Listen: In The Night — Soma

May 21, 2021 in stream

Stockholm-based musician Soma last appeared on these pages last year with her effervescent single, Slow, which energetically portrayed the experience of cautiously moving on from someone.

What struck me about Slow was the way it still felt like it hinted at possibility and hope, whilst dealing with a topic that ultimately invokes sadness. In a sense, In The Night picks up where that song left off, in that it shimmers with an excited sense of possibility. Where Slow was about letting go and moving on emotionally, In The Night is a tribute to humanity, and more specifically our bodies. Describing the song, and the significance of its release now, Soma says:

“This is a song I’ve had with me for the past 3 years. It has seen many phases, several different productional styles and finally found its form on the cusp of the pandemic that we’ve all come to know so well. In March 2020, I made the decision to put the release on hold. At a time when the world was, and still is, struggling to cope with deep shock, friends and family members losing their jobs, and some their health and lives, a song that so brutally celebrated the body felt like a sin.

“Today, the same song that started out as a catchy tune with no remarkable depth, is nothing short of a tribute to our magnificent human bodies. Big or small, confined or free to move, in pain or in bliss, our human bodies are the containers and the pure expressions of life-stories. From our nearly unbearable intergenerational trauma to our secret one-night-stands.”

In The Night is the first track Soma has produced herself, and comes in advance of her upcoming EP, Make Me Human. Check it out below:

Listen: Slow - Soma

May 19, 2019 in stream

Slow is the second single to come from Stockholm based musician Soma. Whilst this is actually a break-up song, it positively bursts with an infectious form of excitement. If this is a break-up song then it surely depicts the kind of break-up where you still can’t help but feel head-over-heels with the person you are having to face moving on without.

Soma and her collaborators wanted to try and keep the feeling of their original demo and so managed to avoid polishing it too much, and the result is a track that reeks of Prince, in a rather wonderful way. It boasts bold melodies, some lovely analogue sounding 80s bass and the kind of snappy, treble-heavy pop sensibilities you just don’t get these days. There is also a wonderful gospel moment towards the end, a bridge that sees the majority of the instrumentation drop away so the vocals can really shine. In addition to Prince, this reminds me of Nenah Cherry... The same energy that makes Buffalo Stance one of my all-time favourites is audible here.

Slow is one of those songs that I just can't stop listening to - a pleasure to receive and one of those tracks I just can’t help but want to share. Check it out below:

Album Review: Turntable Technology - Pablo

November 05, 2009 in album review, review

You don't know it but, if you are a 18 to 35 year old male at least, there is a good chance you are already familiar with Pablo's work. Having been responsible for the incidental music in Grand Theft Auto IV BlackPlastic had certainly heard an hour or so of his work before ever even hitting play on Turntable Technology.

The link is not obvious though. Only on the dramatic instrumental sounds of 'Rooftop Chase' does Pablo's soundtrack ability really come to the fore, although we have to concede it is a better effort than anything in Grand Theft Auto's incidentals.

Turntable Technology is a dizzying album. Two discs - the second of which is completely instrumental (featuring some tracks from the first, along with some original pieces) - and a massive 27 tracks. Frankly there is simply far too much content here to get to grips with. Recalling the turntablism and instrumental hip-hop of early Shadow, producing a record of such length is an interesting (if misguided) approach for a genre that normally focuses on playing as much as possible at once rather than dragging things out.

Inevitably the result is ultimately flawed, but it is perhaps brilliantly so. There is simply too much filler. The opening title track introduces the album's main theme - turntablism itself - through a stale monologue describing the features of a record player. Like we have never heard that trick before. It's old and tired before it has even begun and to make matters worse it's a trick the album repeats more than once. So far so yawn.

Yet elsewhere things aren't just good, they are great. 'The Story of Sampling' mixes together more raps than you would think you could recognise into one flow that genuinely works. But Turntable Technology is at its best when it abandons it's hip-hop roots as on 'Music Maestro' and the truly beautiful closing track to disc one, 'High Jazz'. Not since Shadow's first album and the Avalanche's epic Since I Left You has BlackPlastic been quite so spellbound by sample-based music.

The instrumentals on disc two are somewhat pointless when the originals are so close and they give the album a thrown together feel, which risks undermining the work that has gone in to this release. There are stand out moments from the unique tracks not featured on disc one however - the closing couplet of 'Journey's End' and 'Reincarnation' being prime examples.

Turntable Technology suffers from failing to be as clever as it thinks it is - less would certainly have been more - but the highlights are enjoyable enough to ensure the error is accepted, if not overlooked. It needs re-sequencing and editing but there is without doubt at least one album's worth of quality tunes here.

BP x