Eaux - Plastics

Eaux
Plastics
2 June 2014
ATP Recordings

4 stars out of 5

London trio Eaux introduced Plastics to the world back in June of this year, and I'm just getting around to listening to it now. Oops. That's two months of my life that I lived in ignorance of this great record, two months that could have been so greatly enriched by listening to wonderful music created by Sian Ahern, Stephen Warrington, and Ben Crook. This is dark, noisy electronica, created through improvisation and jamming, with a minimum of programming, and it's fantastic.

Despite not being pop music, just beneath the surface of these raging waters lurk some sweet vocal melodies (“Head”), reminiscent of A Sunny Day in Glasgow. “Movers and Shakers” resides somewhere between Jon Hopkins and HTRK, but far noisier than both. “Peace Makes Plenty” ends like an Einstürzende Neubauten junkyard breakdown, while “Sleeper” features percussion which doesn't want to play nice at all, skipping gleefully all over different tempos. Throughout all of it Eaux maintain an enduring sense of play and fun, no matter how dark and harsh the music may become.

Taken as a whole, Plastics is a record to be reckoned with, though each track stands well enough on its own to be considered a whole in itself, although Crook claims that Eaux's songs are “never finished, just abandoned.” Each track is a dense forest of complications, and you can't rely on Google Maps to show you the way out. This is a good thing, as Plastics is a place you won't want to leave for quite a while.

reviewed by Richard Krueger