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PLAN
B
LIKE A SHIP SAILING
PRESS CLIPS
RELEASE
DATE: 12.10.02 RELEASE# L1005
_____________________________________
Reviews
THE
STRANGER: MUSIC:UP AND COMING
Vol 12 No. 2, Sep 26 - Oct 2 2002
http://www.thestranger.com/2002-09-26/up_coming.html
By Charles Mudede
PLAN B, PAPILLON
(I-Spy) Plan B's 2002 CD, Like a Ship Sailing, is better understood
when compared with Land of the Loops' 1996 release, Bundle of
Joy. Both are similar in that they share a fondness for bizarre
samples and beautiful sound effects generated by dusty equipment.
But the differences between the artists (Plan B is James van
Leuven; Land of the Loops is Alan Sutherland) are more instructive.
As with Beck's album Odelay, Land of the Loops' hiphop beats
are separate from and work in counterpoint to the alternative-rock
melodies. Plan B's music has no such division; everything instead
seems organic and indigenous. This is why van Leuven's music
is startling: it's not novel (like Beck's) or experimental (like
Land of the Loops'), but authentic.
_____________________________________
THE SEATTLE P.I.:ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT:MUSIC
Friday, September 20, 2002
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pop/87731_club20.shtml
Down-tempo, downtown
By Joe Ehrbar
Ten years ago, if you were to say we'd all be digging music
made on a simple laptop computer, we (correctly) would have
questioned your sanity. Now, as we all know, the laptop revolution
is in full swing, as clever musicians and DJs, like Seattle's
Plan B, totally reinvent the way music is made.
Plan B, which headlines I-Spy on Thursday (9 p.m.; $6), is a
one-man operation, the product of Automaton drummer James Van
Leuven. On his debut disc, "Like a Ship Sailing" (Luckyhorse
Industries), Van Leuven does its all -- playing the role of
composer, producer, musician, DJ and beat-meister all by pointing
and clicking on his laptop. Characterized by down-tempo grooves
and illbient textures, "Like a Ship Sailing" rides
a similar wavelength to albums made by other laptop impresarios
such as DJ Shadow and Fog or guitarists like Aerial M. And its
greatest strength is its musicality -- the album's songs don't
rely heavily on samples but on the imagination and musicianship
of its creator.
On stage, Plan B is a multimedia experience. Van Leuven, who
alternates between laptop and guitar, incorporates live musicians
-- typically a bassist and horn player -- into the mix, while
animated films are projected on the screen behind them.
_____________________________________
THE LOCAL PLANET WEEKLY:MUSIC
Vol. 3, Issue 37, September 12, 2002
http://www.thelocalplanet.com/Current_Issue/Culture/Article.asp?ArticleID=3161
Sticking to Plan B
Plan B boy James van Leuven takes things into his own hands
and makes some of the coolest West Coast neo-indie experimentalism.
by Jeremy
Hadley
Plan B boy James van Leuven takes things into his own hands
and makes some of the coolest West Coast neo-indie experimentalism.
On paper, Plan B might appear an appropriately titled split
from the norm for Seattle musician James van Leuven: a cleverly-titled
departure from a prolific indie rock career. Despite the catchy
moniker, Plan B is nothing really new to van Leuven. “Basically
I listen to a lot of hip-hop and other electronic stuff and
had been messing around with drum machines for the last six
years. But the drum machines never did it for me. Using the
drum machines straight was too sterile for me. So I wanted to
record myself drumming and then play and record to myself. It
developed from that. I made millions of hip-hop beats that’ll
never get used in my rock band.”
Van Leuven’s recording career began in 1997 with the self-titled
release of the Seattle “rock band” trio Automaton
Adventure Series (now simply Automaton), as the steady percussive
element behind the band’s driving proto-punk indie sound
suitable for Seattle’s weary throng of post-grunge listeners.
Slowly, the band began to carve out a reputation as solid staple
of the Emerald City’s live scene – facilitated by
the band’s tremendous 1999 follow up Futura Transmitta.
Later that year, van Leuven surfaced as the sole male component
to the Punk-pop trio The Sub Debs, formed out of the lush indie
breeding ground of Olympia, WA and K Records. Joining van Leuven
in The Sub Debs was singer/bassist Star Athena (formerly of
The Flying Tigers) and singer/guitarist Jonatha Brooke (formerly
of The Story), which spurned the release of She’s So Control.
The relationship also spurned the development of a Star Athena
solo project, on which van Leuven played several instruments
and stumbled upon the core elements of the Plan B project. “I
got some software and started messing around with it [on the
Star Athena record]. We did that as a duo project and I ended
up playing all the drums and a lot of the keyboards and guitars.
Through that process I learned how to use ProTools. That was
the first record when I really played guitar or frankly anything
other than drums.” On the lo-fi punky K Records release
Popsicle Summer, van Leuven tackled drum, bass, guitar, keyboard,
backing vocals, engineering and production duties.
Out of the project came newfound confidence and drive, remembers
van Leuven. “I just decided that I was going to record.
I knew I had all these ideas and all these things I could do,
I just needed to pick a time to do it.”
But the “rock band” thing came back into play first.
In early 2002, van Leuven directed his productivity back into
Automaton, resulting in the bands’ third release, Clarions
and Banners. The release stands as the trio’s best offering
to date, rationing out tight, atmospheric slabs of progressive
and discordant technological rock.
In August of 2001, van Leuven turned his attention back to the
concept of recording his own album. For nearly a month, van
Leuven says he spent nearly every day in Automaton’s practice
space recording what would eventually become the first Plan
B release.
With the release of Like a Ship Sailing on September 3 of 2002,
Plan B finally emerges on record, documenting van Leuven’s
personal dictatorship of sound that remains congruent with the
concept of freedom and individuality but devoid of democratic
composition. “Now it’s just my project, and I feel
more like I’m the producer or a conductor. I’m very
excited about that — as well as the venue approach. Now
I can play in a fucking café. I can’t do that with
a loud-ass rock band. The music I make is just the music I make.”
However, van Leuven says he still doesn’t have much control
over how the music eventually sounds. “I don’t seem
to have a whole lot of control over what it sounds like.”
Which seems reasonable considering most of the music on Like
a Ship Sailing is shapeless in direction, but defined in output.
Playing the mutual role of electronic composer and director
from behind a laptop, van Leuven creates emotive electronic
textures via an array of influences — indie rock, hip-hop,
electronica, jazz, and be-bop — best described by the artist
himself as a melting pot of “basement studio music”
— an apt description of both the Plan B process and sound.
“I played all the drum tracks except one on a ‘60s
Ludwig three-piece drumset and then mixed in ProTools. The bass
is a F60 VOX mini bass that I borrowed from my girlfriend. On
the song ‘Love,’ I used a Casio keyboard. A lot of
the background keyboard sounds are a Roland Juno 106. Wow, I
don’t even know what kind of guitar I have — it’s
a piece of shit. It’s not even worth mentioning. The funny
thing about the guitar is that I have to stand [with the neck]
in a right angle so it doesn’t make buzzing noises. If
I move just two inches in any direction the thing just starts
buzzing. Or I have to sit way across the room from the recording
equipment so it isn’t buzzing all crazy.”
Save two trumpet tracks from friend and Automaton collaborator
Bill Jones, Plan B is entirely under van Leuven’s rule.
But live, Plan B is a completely different entity — a break
from the static perils of a traditional rock act — with
van Leuven dancing (busting break-dance moves is a staple of
the Plan B live act) behind his laptop, manipulating recordings
of himself on the drums, bass and guitar with the accompaniment
of a live standup bass and trumpet and a breakdancer or two.
“I believe in putting on a show,” says van Leuven
of the unique setup. “Some people in indie rock bands go
out and have their back to the audience and just wank on the
guitar. There’s not really any point to that. You might
as well just be listening to the record at home.”
Visually, van Leuven matchesPlan B’s sonic moods with the
projection of original animation videos, easily making Plan
B one of West Coast neo-indie experimentalism’s best —
and only — acts.And van Leuven is quick to point out onedifference.
“Visually, I’m not into the technobent-out, fractalgeometry
art shit. I don’t want it to look like a kaleidoscope.I’mreally
into the 2-D animation aesthetic. A lot of thecartoons that
weshootare made in Flash and because they’re 2-D, they
sort of have a Japanese feel tothem. The images — landscapes
and characters — are moving around accentuating the motion
of the songs. ”
_____________________________________
THE STRANGER: MUSIC:
Vol 11 No. 50, Aug 29 - Sep 4 2002
http://www.thestranger.com/2002-08-29/music2.html
BREAKIN' AND ENTERING
Plan B Fuses Hiphop with B-Boy Skill
by Michael
Alan Goldberg
Plan B
Record Release
Fri Aug 30, Chop Suey, 9pm, $6.
Just half a dozen shows into Plan B's existence, and James van
Leuven* is already playing down his renowned stage moves.
"I will breakdance if I feel like doin' it," he laughs.
"That was never really something I was planning on being
a staple of my show, and I'm still saying it's not, but yeah,
I might get down on the floor."
Seattle music fans are used to seeing van Leuven's limbs flailing
around, though until now it's only been as the drummer for the
post-punk trio Automaton. But with Plan B, his new one-man project,
the talented multi-instrumentalist with a taste for hiphop (and
the occasional windmill) dives headfirst into beat-driven, quasi-electronic
music.
"I wanted to do something based on why I play music, which
is that I really get into the trance of a beat," says van
Leuven. "I've been messing around with drum machines for
years, and I'm always just drumming by myself, so I wanted to
do something just centered around the beat and not necessarily
in a rock-song format. And I'd been thinking about it for so
long that I finally\ decided I was ready, and I just did it."
Long accustomed to the breakneck pace of pro studio recording
("Three days? Eight songs? Go!"), van Leuven submerged
into his basement at the end of last winter, coming up with
a dozen tracks--eight of which (if you include the hidden song)
found their way into Plan B's debut, Like a Ship Sailing (Luckyhorse
Industries). The album's opener, "Rich and Greedy"--featuring
a crisp loop that commingles with desert-dwelling, reverbed
guitar, sampled voices, and eerie keyboard embellishments-establishes
a pensive mood that resurfaces throughout therecord. Taut beats
an dark atmospherics drive the menacing "Plans for Tomorrow,"
while "Mad Bombers" is built on an unsettling ambient
soundscape that floats under a concerned female voice warning,
"Howard just said he was going to blow his brains out next
Tuesday...."
The disc is not an entirely melancholic affair, however. "Come
Out Strong," perhaps the disc's most resplendent track,
sports a killer breakbeat and muted trumpet passages that summon
the ghost of Miles Davis. The song is also a prime illustration
of how van Leuven's vision mutated throughout the recording
process. "When I wrote it, it felt like a straight hiphop
track, but when I started laying down other things, it was amazing
how it transformed where the song was going," he explains.
"Everything started from a beat. I would just play and
play until I was as relaxed as possible and the beats came out
well, and then I made loops out of that and started building
from there with bass lines, keyboard lines, and melodies. I
never really knew at the start how they would turn out.
"The whole record ended up being a lot more mellow than
I thought it would be," he reflects. "My first intention
was to make stuff for people to get down to--make people move
instead of just sittin' around. But I think my indie-rock roots
just got in there--plus feeling a bit blue at the time and being
alone down there in the dead of winter--so it ended up becoming
this introspective, downtempo kind of thing."
Nonetheless, Plan B's live performances mark van Leuven's return
from exile in unpredictable and highly collaborative fashion.
Aside from spontaneous bursts of breakdancing, a Plan B show
is known to include a stand-up bass player, trumpeter, and cellist
accompanying van Leuven, who mans a laptop packed with all of
his tracks and samples. The music is enhanced even further by
unique visuals--an array of films and lighting effects presented
in an especially striking way against a piece of scrim.
"I was
at this amazing club in Paris that's actually inside the hull
of a tugboat, and there were all these Japanese DJs who had
a floating screen hanging on each side of them that made this
3-D effect. It was really awesome-looking, so it inspired me
to do my [own] scrim idea." Van
Leuven is fortunate to have dedicated friends who currently
contribute 2-D animations and video art to the live show, and
he's still reaching out to local visual artists who might want
to share in the Plan B experience.
"I'm actually really interested in having a crew of people
who are excited about doing the video portion of it. Maybe they've
been doing something by themselves and they want to present
it for five minutes. If I had five or six different people like
that, I could have them come out and do one show or something--it
would be cool. If someone comes with some harsh, industrial-type
thing, obviously I'm not gonna be into it, but if I am into
it and it goes with the music, I'd love to give them the opportunity
to show it off."
Ultimately, though, the spotlight is squarely on van Leuven,
and he's as eager to offer something new and compelling to the
denizens of a decidedly rock town as he is to explore a different
musical path for himself.
"I'm used to being behind a drum set on the back of a stage,
so this whole project has been a lot of risk-taking for me,"
he says. "It's all my music, it's all me. Like, 'Okay,
this is what I do.' I don't have any bandmates where I can go,
'This is what we do,' and so in a way it's a little nerve-wracking
to present it. But whatever--I'm really proud of it."
*Editorial disclaimer: James van Leuven is on staff at The Stranger,
but he works in the tech department, so really, the editorial
department only sees him when its computers crash, and they
really only crash when we spill Big Gulps all over our keyboards.
And Michael Goldberg doesn't even work in The Stranger offices,
nor does he drink Big Gulps, so it's very unlikely that van
Leuven and Goldberg have had much of a chance to conspire against
Seattle's music community for any length of time.
_____________________________________
THE SEATTLE TIMES: Entertainment & the Arts: Night Watch:
Friday, August 23, 2002
http://www.seattletimes.com/planb
Night Watch / Tom Scanlon
Automaton drummer goes with Plan B, for now
By Tom Scanlon
Seattle Times staff reporter
Most of us have a fallback, also known as Plan B.
"Fine, if they're going to expect me to show up on time,
I can always go with Plan B and go back to waiting tables ...
" "If I don't get a call-back, I can always try ...
" "Pay the rent, or go to Mexico? Well, there's always
the parents' basement ... "
But what do you do if Plan B actually becomes more attractive
than Plan A?
James van Leuven might face that choice, at some point.
He's pretty well-known around Seattle as the drummer
for Automaton, an indie-rock band that has developed
a solid audience over the past six years.
Now van Leuven has released "Like a Ship Sailing,"
the first record by Plan B, on which van Leuven is pretty
much a one-man band - percussion, bass, guitar, keyboards, all
sorts of computer stuff. (His day job is managing the computers
at the Stranger.)
"Like a Ship Sailing" is quite a treat, a delightful,
bursting-with-ideas record with low-key drum-and-bass beats,
quirky samples and mesmerizing loops.
"It's just stuff that's been brewing in me for a while,"
says van Leuven, who grew up on the East Side and went to Newport
High. While he's still in Automaton, and will be recording with
the band soon, "I'm focusing on Plan B now, trying to play
as much music as possible."
Plan B has been getting one show after another in the past few
weeks. With van Leuven DJing via laptop, backed by live musicians
and a video/light show, Plan B performs at I-Spy on Saturday
(9 p.m., $8). FCS North, another Seattle act that mixes
live music and DJ beats and samples, is also on this excellent
bill, headlined by Ninja Tune Record's Fog, the
alias of DJ/producer Andrew Broder.
Tom Scanlon: 206-464-3891 or tscanlon@seattletimes.com.
_____________________________________
The Bellingham Herald
August 2, 2002
http://cityguide.bellinghamherald.com/fe/index.asp
Plan B, in the form of James van Leuven (above),
takes the stage at The Factory on Saturday evening.
COURTESY PHOTO
Time
for Plan B
Electronic music gets philosophical
by Tony Stasiek
In the mind's eye, they hide in big dank spaces
behind dry-ice clouds, Vick's-sniffing bootymovers
and ladies who exhale their names with a sultry
Hungarian twist whenever applicable.
For better or worse, the DJ is music's equivalent
of the Wizard of Oz - the impenetrably headphoned
figure behind the curtain.
Not Seattle's James van Leuven.
"Yeah, I breakdance," says van Leuven,
the brains and brawn behind electronic-music outfit
Plan B. "I pull it out whenever I get the itch."
DJ Thirdwall de damned; freedom's the blueprint
for Plan B.
Drummer for angular rock band Automaton, van Leuven
took a month's vacation from his job as computer
guy for Seattle weekly The Stranger last fall to
play with his new sound-editing equipment. He emerged
with "Like a Ship Sailing," Plan B's debut
CD for Luckyhorse Industries.
Similar to early DJ Krush records or Dntel's instrumental
tracks, "Like a Ship Sailing" finds a
downtempo medium between indie rock (i.e. sparse
guitar parts) and indie club fodder (i.e. fuzzy
hip-hop beats that get all squiggly).
At least, that was the plan. The songs began with
van Leuven banging on the drums and recording his
good ideas - similar to the processes that go into
an Automaton track.
"From there, it's really not the same at all,"
he says. "(In Automaton) we spend all time
writing songs in a democratic way with the three
of us, which means sitting around and goofing around
for a while. Here, I did all of my instrumentation,
all the drum beats myself and made the kind of live
music that I just produced the hell out of. In the
end, it's a soup that sounds more polished, more
like electronic music."
Next, van Leuven spliced in appropriately sampled
movie dialogue, much like mid-'90s found-sound icons
DJ Shadow and DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid.
Take "Love," in which a warm bed of vibraphones
accompany a kid gettin' philosophical about affection.
"I just decided how the songs made me feel,
and from that inspiration, I decided a theme for
the songs and fulfilled that by using movie dialogue,"
he says.
Clear-cut, yes. But the tracks don't always follow
as easily: Underneath co-workers musing, "Howard
says he's going to blow his brains out next Tuesday"
on "Mad Bombers," van Leuven places a
lilting sample of ocean waves. He says it was inspired
by his grandfather's home on the Oregon coast.
"It's this natural sound of relaxation - and
then this stuff about the city and the television,
how everything is so overblown," van Leuven
says. "I thought it was kind of an interesting
idea."
He's got more of 'em, adding a standup bassist,
trumpeter and animated-video projection to Plan
B's live set. Oh right, and the breakdancing, a
holdover from his grade-school days as a Kool and
the Gang and Donna Summer aficionado.
"But it's usually not a requirement,"
van Leuven says. "Some venues do not have any
room to do it. But when my friends come out, I jump
out and throw down. Definitely."
_____________________________________
Delusions
of Adequacy, PO Box 23554, Rochester,
NY 14692
September 9, 2002
http://www.adequacy.net/reviews/p/planb.shtml
Plan B, Like a Ship Sailing, Luckyhorse
Industries
Down-tempo/indie/electronic/DJ Shadow/DJ
Krush/Portishead/Meat Beat Manifesto
by Elyn Beth
Some relationships start in a curious
way; as you get to know someone
you initially think they are annoying
but not enough to be rude to. Then,
without even noticing it, they have
become a good friend and the question
is no longer whether you should
spend time with them but if there
should be something more. At some
point you fall in love and the whole
thing just sort of snuck up on you.
The reality is that just takes awhile
to start digging someone or something
in a real way. Like a Ship Sailing
by Plan B is the musical equivalent
to this romantic situation. During
the course of three listens, I went
from "it's not me, it's you,"
to "it's not you, it's me,"
and finally ended up at "nevermind
all that, let's make out."
This persistent little album is
the work of James van Leuven, a
member of the west coast post-punk
outfit Automoton. His solo foray
out of the rock scene is a surprisingly
vibrant down-tempo electronic album.
His work has built up a decent level
of credibility in the fickle Seattle
scene due to his interesting live
shows that feature multimedia film
displays and his own break-dancing
prowess.
What makes this album initially
so hard to sink into but ultimately
so enjoyable is diversity of the
album. The sound doesn't really
fall into one consistent theme,
but it still manages to maintain
coherence within its malleability.
One thread that does run through
the work is the use of various audio
samples that could get creepy if
they were done by someone else but,
in this context, remain chilled
out and enjoyable. "Love"
features the repitition of an audio
sample that becomes its own instrumental
force imbedded in the twinkly, sweet
electronic loops. The real stand-out
of the album is "Plans for
Tomorrow," which features a
dirty and satisfying bass loop.
This minimal songcarries a delicious
grit to it without shaking the overall
chilled out mood of the album.
While Plan B doesn't really reach
the creative heights of his influences,
Like a Ship Sailing remains a great
output in its own right. A decidedly
enjoyable record whether you are
a DJ or just looking for something
to slowly fall in love with.
_____________________________________
Junk Media
August, 2002
http://www.junkmedia.org/01/53/albanese53.html
Record Review of Plan B, Like a
Ship Sailing, Luckyhorse Industries,
2002
by Robert Albanese
"It is happening again…it
is happening again." The ominous
Twin Peaks sample that ends DJ Shadow's
Endtroducing…, in retrospect,
sounds like the artist's own prophecy
of the future. In the six years
following that moment, a deluge
of hip-hop futurists have sought
to make their mark with their version
of Shadow's reconfiguration of sample-based
music. Meanwhile, Shadow seemed
to be heading down the path of My
Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields-a
remix here, a side project there-until
this year, when he finally dropped
his sophomore effort, The Private
Press. Rather than the expected
return to the throne, The Private
Press finds Shadow dropping a rose
on the seat and walking away, as
the citizens vie for a title now
bereft of its signifying power.
So, where does that leave their
music?
The approach taken by James van
Leuven, a.k.a. Plan B, thus comes
into question. Plan B is van Leuven's
attempt to fuse an ominous, sample-driven
sound with live instrumentation.
The music is not revolutionary,
but sharp guitar and drum arrangements
mark an engaging performance. The
drum flourishes on "Love"
add some twitches to the neck-snapping
beat, and "Rich and Greedy"
features some fine call-and-response
play between the guitar and bass.
Thematically,
Plan B wrestles with the dark tone of the music,
oscillating between surrender and triumph. The
songs lift our eyes toward the sun, only to pull
them back into the shadows. "Don't Ever Look
Back," Like a Ship Sailing's last listed
track, suggests a reconciliation of these poles
with a mournful guitar finally expressing hope
for its elegized subject. However, five minutes
of silence give way to a final surrender, a droning
trip toward oblivion.
This struggle becomes very predictable, unfortunately,
as the tracks listed above follow a punch-counterpunch
rhythm, and the foundation-providing loops are
not entirely engrossing. Some of the music is
derivative, notably "Come Out Strong,"
which could easily have been jacked from DJ Krush's
work with trumpeter Toshinori Kondo. The samples
and electronic elements of the record, the basis
for van Leuven's experiment as Plan B, ultimately
depend on the live instruments, the complicating
factor in the DJ Shadow paradigm.
Then again, perhaps the Plan B moniker is a declaration
of its own. With so many turntablists and knob-turners
chasing the grail, van Leuven might be providing
an alternative. By employing barely manipulated
samples, he allows the live arrangements to break
down found sounds, turning the genre inside out.
Like a Ship Sailing might not sound like anything
new, but it does suggest a fresh approach to what
has become a tired revolution.
_____________________________________
Allmusic.com
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=B45rv288i05oa
Review by Kenyon Hopkin
On Like a Ship Sailing, Plan B's James van Leuven
steps beyond his drumming for Automaton and allows
percussion to be the focus. Laying a foundation
of trip-hop beats, van Leuven (who handles nearly
all of the instrumentation) implements sampling
and crawly guitars and bass. The record possesses
the darker atmospheres of trip-hop but without
the accompanying vocals. There's also a spy film
aura that permeates much of the album. Sometimes
it gets a little too dark with the disturbing
line, "Howard just said he was going to blow
his brains out next Tuesday." It's balanced
by a child asking, "Have you ever been in
love?," in "Love," which flirts
with breakbeats. "Come out Strong" has
a finger-snapping cool jazz vibe with trumpet
from Bill Jones. This project might be "plan
B" for van Leuven, but his great job with
live percussion makes it grade-A post-rock.
___
Plan B
Like A Ship Sailing (Lucky Horse Industries)
By: Alex Steininger
Like A Ship Sailing is a stroll through the park
at midnight, a re-cap of the madness of the day,
set to soothing beats. It is a slumbering instrumental
disc filled with submissive indie rock grooves,
and plenty of samples to give the songs character.
One listen and Like A Ship Sailing will become
the vibe you wish to wind down to each night,
it's smoky grooves and indie-rock pop structure
something that excites you, as you struggle to
keep away, eventually deciding not to fight temptation
and go for it. I'll give it a B.
___
Lost At Sea - review at:
http://www.lostatsea.net/LAS/archives/reviews/records/planb.htm
SLAMM San
Diego CityBeat - review at:
http://www.slammsd.com/article.php?id=1032&atype=SoundWave
Splendid E-Zine - review
at:7/23/2002
http://www.splendidezine.com/review.html?reviewid=3235575056330859
Plan B, Like A Ship Sailing,
Luckyhorse Industries,
I can see the appeal of this sort of shimmering,
slow-as-a-barge, beat-driven stuff -- it's pretty,
and someone once told me that the sluggish beats
put the listener subconsciously in mind of his/her
mother's heartbeat. My position has always been,
if you want so badly to listen to your mother's
heartbeat, for God's sake go straight to the source
and hold a microphone up to your mother's chest.
Layer some minimalist guitar work on top, embellish
liberally with kitschy and/or enigmatic samples
and tasteful keyboards and you've got yourself
the real primal deal. But no one listens. Instead
they go in for the likes of Plan B's debut album,
which is nice enough, but lacks a little in substance
and impact.
Plan B is James van Leuven, a Washington state
resident who mixes familiar downtempo elements
(the aforementioned aortic beats, atmospheric
guitars and keyboards, samples) with the odd jazz
and rock flourish (nice vibes and trumpet on "Come
Out Strong", Calexico-style Western guitar
on "Rich and Greedy"). Van Leuven arranges
these songs well -- he never succumbs to clutter,
nor does he leave any track sounding too spare.
He has a way with samples, too. There are a lot
of dialogue snippets on the album, and it's to
van Leuven's credit that they don't seem superfluous.
On "Love", a sample of a child asking,
"Have you ever been in love?" lends
sad overtones to what would otherwise have been
standard-issue, vaguely eerie trip-hop. My favorite
track of the bunch is "Hope", a gentle,
idyllic, dialogue snippet-free track that's about
as warm and pretty as beat-driven music gets.
But just as surely as "Hope" got me
curled into the fetal position, the next track,
with its samples of people talking about suicide
and mad bombers, uncurled me quick.
So there's a lot to like on this album, but I
can't say any of the seven songs stuck with me,
even after several listens. Plan B undoubtedly
has the skills necessary to excel in his chosen
genre -- now he just needs some hooks. Then again,
maybe I wouldn't know a decent downtempo hook
if it rocked me to sleep at night. Or perhaps
I have issues with my mother that I'm unfairly
projecting onto Plan B...
-- Scott Jacobson
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