Album Review: How To Live - Seeland

Seeland's sophomore album kicks off in spectacular fashion with 'Black Dot, White Spider'. Like hitting the ground running, the percussive krautrock rhythms set the pace for much of what follows.

Which isn't to say How To Live is a krautrock album, sadly it isn't - for 'Black Dot, White Spider' easily stands out as the highlight. But what How To Live does carry from those opening moments is the manner in which it fully embraces melancholy, wrapping itself up in it like a warm blanket.

Electronic music that genuinely captures emotion is relatively rare, that which captures the doldrums even rarer. And Seeland manage it with aplomb. 'Afterthoughts' is a delicious cruise through the uncontrollable feeling that is the wonder of hindsight. Title track 'How To Live' feels like an instruction manual for the lost that proves that, ultimately, none of us really know.

This could all be too much. The album's closer 'Been So Long' ends things on a pean to someone who clearly got away and admittedly if it went on any longer How To Live would be in danger of being suffocatingly down. But this isn't proper depressed music, it's just mildly fed up. And at 35 minutes it actually feels like a perfect little Autumn wallow: put on, get bummed out, then man-up and move on.

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How To Live is released on LOAF on 13 September, available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: Vulgarian Knights - Feindrehstar

Out on German label Musik Krause and distributed via Kompakt, Vulgarian Knights marks a contrast to anything Kompakt would normally get involved in and is a long way from the German minimal you may be envisaging. Whilst there is a swagger in the sound this is about as far from Kompakt's minimal and ambient goodness as you can get.

Vulgarian Knights is actually a collection of funk and soul jams, albeit laced with a slighty dubby and acidic undertone, and is likely to appeal to fans of Jazzanova. At times it feels close to hip-hop but there is always enough pace for this to be an album that will still get people moving. Feindrehstar have actually existed for ten years as a seven-piece acoustic live act - despite this Vulgarian Knights marks their debut album release.

And ultimately it is slightly beard-y exoticism, which is all well and good, but things are at their best when Feindrehstar mix things up a little. Where opener 'Knochenbrecher' feels just a little too formulaic the more playful sound and samples of 'Fete De La Kita' shine much brighter, the break boasting a lovely warm jazzy brass moment. In terms of a modern take on Fela Kuti, it actually reminds BlackPlastic of Common's tribute to Fela, 'Time Travellin'', which in our opinion is high praise indeed.

And Fela is clearly an inspiration - he gets his own dedicated track here in the form of 'Fela Fresh' - and the adventurous freeform approach and use of Afrobeat works well in combination with the uptempo, dance floor friendly sound.

Just short enough that it leaves before it out-stays it's welcome, Vulgarian Knights goes out on a high note - the much more laid back, contemplative lounge jazz of 'Happy Hour'. Letting the music really breath over the first five minutes before diving into a faster tempo. It proves that, actually, Feindrehstar can do it all in one track when they feel like it - and it is a shame they don't a bit more often.

Download Vulgarian Knights (Maxi Version) on MP3 for free [right click, save as].

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Vulgarian Knights is out on Musik Krause on 6 September, available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album review: Wave and Cloud - The Whiskey Priest

As The Whiskey Priest, musician Seth Woods (along with friend Alex "Hooch" Dupree) has managed to make something truly beautiful here. For BlackPlastic, opener 'A Seafarer's Lament' totally captures the feeling of the void that fills the room when the person you love leaves it. It is the sound of a man at the mercy of his feelings - a statement that the way you feel about someone is beyond your control. You would do as well to try and change the seasons or the passing of night and day as you would choose to stop loving someone.

So from the start Wave and Cloud has a level of raw emotional impact that it is simply not possible to ignore. If 'A Seafarer's Lament' is a powerful start to an album then second track 'If a Train Was a Doctor Was a Song' is a small miracle - it manages to calm down the fire in the belly and yet still sports a heart so big on its sleeve the it must almost be physically weighing down Woods down. With an opening line like "If I was a train I would carry you along" it is pretty clear that Wave and Cloud is a gift in the form of music - it feels like Woods would be prepared to give the shirt off his back and more to the subject of his music.

But this isn't an album of passive, yet gutsy ballads - witness the defiant country stomp of 'No Man is an Island (But Me)', where The Whiskey Priest may be left wanting but certainly ain't going to buckle to demands. It's a lovely poke in the eye to the wistful romance the pervades other parts of the album. Similarly 'All The Way Back' feels like a triumphant bar room singalong and you can't help but wish you were somewhere with sawdust on the floor, bourbon in hand and a stage too small for the band's sounds so you could join in.

There has been a bit of a renaissance in recent years in honest country and folk based sing-songwriter music. Some of it is good and some of it bad and some of it just slept-on. Wave and Cloud may well end up being that latter, but one thing is for sure - it certainly wouldn't fit in the second category. This is the kind of honest, and unfussy music that is just to frank and beautiful to not love. If 2008 belonged to Bon Iver, then The Whiskey Priest deserves 2010.

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Wave and Cloud is out on Rainboot today, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].

Album Review: Cosmogramma - Flying Lotus

Sometimes you just have to go back.

BlackPlastic can't be everywhere all at once and that is why we never got around to reviewing Flying Lotus' latest album Cosmogramma. But sometimes an album keeps pulling you back in and that is how it is with Cosmogramma. To pass it by forever more would leave a little itch in the soul.

Flying Lotus is one of those artists that seems to continually expand his horizons whilst still retaining enough focus to make each release different, challenging perhaps, yet still ultimately accessible and magnificent. He once made instrumental Hip-Hop but Cosmogramma could never be so conservatively labelled.

Opening with in-your-face aural-enema 'Clock Catcher', followed by a couple of heavy-set funk numbers it is track four, the Eastern sounds meets soulful strings of 'Intro//A Cosmic Drama', before Cosmogramma shows its true colours. From this point things become increasingly psychedelic - next track 'Zodiac Shit' is a half bass-heavy, half string-laden epic.

The obvious talking point: Thom Yorke's guest turn is actually remarkably subtle - his soulful vocal used sparingly yet worked into the very fabric of the song itself. And more than anything this freeform approach reminds BlackPlastic of jazz. 'Arkestry' is wandering trumpet and rolling drums and it feels like big band gone loco. The result is a little bit staggering.

'MmmHmm', featuring Thundercat, is probably Flying Lotus' most J Dilla moment yet. The first of a run of three beautifully varied but complimentary tracks, joined by funky house-inspired 'Do The Astral Plane' and the blues-y 'Satelllliiiiiiiteee', it marks Cosmogramma's highest point. But there is so much else hear - we haven't mentioned the ping pong sampling 'Table Tennis' featuring Laura Darlington or the dizzy closer 'Galaxy in Janaki', for starters.

Clearly increasingly inspired by his heritage (it's all too often pointed out that Flying Lotus was great-nephew to Alice and John Coltrane), as Flying Lotus gets more experimental his music gets more and more generous. BlackPlastic comes back to Cosmogramma now because it still has so much to say... Every listen feels just a little bit fresher.

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Cosmogramma is out now on Warp, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: Future Balearica - various mixed by FETE

In which people like you and I can reclaim the Balearica tag and the damned whole White Isle for out own.

This isn't one of those compilations you see advertised on TV with Judge Jules providing the voiceover, although to be fair it isn't strictly in keeping with the kitchen-sink-ism kitsch that originally defined Balearic either. Instead it is, as the subtitle suggests, a collection of 'new chill and warm laid back sounds'.

And that pretty much works for BlackPlastic. Occasionally it feels a little deliberately inclusive - slotting The XX's 'VCR' in at track two will certainly help shift units - but actually within the context of the (excellent) mixing it actually works.

So this is a very laid-back mix for daytime lounging and evening warm-ups that would be in danger of feeling formulaic if it wasn't for the fact that enough of the songs are pretty much fantastic. Of the fantastic the most sublime is unquestionably DJ Kaos' 'Love The Night Away', remixed here by Tie Dye it is just the right mix of hippie vocals, retro disco vibes and sunny melodies. Within the context of the mix it works so damn well that it justifies the mix on its own.

Less successful are the slightly formulaic folky numbers that close the mix and Animal Collective as a closing track almost feels a little too obvious but it does the trick.

Future Balearica isn't going to change anyone's perception of chilled out dance music but it certainly manages to do a lot more than many other similar albums. And you can be sure it would sound pretty sublime on the beaches of Ibiza.

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