review

Album Review: Space Is Only Noise - Nicolas Jaar

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Nicolas Jaar just made something indescribable. Space Is Only Noise isn't techno, but it feels a little bit like techno. In fact, it isn't really dance music at all yet it is routed in Jaar's earlier experimentation, but the songs themselves feel like they have got all twisted up inside his head. Imagine one of Ricardo Villalobos' most off the wall efforts, give it enough rope to hang itself and then watch it take it and simply run away.

This is music for listening to. Not dancing, working or talking against. BlackPlastic put this on in the office to the visible frustration of colleagues - the beauty is in the detail and the texture and in in anything but centre stage it just doesn't work.

But give it room and Space Is Only Noise can blow your mind. Jazz flourishes and four-four kicks and spaced out, warped vocals make this a strange varied listen. Space Is Only Noise is an appropriate title - just like on James Blake's recent debut this has bags of the stuff, and a lot of the time it is the space that defines the sound. In fact just about everything that James Blake just did for dub step Jaar does here for techno.

At it's best the tracks come together to make something brilliant, confusing and startling. 'I Got A Woman' feature one simple broken beat and various instruments seemingly falling apart whilst a looped soul vocal repeats the song's title. It doesn't sound like much - indeed it isn't - but it manages to capture a strange feeling, with the vocalist seemingly conveying disdain at his apparent emotional attachment.

'Balance Her In Between Your Eyes' snaps and crackles with jazz piano samples and snatches of soul to beautiful effect before transforming into 'Trace', which sounds like little more than a band sound check as an interlude. And that says a lot about this album - these aren't songs so much as pieces or movements. Each intriguing and beguiling in equal measure, but it comes together as a magnificent body of work reminiscent of some of Eno's mist experimental moments.

The title track is the album's real standout moment. Slinky, loose and paranoid, Jaar's vocals sound like the ravings of a man losing his way through his own mind. Uttering about his subject's past habits of checking the weather and the time. BlackPlastic has no idea what any of it is about (people's tendency to change no matter how much we may wish they wouldn't?) but it works. Gradually a strummed bass becomes the only dependable aspect of the song as everything else descents into glorious chaos before it all comes back to kick your arse with it's bouncing bass line.

Space Is Only Noise is an album of atmospherics and it pursues pure sound and feeling at the expense of all else. Frankly it's an astounding listen.

BP x

Space Is Only Noise is out now on Circus Company, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: Zonoscope - Cut Copy

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Cut Copy's sophomore record, In Ghost Colours, was BlackPlastic's favourite album of 2008. Under the watchful eyes of ex-DFA producer Tim Goldsworthy it seemed that everything the Cutters touched turned to gold. Where debut album Bright Like Neon Love was all glittering pop hooks with the odd post-punk muted guitar the follow up was smeared in a veneer of melancholic synthesisers and seemingly sprinkled with cosmic space dust. Whereas ...Neon Love felt contemporary, In Ghost Colours still sounds like Tusk-era Fleetwood Mac who somehow got stuck in the future with no way of returning. For many, it redefined the reference points - those albums that serve to inspire contemporary musicians. In other words In Ghost Colours is pretty much timeless.

Now Goldsworthy is gone - the question is whether the magic is still there.

One thing is definite - Zonoscope makes a very good first impression. Starting with a trio of killers - 'Need You Tonight', 'Take Me Over' and 'Where I'm Going' - it is difficult not to be won over very early. If you are a fan of the band you are likely to have heard two of these already and both wear Cut Copy's influences on their sleeves - 'Take Me Over' was the Men At Work-esque first single off of the album and 'Where I'm Going', which is even more reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac than anything on the last album, was given away as a free download last year.

Both of these tracks are great but 'Need You Now' still somehow manages to blow them away - a dough-eyed new-romantic-on-MDMA-ballad, the bass pulses along with excitement like a racing heartbeat amid rolling drum breaks and a soaring chorus. It is without doubt the best thing we have heard from Cut Copy yet.

As openers go this almost feels mis-judged. Slamming two singles and an obvious future single right up front leaves the rest of the album feeling slightly askew. Couple that fact with closing track 'Sun God', a fifteen-minute Moroder-esque epic and the first couple of listens to Zonoscope can feel a little deflating. The highs are just so goddamn high that they either make the record's middle third feel somehow less worthy or the highlights themselves end up feeling gimmicky.

But as is often the way with Cut Copy, these are songs that crawl up inside your brain gradually, to the point that you can't imagine a time without them. And they rapidly become as important as the record's more obvious highlights. 'This Is All We've Got' and 'Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat' are better than most tracks on In Ghost Colours whilst 'Alissa' is a fantastic return to that record's dream-like aesthetic. And 'Blink And You'll Miss A Revolution' deserves a mention simply for having the most timely song title of any release, ever.

Several sites, including Pitchfork, have already commented that Zonoscope is more of an album than In Ghost Colours, on the basis that the latter is more a collection of jams than a cohesive whole. BlackPlastic isn't so sure - Bright Like Neon Love was a collection of pop songs, In Ghost Colours a statement of intent. Zonoscope feels no more album like than its predecessor and there are occasional transitions within the first four tracks that feel almost clumsy.

But the songs themselves are certainly as good as any of those Cut Copy have released to now, if not better. This will be the album that divides the hardcore cutters fans from the mainstream - the former might claim this album loses the focus and understatement the band once had, the latter will probably just enjoy the songs. Neither view is wrong - Zonoscope is In Ghost Colour's equal but it doesn't feel as important. This is undeniably another evolution but it doesn't feel like it will change the old records people view as cool, something In Ghost Colours certainly did. Instead it just further reinforces Cut Copy as one of the greatest dance rock bands of our time. And that can be no bad thing.

BP x

Zonoscope is out now, available at Amazon.co.uk on CD, Deluxe CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].

Album Review: James Blake - James Blake

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When we reviewed James Blake's Klavierwerke EP last year one track really stood out for us - 'I Only Know (What I Know Now)' - due to it's minimal approach. The hype machine has been running at full tilt since that EP dropped and Blake's first single-proper from his self-titled debut, a cover of Feist's 'Limit To Your Love', created a bit of a watershed moment.

Fact: James Blake no longer makes dub-step. Actually BlackPlastic would argue he never really did. There are those that see the result as a commercial betrayal of the scene and there are those that see the resulting change in direction as far more innovative and exciting than what would have been possible if Blake had continued to focus on one specific genre. This album definitely puts this reviewer in the latter camp.

'I Only Know...' boasted a beautiful, raw understated approach to production and that same approach runs like a seam throughout this whole album. It is so distinctive that it almost feels like a concept.

And at times the result is truly, utterly staggering. Forthcoming single 'The Whilhelm Scream' is probably the best example. For the majority of the song's five minutes there is rarely more than a couple of things happening at any one time - a vocal runs throughout but besides that there are a smattering of clicks and beats and some soft electronic melodies, the occasional wave of distortion. But there is a point at around three-minutes in which sees the background (the clicks, whirs and distortion) become the foreground and the foreground (Blake's bruised vocal) become the background. It may sound like hyperbole but stick it on through some decent headphones or a good stereo and it is utterly staggering - worth the cost of the album on its own in fact.

And while James Blake may no longer be constrained by dub step that doesn't mean there aren't elements from  that genre here. In fact, the impact of dub step on Blake's song writing and production techniques are writ large across the ambient patterns, ticks and space of all of these songs. It is quite simple: 'The Whilhelm Scream' wouldn't be possible without dub step.

The criticisms are valid insomuch that this is undoubtedly the dub step album for your mum and the auto-tuned vocals innevitably feel a little over used. Everything about Blake's album screams that this is a guy needing to expose his soul but who is afraid to do so - the songs and vocals are deliberately obscured, scuffed and distorted. It is this filter that makes them so interesting yet it is difficult to hear the acapella start to 'Lindisfarne I' without thinking about Imogen Heap and dodgy hip-hop records.

These are minor quibbles though - the 'Lindisfarne I' minimal vocal exists to provide a counterweight to 'Lindisfarne II', where the vocal is set against a jerky folk backing. As Blake sings about people flying too high it almost sounds as though the song has taken its first shaky step out of the nest.

And aside from minimalism it is contrast that this record does best. Take the tale of sibling rivalry that is 'I Never Learnt To Share', which starts with a soulful vocal - "My brother and my sister refuse to talk to me, but I don't blame them" Blake repeats (confusingly he is an only child, leaving the listener to guess at the song's true meaning). By the song's climax there is a heavy bass line and squelchy synth in the front of the mix with the whole thing having seemingly evolved from one extreme to another without you even noticing the joins.

These songs are stripped bare to the point the production would be better dubbed anti-production. The closing few tracks perhaps demonstrate this best - 'Why Don't You Call Me?' jumps around like a distorted memory with the parts all in the wrong place. It puts the idea first and lets it roll around inside your head like the memories you can't possibly leave behind. the more you think about the them the more distorted and oblique they become. Final track 'Measurements' leaves all the tricks at the door, delivering a fairly straight but layered soul number.

More than anything this is just one of those albums you need to have heard and that you need to have an opinion about. Love it or hate it you cannot deny the ambition and because of that we can't wait to see what happens next.

BP x

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

Album Review: Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi

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BlackPlastic recently saw one of those 'hot new music tips for 2011' type things that you often get in earlier January. The publication itself escapes us now and isn't really important but in a slightly back-handed compliment type fashion they mentioned Anna Calvi's 'so hot right now' status whilst simultaneously pointing out the ubiquity of female singer-songwriter's in these lists every year these days.

Which feels like an odd thing to do. It sounds a bit like men can be considered musically important all year round but because a few ladies get a look in for a month something mental must be going on. It can't just be because women might actually be good at making music.

Digression aside, how does Anna Calvi actually stack-up? Pretty well in places actually. Let's dispense with the obvious - Anna Calvi sounds a good deal like PJ Harvey. And BlackPlastic aren't the first people to say so. But more importantly at times Anna Calvi also sounds excellent.
Starting with an instrumental in 'Rider To The Sea' it feels as though Anna Calvi is deliberately challenging the listener so only the patient get rewarded. Stick around and it pays off - 'No More Words' is cloying and desperate like being lost inside a dream with someone you can't get out of your head. It's swagger and bravado yet vulnerable at the same time.

'Desire' is exactly the opposite. It reeks of self-assurance - the chorus a triumphant cry of the song's title that sounds like Calvi telling you to take her or leave her. The result is rallying and triumphant. 'I'll Be Your Man' somewhere between the two - at times warped and strung-out yet bound together with a chorus that refuses to be quiet.

BlackPlastic can't help but find the quieter Anna Calvi more intriguing. On 'Morning Light' there are times when Calvi's vocals barely break through the surface tension and the whole thing is very reminiscent of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, sparse and taught and dreamlike. Which is a good thing.

Drenched in bluesy folk vibes and doused in praise Anna Calvi may be but this debut album feels, unsurprisingly, like just that - a debut. There are some great moments here but on the whole it feels like a rather brilliant tribute to other people's ideas rather than an achievement in itself. It just might be the follow-up that really pays off.

BP x

Anna Calvi is out now on Domino, available at Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].