Nocturnal, downtempo, electro-hop chill pop. Plastik Joy is a duo of Cristiano Nicolini (Italy) and Fannar Ásgrimsson (Iceland) and this is some sort of combination of ambient, idm, and post-rock. I’d say this sounds similar to Last Days (which was in the a-file recently) and Helios. Mostly lovely, ethereal, blissful, dark, relaxed late-night music. Another quality release from N5MD– all tracks are great. Play this. For fans of Boards of Canada, M83, Funckarma, Bill Cuevas, Eno, My Bloody Valentine. One FCC on track 8.

1. Opens with what sounds like a field recording from a restaurant, hypnotic guitars and stuttering electro-percussion comes in, pleasant, dreamy layers and pianos shroud the track. (4:19)
*2. Distant female vocals behind anxious electro atmosphere with washes of synths. Builds really nicely to a gorgeous, lush climax with strings, cutting percussion, melodic guitar. (4:23)
3. Dark, moody, female vocals are more discernible, dreamy, slow track. (3:41)
*4. Bobby, bubbly electronics loop in the background while prominent bass lays down a lonely riff, spoken-sung female vocals, slowly builds in intensity and layers. Huge electric guitars and drums come in -2:00 left. Dynamic track, and there is lots of feedback for ya in the outro. (6:35)
5. Guitars loop a serviceable riff behind more electro percussion and reverbed dream female vocals. (5:16)
*6. Sad synth pads and effects-laden guitars loop develop a brooding mood, some release comes with drum machine, pianos and faint male vocals. Song slows down and launches back into the lush, melodic groove. (5:59)
7. Male vocals, jingly pianos, sounds a bit like The Postal Service, actually. Handclaps and shimmery textures, but a bit more wandering than poppy. (4:11)
8. Slow acoustic guitar, audible FCC in sample, cymbals whoosh in the background, and layers of synths emerge, whispered Ira Kaplan-esque male vocals. (3:37)
9. Sequenced bass open with guitar feedback, sweet piano comes in, middle is sort of easy listening and wandering…but there is lovely guitar feedback throughout most of this. (7:30)
10. Track 9 bleeds over with skitters, guitars are manipulated while a thumping bass drum is dropped in, feathery female vocals seep in, gets spacey while the percussion goes bonkers. (6:38)
11. Grainy samples set to organ, woodwinds(?), all sorts of weird percussion, glistening synths, outro adds in a hypnotic series of interweaving guitars, whooshing, swirling moments, ringing keys. (6:17)