NIM – 28th August 2020
The lockdown music mania doesn’t stop, and Plan Pony’s second single crash-lands with the added clout of being released via new US-based DIY label NIM. It’s self-recorded, mixed and mastered, because needs must and all that, and it’s so very representative of how musicians are adapting to things as they are: you can crush culture, kill the means of production, and kill people’s livelihoods, but you can’t stifle creativity in the long term.
Plan Pony, the experimental noise project of Jase Kester has emerged from the dark swamp of time that is the interminable blur of time that has been the majority of 2020, and ‘Slaaab’ b/w ‘Oder Manno’ follows June’s debut, ‘Martyr’.
‘Slaaab’ is a dirty chunk of whirring industrial, murky beats thump against a rumbling mess of dingy low-end; not a bassline as such, more a creaking growl that registers in the lower colon, while above it all, a quavering modular synth sound hovers and hums like a warped siren. Its focus is heavily rhythmic, and it’s quite hypnotic in an uncomfortable, queasy way.
Primitive drum machine sounds and a squelchy looped bass, paired with short vocal samples, give ‘Oder Manno’ an almost hip-hop feel, but there’s a whole load of extraneous noise going on all over everything and the tempo’s all over, and the vibe is very much reminiscent of the first couple of Foetus albums. It’s a bit of a headfuck, of the best kind.
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Coinciding with the single’s release, Plan Pony will be appearing on Isolated Mess 2 on Friday 28th August, performing a collaborative set with midlands-based noise artist Oldman Disgusting. Details of the stream can be found here.
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Aural Aggravation 