Album Review: The Strange Dreams of... - Paul White

Relative newcomer, Paul White's début album The Strange Dreams of... follows on from a series of singles and an EP from the past year and manages to capture the brilliance of both Jay Dee / J Dilla and DJ Shadow at his most hip-hop influenced, all in one. The result - a cinematic, curious combination of film samples and epic joints is lush.

Stitched together to make up the album are 21 different cuts - all are instrumentals aside from the samples - with White's apparent short attention span resulting in an album structure reminiscent of Dilla's own classic Donuts. The short-form structure suits White's sense of joyful experimentation to a tee and the cut and shut creativity and variety that ensues ensures that the listener gets more than their money's worth.

How else could an album contain the throbbing and paranoid bass-heavy 'Time Wars' and slam it straight into the glorious summertime soul of 'City Bright Lights'? Or feature something as willfully funky as 'The Composer's Soundtrack' and as barking mad as 'Alien Nature' without it just coming off annoying.

What makes The Strange Dreams of... work however is the quality of the production work. Some of the tracks here easily live up to the work of world famous producers and yet Paul White is no household name. Yet. The soaring melodies of 'Burnt By The Sun' could be formulaic but the way they have been cut together with quiet vocals snatches and loose, loose drumming ensures they transcend the work of many better known beat makers.

Album closer 'Can't Sleep Make Music' conveys what it must be like in Paul White's head. BlackPlastic can almost picture him, head so stuffed with good ideas that he can't stop creating.

The Strange Dreams of... then: another self-made record so bloody good it begs the question what the hell the major record labels spend all their time and money on.

BP x

The Strange Dreams of... Paul White is available to stream in full or purchase now from Bandcamp.

Album Review: I'm Going Away - The Fiery Furnaces

The Fiery Furnaces have always felt like a band that like to do things the hard way just for the sake of it. From their days of performing every concert in a different genre-style through to this, their sixth album.

Because individually these song are glorious slices of pop music. 'Drive to Dallas' sounds like the White Stripes at the top of their game - a relaxed soul-country-ballad that descends into a freak-out midway through. Yet BlackPlastic can't help but feel their is too much on I'm Going Away and far too much of it sounds far too similar.

Consumed in sections it is, undeniably, great. If nothing else I'm Going Away proves that The Fiery Furnaces can write some of the best songs about relationships breaking down you will ever have heard. Take the horizontal blues of 'The End Is Near' or 'Even In The Rain' - the song writing is generally strong but as an album it needs a few of the weaker efforts thrown out and replacing with something totally different.

It's a shame because this is a band that have long since demonstrated their aptitude at variety and experimentalism - just take a handful of tracks from different releases and you will experience a wealth of different styles. As a result it almost feels like the Fiery Furnaces are laughing at us the listeners with this one, a classic case of the emperor's new clothes - is there really nothing to this beyond a few blues-soul pop songs or are is BlackPlastic just too dumb to get it?

Regardless, if you are fan there is likely to be enough here to interest you. Unfortunately if you have long been alienated by the Fiery Furnaces' deliberate attempts to be a difficult listen this is not likely to change your mind.

BP x

Out on Thrill Jockey on 24 August 2009. Available for pre-order at Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP [affiliate links].

Album Review: Illusions - Mikas

Totally unrelated to the well-known Mika, Mikas doesn't create campy hit pop music and instead prefers to focus on progressive trance instrumentals made for sunrises on open dance-floors.

BlackPlastic dislikes Mika (sans the 's') so much that almost anything else would be preferable. Illusions - a pleasant surprise then, even if that isn't saying much.

Illusions is actually alright, kinda, provided slightly ambient trance is your thing. It may fall slightly awkwardly down the gap that exists between the cheesy-Radio-One-playlisted-glowsticks-and-dance-anthems-chart-bothering Deadmau5 and a somewhat more sophisticated minimal tech-head like Gui Boratto but there are some moments here if you are prepared to sift.

Opener 'Spirit Emotion Part 2 (Extended)', (and yes, BlackPlastic is very aware of the unironic shitness of the title) is a brooding builder made of twinkling keys and mechanical basslines. 'Haze (Superclub Mix)' is, again, brooding and progressive with enough stabs of acid to make it stand out.

The problem is that Illusions doesn't really do anything new. At all. For every track the manages to capture the listener's attention there is another that passes by without you so much as noticing. So if you loved the slower, ambient stuff that Digweed and Sasha used to play ten years ago then you may find sething you enjoy but for the rest of use there just aren't enough ideas here.

BP x

P.S. Illusions has the worst album cover ever. Like so bad BlackPlastic couldn't face tainting the look of the site with it. Seriously.

Album Review: Beatdown - Various mixed by Scratch Perverts

BlackPlastic always says that if you own just one hip-hop album then it should be the compilation album Hip-Hop Don't Stop: The Greatest. Across two discs Scratch Perverts member Prime Cuts manages to create an inventive mix of pretty much every vital old school hip-hop record in existence. It features some of the best mixing BlackPlastic has ever heard, let alone heard committed to record.

As such BlackPlastic holds a bit of a soft one for the Scratch Perverts and was pleased to slip Beatdown, inspired by the Perverts hosted night at Fabric, into the CD player.

Beatdown: eclectic, knob on, pedal to the floor. This mix certainly isn't backwards in coming forward - there are 37 tracks throughout this 65 minute mix and as a result some great moments are pretty much guaranteed - the Martyn's Heartbeat Mix of Flying Lotus' 'Roberta Flack', for example.

Sadly they are just too few and far between and there is far too much that feels like it is only here because it is currently en vogue. As a whole it's a full on party style mix and Scratch Perverts have made much of the fact that they still play contemporary, current selections, boasting the fact that the mix is modern and has plenty of dub-step...

...So here is the thing: dub-step is whack music for lame-o middle-aged urban wannabees. That includes Burial. Oh, and whilst we are sacrificing the sacred cows of the late 'noughties': Zomby (who features on Beatdown) is shit too.

So ultimately what BlackPlastic is saying is it doesn't matter if the mixing is fab and the track listing 'current': if the tunes don't stack up, they don't stack up. Just because your genre of choice is British and involves breakbeats it doesn't make it any good.  BlackPlastic would take Hip-Hop Don't Stop any day.

BP x

Available now - order on CD on Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].

Album Review: Still Night, Still Light - Au Revoir Simone

BlackPlastic has a whopping crush on the delicate harmonies and wandering Casio keyboards of Au Revoir Simone. They manage to capture the feeling of waking up alone from a dream spent with a loved one whilst sounding like the soundtrack to an un-made Sofia Copolla film (more Virgin Suicides, less Marie Antoinette).

Fundamentally Still Night, Still Light is more of the same but we will let that slide when the same sounds so beautiful. The sound is actually somewhere between the ice-cold tunes of mini-album début Verses of Comfort Assurance and Salvation and the girl geek pop of second album The Bird of Music and it's a haunting position they occupy, whether on the jangly 'All Or Nothing' or the lonely, scared yet brave 'The Last One'.

Still Night, Still Light looms out of the dark like a betrayed friend and steals your heart and favourite t-shirt before running off, only ever to be seen again in the faces of strangers. It's a peculiarly familiar album and the hooks often sound like you have already heard them yet you can't help but still feel touched by the vulnerability - everything feels like it has been made of crate paper an sticky tape, the equivalent of a hand-made Valentine's card: all the more powerful for the fact.

Au Revoir Simone may not be able to get away with sounding so familiar forever. Maybe they will have to change in order to stay fresh. All BlackPlastic can say is grab this and hold it close because if the world damages Au Revoir Simone it is because the world is too rough, not them too soft.

BP x

Still Night, Still Light is out now.  Order it on CD or MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].