PLANT PLANTS – Plant Plants EP – 20th June – LESS MUSIC (This Is Music)

“Plant Plants have got me very excited and they have yet to even play a show.” – My Band Is Better Than Your Band

“If you don’t listen to anything all day today, make sure you check out Plant Plants…Think the complex guitar work of the likes of Foals and Battles with the rhythmic beats of the likes of Justice and Gold Panda.” – BlindFun

As the lines between underground electronic music and savvy, accessible pop continue to blur, London duo Plant Plants are set to strike while the iron’s hot and show the world the leftfield pop that they’ve been honing since their inception in 2010.

Plant Plants are friends, Stuart Francis and Howard Whatley. Spawned from a mutual love of film scores, weird guitar tunings & heavy beats, theirs is a sound which effortlessly combines the rare blend of electronica and eclectic imagery that sets them apart from contemporary comparisons. Citing influences as varied as the Wickerman soundtrack, Wu Tang – the 36 chambers era – and L.A. based ‘beat-scene’ producer Baths, it’s no surprise their oddball electronica meets melodic music, is causing waves amongst the blogosphere.

Plant Plants self-titled debut EP, demonstrates this to a tee. Produced by Jas Shaw, one half of DJ and production unit Simian Mobile Disco, it’s a modern imagining on a sound reminiscent of early nineties bands first discovering electronic music, mining the fertile seam of the first wave of post-rock.

Lead track Hands That Sleep and I’m So Black fuse math rock guitars with aquacrunk synth programming and hip-hop wizardry, whilst the vocal-lead She’s No One comes over like Suede gone electronic, and final track Dandelion nods towards Sparklehorse. Trying to hang easy reference points of music this unique is essentially a fool’s errand though – although the tracks show off a wide variety of influences and styles, a coherent, individual thread runs through them all.

As proficient in the digital world as they are with traditional analogue instrumentation, Plant Plants live show is an intimate combination of hands-on hardware samplers, framed by parallel vocals, guitars, bass & a digital piano. Integral to the tight knit, 2-man setup is an array of 15+ effects pedals ranging from Voice Boxes & Woolly Mammoth fuzzboxes, to 90s Kaoss Pads -all at an arm’s length. All samples & effects are fingered & manipulated live as instruments, with not a laptop to be seen! Plant Plants prefer to build their songs from the ground up, aiming to provide something more, than the usual gig experience.

Plant Plants are a hybrid reflection of what music should be in 2011.

Plant Plants – She’s No One