"an art of a strolling / a kind of on going / makes time feel slowed / laziness studies..."
The wobbly drunken stumble and abstract angular heaviness of "Laziness Studies", by Los Angeles indie rock experiment plu, feels smartly precise and artfully jabberwocky at the same time. This makes it compelling in a Pere Ubu sort of way while feeling proto punk alluring in a Lizzy Mercier Descloux or Disturbed Furniture or Honey Bane sort of way. All of those artists were not popular decades and decades ago, not popular being the key phrase here. I like what plu is putting out because the avant garde nature means it will likely not be popular, not that plu will not have many many fans and I hope they have hordes of adoring fans but not being popular means they don't make cookie cutter music and if they did the cookie cutters would be horribly bent.
The hobbly machine constructions on the jazz spectrum for sure but highlighted with crushed stabs of discordant synth keys and explosive drumming is beautifully magnetic and kind of performance art squared. The music also has a wonderful whimsy about it. It could have existed within the subversions of Pee Wee's Playhouse or something equivalent. I love the vocals by pluto bell, somehow aloof but stilted too, maybe like the lyrics / their melodies themselves:
"an art of a strolling / a kind of on going / makes time feel slowed / laziness studies-
liquid set of styles, disruptions of normative time-uniquely poised to generate the way he may dispose"
As I listen to "Laziness Studies" on repeat, iconic 'unique' artists like Laurie Anderson, Suburban Lawns, Nico and Mike Patton come to mind too. I know that may seem weird and whether their artistic bents relate is neither here nor there. I just bring it up. Anyway, the best art is hard to describe and even harder to write about.
Dig this.
LINER NOTES (bracketed):
[Los Angeles-based plu is releasing their debut six-song self-titled EP Friday, June 27th, 2025. The first single Laziness Studies is available wherever music is streamed Tuesday, April 1st via Anxiety Blanket Records.]
[While plu is technically a debut for plu as a band, it emerges out of years of gradual development on the part of bandleader pluto bell. Over the course of the past decade, pluto’s work in the Los Angeles underground experimental music scene has wavered variously from longform composition to non-idiomatic songwriting, moving between the two, sometimes ambiguously and sometimes in a clear-cut way. Over that time, they’ve built up their artistic voice alongside numerous collaborative relationships with musicians performing their work. In this framework, plu represents pluto’s most decisive foray into the world of bands: guitars, drums, bass, vocals, songs, setlists, big amps, t-shirts… you name it, plu’s got it.]
[The EP’s first single, “Laziness Studies,” was written while pluto was reading the book Obstruction by Nick Salvato. “At this point in time I was after a way to think of “laziness” and “digression” as positives or as potentials to continued creativity and production, rather than as hindrances.” Amidst the band’s leisurely-yet-lopsided strut, pluto ruminates about “an art of strolling, a kind of on going” that “makes time feel slowed” and causes “disruptions of normative time.” The curious flâneur continues, ceding, “this isn’t to say I’m very good at this frame of mind, but I do try and remind myself that it’s o-k to not be constantly productive and to have long bouts of time away from production.”]
[The songs on plu were mostly developed out of home-recorded solo demos that pluto taught to (and then fleshed out with) their bandmates Jack Doutt, Leah Levinson, and Jesse Quebbeman-Turley. pluto’s tendency towards unconventional rhythms, songforms, idioms, and harmonies made this no easy task. Over the course of a year, the gradual fine-tuning and mastering of these unusual and subtly intricate songs developed all sorts of collaborative shorthand, mutual creative understandings, and personal bonds beyond what the four musicians had already shared through years of work together. Long story short, this EP is the artifact of plu’s becoming as a b-a-n-d BAND.]
[As for the songs themselves? pluto’s greatest source of inspiration is non-musical. pluto describes their process as “reading-heavy,” involving an obsessive consumption of theory that intermingles with the thoughts and events of daily life (they cite the work of authors Sianne Ngai, Sarah Ahmed, Nick Salvato, Lisa Robertson, and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui as particularly inspiring on this EP).]
[In their lyrics, they attempt to grapple with themes of self, social identity, and the body through what they describe as “a conglomeration of found material among personal words and entries I write on my phone.” In these short, playful tunes, they dance about the phenomenological, the existential, and the metaphysical. The result is often abstract yet vibrant, stirring contemplation in a listener via brief glimpses of intelligible thought as words peek out of dizzying compositions.]
[Recorded and mixed by Rob Shelton at the newly blossoming Altamira Sound studio in Los Angeles, plu is a suitable introduction to its namesake author and the band they now lead.]
[As for the songs themselves? pluto’s greatest source of inspiration is non-musical. pluto describes their process as “reading-heavy,” involving an obsessive consumption of theory that intermingles with the thoughts and events of daily life (they cite the work of authors Sianne Ngai, Sarah Ahmed, Nick Salvato, Lisa Robertson, and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui as particularly inspiring on this EP).]
[In their lyrics, they attempt to grapple with themes of self, social identity, and the body through what they describe as “a conglomeration of found material among personal words and entries I write on my phone.” In these short, playful tunes, they dance about the phenomenological, the existential, and the metaphysical. The result is often abstract yet vibrant, stirring contemplation in a listener via brief glimpses of intelligible thought as words peek out of dizzying compositions.]
[Recorded and mixed by Rob Shelton at the newly blossoming Altamira Sound studio in Los Angeles, plu is a suitable introduction to its namesake author and the band they now lead.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://linktr.ee/anxietyblanketrecords?
Los Angeles-based plu is releasing their debut six-song self-titled EP Friday, June 27th, 2025. The first single Laziness Studies is available wherever music is streamed Tuesday, April 1st via Anxiety Blanket Records.
While plu is technically a debut for plu as a band, it emerges out of years of gradual development on the part of bandleader pluto bell. Over the course of the past decade, pluto’s work in the Los Angeles underground experimental music scene has wavered variously from longform composition to non-idiomatic songwriting, moving between the two, sometimes ambiguously and sometimes in a clear-cut way. Over that time, they’ve built up their artistic voice alongside numerous collaborative relationships with musicians performing their work. In this framework, plu represents pluto’s most decisive foray into the world of bands: guitars, drums, bass, vocals, songs, setlists, big amps, t-shirts… you name it, plu’s got it.
plu, avant garde pop, performance art, indie rock, prog rock, indie pop, alt pop, art punk, proto punk, jazz fusions, jazz pop, smart pop, "Laziness Studies" (Official Video), pluto bell, New EP,
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://linktr.ee/anxietyblanketrecords?
Los Angeles-based plu is releasing their debut six-song self-titled EP Friday, June 27th, 2025. The first single Laziness Studies is available wherever music is streamed Tuesday, April 1st via Anxiety Blanket Records.
While plu is technically a debut for plu as a band, it emerges out of years of gradual development on the part of bandleader pluto bell. Over the course of the past decade, pluto’s work in the Los Angeles underground experimental music scene has wavered variously from longform composition to non-idiomatic songwriting, moving between the two, sometimes ambiguously and sometimes in a clear-cut way. Over that time, they’ve built up their artistic voice alongside numerous collaborative relationships with musicians performing their work. In this framework, plu represents pluto’s most decisive foray into the world of bands: guitars, drums, bass, vocals, songs, setlists, big amps, t-shirts… you name it, plu’s got it.
plu, avant garde pop, performance art, indie rock, prog rock, indie pop, alt pop, art punk, proto punk, jazz fusions, jazz pop, smart pop, "Laziness Studies" (Official Video), pluto bell, New EP,
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