's 'I Turn My Camera On' that just make great, intelligent, pop records. Tim Love Lee turns in two mixes in the form of the free-falling 'No Search No Entry' by Striplight and Circuits' 'Pistols at Dawn'. The former sounds like Republica re imagined as a post-punk roller coaster whilst the later is a throbbing crescendo to a climatic vocal call that results in the record descending into a tribal rock breakdown. Both are utterly fantastic.

Notwave is the DFA's best compilation in ages, possibly ever. Streamlined and beautiful, it boasts a fantastic atmosphere that drags the listener through more sounds, places and genres than you could find in most entire record shops. From clipped dub workouts like Tussle's 'Elephants Meandering' to the dark and evil re imagining of the Peter Gunn theme that is Welcome Stranger's paranoid 'Smoke Machine', Notwave is never less than exhilarating.

BP x

Album Review: Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke

More music from down-under on the Modular imprint only this time it is from New Zealand and takes the form of shimmering pop music courtesy of Ladyhawke's eponymous début.

Capturing the dreamy melodies of Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac and combining them with an accessible pop asthetic, Ladyhawke should be your brand new favourite pop-act (file her next to Robyn, Annie and Roisin Murphy). Join in choruses are aplenty ('My Delerium', 'Better Than Sunday') but where the album really hits is when the 80s vibe that permeates the likes of 'Another Runaway' and 'Back Of The Van' is ratcheted up a notch - check out the former's jogging-on-the-spot beat or the latter's fantastic "You set me on fire" chorus.

This is another album that really clearly demonstates what pop music should be: fantastic, catchy and beautiful. As Britney unleashes another turd onto the charts (sorry, the guys at Pop Justice are just wrong about this one) and X Factor gains its stride for another pre-Christmas FOC prime-time three-month ad campaign you can be damn sure that Blackplastic will be recommending this to as many people as possible. BlackPlastic is thinking that more thin, whiney, neutered, thinks-it's-terribly-risqué-but-in-reality-it's-terribly-tame, mass-produced pop is the last thing we need.

Yes, the state of the music industry pisses BlackPlastic off. Yes, it's always been shocking but that doesn't make it easier to swallow, especially when the labels are more clueless than ever and the model is coming apart at the seams. And so, to the idiotic people who saddle up to make another fame-starved middle-England loser a 'Christmas' number one (don't even get BP started on what is wrong with such a notion) BlackPlastic says:

You set me on fire.

x

Album Review: Nights Out - Metronomy

Metronomy are fast being built up to be the new dance act it's okay for skinny jeaned kids to like and at times it has seemed that Joseph Mount is in danger of failing to live up to the hype. First album Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 You Owe) was charming in places and benefitted from a lo-fi asthetic yet it lacked direction and failed to feel distinct, stuck as it was, somewhere between Basement Jaxx and Zongamin.

With a line-up now been bolstered by the introduction of new members Oscar Cash and Gabriel Stebbing and the criticisms levelled Pip Paine do not hold true for second album Nights Out. Much more of an album proper than Metronomy's debut, Nights Out is actually in danger of being a concept album and features some proper vocals, narrating the progression and destruction of a relationship. Hear a snatch of Metronomy and it sounds disposable and meaningless and yet, within the flow of an album, it is clear there is some emotional depth.

The path from the initial heady excitement of 'Radio Ladio' (probably BlackPlastic's favourite song title this year) and 'My Heart Rate Rapid' through to the commiserations of 'Heartbreak' and the eventual soul-searching of 'On Dancefloors' plots a clear story and it is never less than totally believable. And at the same time the songs are so catchy you will be attempting to hum tiny snippets of electro for hours after the album has finished.

The frank and very British vocals combined with an eclectic and confident penchant for demolishing genre boundaries in the most radio friendly manner possible mark Metronomy as the new Streets for these wonky electro times, only better.

BP x

Tags: metronomy

Album Review: Dear Science - TV On The Radio

TVOTR's last album, Return To Cookie Mountain, quickly became an all time favourite for BlackPlastic. The combination of occasional falsetto vocals, Prince style production and Pixies aggression combined to create something beautiful and at the same time cutting edge. It has been noted elsewhere that the change from the original demo of the album to the finished product saw the order of the tracks rearranged and as a result the final prpduct was no longer opened by the thrashing 'Wolf Like Me'. Instead that duty was given to the brooding 'I Was A Lover'. It was a wise decision that in one step re-focused the album into something more considered, honest and passionate. Despite the fact that 'Wolf Like Me' is without doubt an album highlight it is debatable whether the album would stand-up as the classic it is now regarded as had that change not happened.

So onto Dear Science, TVOTR are back and they are clearly more ambitious as ever. From the opening fuzz and "ba, ba, ba ba ba" vocal through to the overtly sexual album closer, 'Lovers Day', Dear Science is a grown-up and complex record.

There are moments of tenderness, even if they are somewhat doomed, in the form of the synth backed 'Crying' and the ballad (yes, ballad), that everyone is already talking about, 'Family Tree'. Yet there are also times of aggression, whether it is directed internally or externally or, quite possibly in the case of 'DLZ', both.

Dear Science also features a constant struggle between positivity and angst. Lead single 'Golden Age' tries to paint a picture of a utopia just around the corner yet it is difficult to tell whether it is optimism or delusion that is driving singer Tunde Adebimpe's vocals. Similarly 'Dancing Choose' is certainly upbeat and could be considered positive, if only purely in a self-serving way that recalls the principles of survival of the fittest.

So Dear Science is the perfect soundtrack to our post-millenial times. Times that see extreme weather and financial patterns that appear to simultaneously signify an end but also a new start at the same time. This is an album that pulls in multiple directions, then, yet it still makes sense as a whole.

In terms of sound this is clearly a band at the top of their game and to say David Sitek's production continues to impress would be a gross understatement. In all honesty BlackPlastic misses some of the additional electronic touches and hip-hop influences of Return To Cookie Mountain yet it is hard to argue that this is anything but great and for those first discovering the band Dear Science easily stands out as a career highlight. It says much of Return To Cookie Mountain that it continues to remain one of BlackPlastic's most-played albums despite the fact that the follow up is now here. Many are already proclaiming TV On The Radio as the new Radiohead, if only in terms of scale and ambition rather than sound. Upon hearing the sheer number of ideas packed into the space of an hour for Dear Science it is impossible to disagree.

BP x