Plastic Fuzz - Plastic Fuzz 6 EP Review

Plastic Fuzz
Plastic Fuzz 6
EP Review

Continuing in the growing trend of one man bands comes Mark Shahid, aka Plastic Fuzz, a guy who to date has recorded six EPs and an album containing 100 songs. Whether or not he’d intended them all to be unleashed as part of one supermassive collection is anyone’s guess, but from the four cuts here on ‘Plastic Fuzz 6’ – yes, you’ve guessed it, EP number six – he sounds an interesting proposition that could definitely be worth keeping an eye on in the future.

Hailing from Leeds – and sounding not too dissimilar to fellow West Yorkshireman Napoleon iiird – Shahid mixes bedroom electronica with tales of everyday life no matter how humdrum the subject matter appears on the surface. What that means then is you get songs such as ‘The Lights Keep Dancing’ and ‘I Saved The World From Bradford’ that seemingly sound too tongue-in-cheek to take seriously but coupled with the Casio beats and oh-so-sincere vocal stylings, actually make it impossible not to become endeared with, and duly ensure that the further works of Plastic Fuzz are checked out in due course.

With a hand-printed (and painted) sleeve, mostly in garish fluorescent pink and a mysterious line in sloganeering (“Plastic Fuzz is a collective group of musicians who make music for leisure purposes” screams the front page of his website in an almost too-cool-for-school mannerism), you’d be forgiven for half expecting this to be a messy attempt at bedsit humour done wrong by someone longing to re-enact his student days, and yet, as if against the forces of nature, it works surprisingly well.

Despite having released so many songs to an as-yet unaware audience for the past couple of years, on the evidence of this EP, one suspects it won’t be too much longer before Mark Shahid and Plastic Fuzz’s profile is raised significantly. One to watch? You bet…

7/10
Dom Gourlay