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Thankfully a new album is on the way - entitled It's All True it will come out on Domino on 20 June 2011 but Domino are giving away album track 'ep' now. Head over and give up your email address to check it out.
'ep' is classic Junior Boys stuff - sun kissed vocal melodies and warm synths, it's kind of pointless to resist and whilst it doesn't suggest much of a departure in terms of sound it definitely has me excited for the album.
BP x
Originally Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap's DJ Kicks album was apparently due to be a 'versus' style affair but the respective duos obviously felt too much mutual love to compete and instead what we have is a four-way collaboration.
And the love here speaks volumes - this is a flirty, youthful house mix. Both Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap have been on the verge of greatness for some time - with increasingly regularity BlackPlastic will hear a lush slab of disco house somewhere only to go on to discover it is one or the other (or both) of the pair. This DJ Kicks installment seems destined to push them further into the collective consciousness.
Short-skirted and irrepressible, this is an album a little impossible to resist. It's not perfect - there are times when it feels like it's playing you for time... Just like a girl drawing out the thrill of the chase there are some spacers here - the equivalent of deliberately unanswered phone calls or text messages that never get replied to, the odd track just feels like a waste of time and the programming is so flawless it can become a little sterile. But like the heady days of a blossoming relationship the overall experience feels exciting enough to forgive the artists involved - from blissful ambience of opening intro 'My Man's Gone Now' this is a remarkably considered album.
Things are at their best when everything goes a bit twisted and paranoid. Soul Clap's 'Lonely C', featuring Charles Levine, is alienated and distraught (check out the download below) - making the huge, fat bassline of H-Foundation's 'Tonight' all the more welcome when it arrives. And this isn't a mix afraid to drop the bpm and get sleazy - Nicholas Jaar (whose album we reviewed earlier this week) seriously messes with mix album conventions on his tribal and dubby 'Don't Believe The Hype'.
Zev's 'We All', featuring Greg Paulus, is one of the real standout moments, with a collection of warm acid lines and big empty snares encircling the listener, but it is Benoit & Sergio's fairly messed up 'Walk And Talk' that steals the show. A big, warm tech-house monster - it's the most beautiful song about having a ketamine addled girlfriend BlackPlastic has ever heard. Yes, really.
Occasionally caught out by it's own attention to detail it may be, but when Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap's DJ Kicks album dares to let the chips lie where they fall, as one should with this sort of collaborative effort, it manages to hit all the right notes.
As a taster, download 'Lonely C' by Soul Clap featuring Charles Levine here [right click, save as].
BP x
Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap's DJ Kicks album is released on !K7 on 15 March, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].
Well the single isn't out for a few weeks yet but the good news is that the song itself is available as a free download now. The single will be backed with the track 'Tan Man' on the 7", the download will feature remixes from Peaces, Database, Yojimbo and Get People when it drops on 22 November .
BP x
A couple of weeks ago BlackPlastic reviewed the Whiskey Priest's new album Wave and Cloud, taking time to specifically highlight how bloody lovely the tune 'If a Train Was a Doctor Was a Song' is.
Well good news for you - the label Rainboot have offered the song up as a free download on Soundcloud. You won't even need to part with any data. BlackPlastic can't over-emphasise how good this is so take the opportunity to have a listen and then go and buy the album.
BP x
File this under ice-cold mechanical soul, then, for that's what it is. The may be angst and pain here but it is the kind painted over with a coat of lead - the emotion buried beneath a protective suit of cold electronics. If anything this exceeds the quality Pollyn demonstrated on their debut single and is an encouraging taster of the album, although if the current trend continues they might end up making Ian Curtis look like an optimist - here's hoping their is a little more emotional variety on that album itself.
As with 'Give It Up' the remixes shine. Hip-hop producers Sid Roams (who have previously worked with Jean Grae and Dilated Peoples) turn in distortion heavy affair that sits somewhere between hip-hop and industrial-soul, suiting the track perfectly and probably providing the highlight out of the remixes. French beatmaster dEbruit turns in a stuttering broken-beat effort that ditches the vocal but keeps the atmosphere. Finally Blue Daisy envelope the whole track in a disorienting, dubby sound that gradually fractures under the emotional weight of the track, giving a climax reminiscent of Four Tet.
Download 'Still Love (Original Mix)' [right click, save as]
Download 'Still Love (Sid Roams Remix)' [right click, save as]
Download 'Still Love (dEbruit Remix)' [right click, save as]
Download 'Still Love (Blue Daisy Remix)' [right click, save as]
BP
Pollyn's debut album This Little Night is out now, available on Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link]
