INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Pluto Jonze (AKA Lachlan Nicolson) delivers a spanking debut album, with swagger and insolence to spare. If you can listen to this without wanting to dance, you have already died and are so boring no one could spot the difference. It is simply a great time, a potpourri of party – a bit of this, a bit of that, and a lot of fun. Lo-fi and loose, Jonze plays every instrument and sings every line, as well as producing, mixing and engineering the whole deal: a hands-on fellow.
Wearing his inspirations on the ends of his frayed, vintage sleeves, Jonze opens the album with Beck Odelay-era ‘Hispedangongonajelanguiro (Capiche?)’, a drug-induced nonsense wig-out. It is a perfect tone-setter for all that follows. ‘Plastic Bag In A Hurricane’ is built around a killer riff, layered with strings and sounds huge, like that scene in a movie where they cut between three or four simultaneous action set pieces. ‘All Washed Up’ is the come down song, a regretful Monday morning after a weekend full of events you can’t place, complete with languid whistling.
The album’s stand out track is ‘Eject’ – it is a perfect pop song, full of hooks, sleazy boogie woogie 12-bar guitar, bar room piano, hand claps, and a chorus you can sing after one listen. It made me stand up and move the very first time I heard it and I continue to do so now. All the stars to this song.
Keeping with the eclectic feel, ‘See What The Sun Sees’ is a 6/8 waltz with a counterpoint electric piano riff and is just lovely. The closer, ‘Come On Sunshine’, has the tempo of a goodbye and rounds out what is not a coherent ‘story’ album, but track after individual track that all help build an object in its entirety.
Pluto Jonze’s first album leaves with you with just one question: when’s the next one coming out?
4.5/5 stars
BY JACK FRANKLIN
Eject out now through Inertia.
