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Song of the day – 427: Planningtorock

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Planningtorock

I’m still playing catch-up here.

It’s not a shoo-in by any stretch of the imagination that I’m going to like something, simply because some of Collapse Board’s finest wax eloquent and passionately about it. We are all very much our own people: at least, I am and that’s all I care about. I was a little put off this, tell the truth, because I was getting kind of fed up with merely following what Brigette’s already written – no one likes a sorry-ass shouty old man gatecrasher, right? – but hey. I came to this by a slightly circuitous route in the end. Someone in Brisbane was telling me I should really get my ass down to the Valley to see this:

This, I’m intrigued by. Not sure if I’m intrigued enough to venture out of my self-imposed exile on a couple of hours sleep – I mean, for fuck’s sake she’s going to be playing close on midnight, and Daniel will be waking up around four hours after that – but intrigued enough to play a few times. Jenny Hval goes under the name Rockettothesky. Nice to see folk dispensing with punctuation altogether in this post-Blackberry age. You can see where this is leading, can’t you? To here:

Man. Played this six times this morning already, and it’s 2pm now. And I still ain’t tired of it. It’s a little Grace Jones, a little Sparks and a whole load sexy and sinuous and glam and itself. I love the synthetic “yeah’s” and the minimal guitar solo. I love the distant rolling of drums and occasional note of piano, the ongoing narrative, the one-second of feedback that could’ve been lifted from The Pop Group’s ‘She Is Beyond Good And Evil’. The menace is playful but it’s still menace and it’s still seductive as all warm leatherette seats.

As Brigette writes (and damn, I wish I could still write):

You might wonder if Planningtorock spent her adolescence locked in her room conducting electrical experiments, building tape loops and listening to Sparks, Kate Bush, Leonard Cohen and loads of classical music. I dunno, but this album did at one point convince me that the saxophone, viola and drum machine were the only essential musical instruments on earth. Plus the song ‘Manifesto’ will make you shake your booty and sing to imagined audiences on the other side of your mirror. Just buy the record God-dammit!  The WHOLE ALBUM IS AMAZING!

The part about shaking your booty and singing to imagined audiences on the other side of your mirror especially.

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