Plastik Joy (SCQ's Year-End Questionnaire Part IV)

The creators of one of SCQ’s favourite electronica records of 2009, 3:03 merges Fannar Asgrimsson and Cristiano Nicolini's disparaging styles of folk and IDM into something fresh and exciting. These guys listen to a ton of great music (I know because I follow them on Last.fm) and here they discuss some of their favourites.

SCQ: What have been some of your favourite records of 2009? Gush away.

Fannar: Just to name a few I would have to say:

Passion Pit - Manners
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (this one is from 2008 though)
Rules - Whitest Boy Alive
Declaration of Dependence - Kings of Convenience

Cristiano: i have to admit, even if there has been lot of interesting music this year nothing really got me.. i fond myself listening a lot to older stuff.
except a few records not in specific order:

animal collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
fennesz - black sea
telfon tel aviv immolate yourself
sparklehorse + fennesz in the fishtank 15
grizzly bear – Veckatimest

SCQ: Be it from the radio, lost on Myspace or from your roster, what song(s) could you not stop spinning?

Fannar: I can not count the times I have listen to the track 'The Birds' from Telefon Tel Aviv's album Immolate Yourself

Cristiano: 'love sick' by Friendly fires ( i know is from 2008, but .. ) it really makes me happy.. and lately is something i really appreciate

'black sea' from fennesz.. so delicate and dense.. i lost the line and get lost in it almost like a lynch movie. if i put it on loop i don't know when it ends and starts again.

'tunng woodcat' .. really simple song, but someting really goes straight to my stomach.

SCQ: Seldom celebrated but crucial to The Album’s identity is cover-art. Can you offer any shortlist of personal favourites from the past year?

Fannar: Fever Rays debut album titled Fever Ray has a really nice cover art, but I usually don't think as much of the cover art now since 99% of my music consumption is in a digital format.

Cristiano: no, not really. i am a digital music consumer.. and market is going definitely that way.. there is a lot of good thing about it, but for sure one negative is the lack of a packaging and the care for it.

SCQ: When you look back on what transpired this year, what will stand out as your most memorable professional moment(s) of 2009?

Fannar: With out a doubt the release of our debut album 3:03 which for me is the first record I released, so I don't think anything can top that.

Cristiano: releasing the record i suppose //

SCQ: Most of us probably haven’t thought as far as New Years Eve plans but still, looking forward, what do you have on the horizon for 2010?

Fannar: Hopefully a lot of touring with Plastik Joy, we might try to put together a new album as well since we have a lot of raw material to work with. A part from that I am currently working on a more pop-like project that goes by the name Lazy Drums

Cristiano: uuhh.. that is way to far.. ;) i would love to find a proper booking agency and start touring around. would love to move to another city, and know different interesting people. learning better how to play guitar. find some rest somehow...
for sure we will have already lots of songs for a new album, but i suppose will be too early next year to release it.. :/

3:03 - Plastik Joy

3:03

Plastik Joy
n5MD Records.

SCQ Rating: 81%

There’s nothing remotely transparent about Plastik Joy. From first reading their name – which anticipates a hardcore techno group - on n5MD’s mailing-list to hearing their first song ‘Sleepy Quest for Coffee’, I’ve found it difficult to classify 3:03. Perhaps it’s because their debut is occupied by several vocalists and displays a criss-cross of subgenres from electronica’s past decade. Maybe my inability to sort out Plastik Joy arises from the fact that this duo, comprised of Fannar Asgrimsson and Cristiano Nicolini, live and collaborate from different countries. This long-distance partnership, between their respective homelands of Iceland and Italy, has instilled 3:03 with a perfect blend of smooth electronics and folk sensibilities, yet to leave its ambition at that would be a criminal understatement.

Take, for instance, their opener; as shut-in and domestic as its title reads, ‘Sleepy Quest for Coffee’ plays out like a late-night stroll, as if instead of soundtracking a walk to the kitchen, it should be backing an empty grocery store parking lot, peppered by springtime rain. These nocturnal reflections encompass much of the record but each remain fresh under stylistic guises, like how ‘Hands’ utilizes chillout-style female vocals and Alva Noto-inspired cut-ups before introducing live percussion, or how a piano and toybox melody interact with rain-clattered laptop beats and an unfurling wash of noise on ’63 (She was Trying to Sleep, I was Trying to Breathe)’. Convergences of ideas and styles spike with the half-sung, half spoken-word ‘Medispiace’, which abruptly jumps into an electric guitar attack, but iron out with the one-two sequencing of ‘Twenty-Ninth of April’ and ‘Barcelona – Reykjavik’; both emitting an unexpected dose of soft Mogwai-esque post-rock. Although describing the range of these compositions inevitably sounds scattershot and incompatible, 3:03 manages its overflow of ideas by balancing grander pursuits with their dependable folk-glitch instrumentals.

As 3:03 apparently earned its title from the coincidental time most recording sessions came to a close, there are moments where the record risks delving too deeply into shadows (‘Asynchrony of Lives’, ‘True Norwegian Black Metal’) but even then, Nicolini and Asgrimsson are feeding their nightly muse with careful footsteps. The joy of discovering Plastik Joy isn’t catching glimpses of Dntel, Four Tet, Victor Bermon or Finally We Are No One-era Mum, but appreciating how distinctively these audio-engineering graduates have grappled their influences into something at once far-reaching and comforting. Here I’ve name-dropped several successful electronic acts and yet none of them diminish Plastik Joy’s authorship; their traces are felt as spirits only, providing momentary chills throughout this late-night score. One of this year’s more promising debuts.