Single Review: In For The Kill - La Roux

La Roux rose to fame recently following the appearance of the catchy 'Quicksand' on Kitsuné Maison Compilation 6 and since then they have been garnering significant attention, both of the blogger and mainstream variety.

Now on a major label (Polydor, part of Universal), 'In For The Kill' is the follow up to 'Quicksand' and, if we are brutally honest, it's kind of more of the same. It has the same simple Casio keyboard meets garage-beat sound only with a slightly catchier chorus. BlackPlastic hates to say it but the recent adulation heaped on this band smacks of a certain emperor's affection for nudey outfits in public... And yet they even seem to have made it onto the daytime radio playlists. An album full of this doesn't exactly excite.

What is worth checking out though is what Skream have done here on their 'Let's Get Ravey' mix. Giving the whole thing a dub-step rework gives that vocal more room to breath (even if the sound quality on said vocal seems off, at least on BlackPlastic's iTunes download) but what really takes this mix to the next level is the drum 'n' bass break that hits at the end. It's pure romanticism, a love letter to early nineties rave.

Available at Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3

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Single Review: The Day (We Fell In Love) - Appaloosa

One of the best tracks from Kitsuné Maison Compilation 6 that we never actually mentioned at the time is Appaloosa's The Day (We Fell In Love).  Now it is getting a single release it is definitely worth checking out if you are yet to hear it.

What makes this track so great is the humble beginning - a girl and a piano - that gradually blossoms from a coy ballad into a stirring electronic anthem.  What's so beautiful is that the path of the song is a metaphor for love itself.  It starts out like a relatively simple and innocent feeling yet soon, in the words of Tears For Fears, something happens and I'm head over heels: I never find out until I'm head over heels.

To give you a taster of track in case you haven't heard it here is James Kane's remix (whose talents we have commented on in the past).  James strips away the intro to make the song a little more dance floor friendly but other than that this remix is quite faithful to the original, retaining the feelings of cautious optimism.

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Album Review: Kitsuné Maison Compilation 6 - Various

Like a bunch of angry youths ditching their regular stabby, dull knives for lovely fresh luminous flick knives the new Kitsuné Maison Compilation (that's 6 to you) leaves behind a little (just a little) of the roughness in favour of some lovely hooks. That's right, Kitsuné Maison 6 is dubbed 'The Melodic One', almost like it is a two-dimensional character within a sitcom.

But it isn't two dimensional, is it? No, because it has melody, in the form of Lo-Fi-Fnk's gorgeously downbeat 'Want U' for example, but it also has nastiness - just check out the rather aggressive 'Say Whoa' by A-Trak or Etienne De Crecy's clanging 'Hanukkah'.

Maison 6's best moments see the above two approaches combined. The burst-ear-drum attack of You Love Her Coz Shes Dead's 'Superheroes' is drenched in distortion and melodies and shouts and hooks and it's like going from being 12 to 25 in three minutes. D.I.M.'s remix of Fischerspooner's 'Danse En France' takes the mildly subtle original, douses it in petrol and then spits a fag at it and the result is a bass line to alienate friends and lovers with but a salve is provided in the melodic hook that has been retained for the bridge.

Predictably then it's all rather good and dependable, a bit like PG Tips for nu-rave kids with glowsticks. If you haven't ever bought a Kitsuné compilation this is what to expect: the sound of that cool alt.friend everyone has, six months early. If you have bought one of the previous releases then chances are you actually are that cool alt.friend so you probably don't need this review.

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