REVIEW: Planningtorock - W

Planningtorock – W
MMM1/2

The letter “W” is a rather iconic letter; it’s used to symbolize the World Wars and it’s a symbol for the word “women.” But for Berlin-based producer and artist Planningtorock (nee Janine Rostron), “W” is a rather dynamic title for an album. While it might be literarily single, Rostron believes that the “double you” is something ripe with ambiguity.

A listen through W, Planningtorock’s sophomore album, and it’s clear that the duality of the letter “W” is represented on record through gender identity. Rostron plays with androgyny on both the album’s cover art and on the record itself by singing naturally as well as pitch shifting her voice to lower octaves in order to emulate a man’s voice. It’s this androgyny that allows W to successfully realize Planningtorock’s intention to be ambiguous with meaning – the album's meaning and message are open-ended, not closed to interpretation or defined one way over another.

Existing as both a man and a woman in the context of W, Rostron posits herself on the dividing line between both genders’ perceptions of sexuality. There’s a subtle eeriness that ebbs and flows through the album that imbibes the overall sound with a post-apocalyptic chill – a seemingly implicit way of capturing the immeasurable emotional weight associated with heartache. Songs like the monumental, supernatural “Doorway” and the urgent, relentless “I Am Your Man” man sound like 22nd Century pop love songs – leading one to wonder if Planningtorock has crafted an album with W or a new world in which to reflect on the inexplicable character of mankind. It’s a cinematic, ambitious look on how our ever-evolving world has a profound effect on our species. Whether it’s on a personal level or universal level, W sounds like the embodiment of a shared anxiety for what the future holds and what the future will be.

The album plays like a mixtape of multiple genres run through a futuristic lens – a sort of mixtape from the future. “Doorway” is almost unclassifiable with its menacing throb of synth and interjections of synthetic horns. “Manifesto” is a cut of avant-garde reggae about longing for love, driven by a need to free oneself from insecurities and a need to be desired by another. The advanced pop of “I Am Your Man” features a loop of tom drum pounding that continues, nonstop, throughout the entire song, moving from persistent to feverish; here, Rostron uses sound to illustrate with the constant pounding existing as a symbol of the main character’s determination to attract and win over the attention of his or her crush. “Living It Out” crosses the repetitious hooks and textures of trance with what sounds like a warped disco melody. “Black Thumber” is a beautiful, celestial, symphonic suite that seems like something that would soundtrack a moonwalk or a ride through the outer limits of space. To put it simply, if Vangelis ever made a darker, less romanticized, more ominous and pop-oriented version of the “Blade Runner” soundtrack, it might sound something like W.

With its reliance on predominantly electronic, or synthetic, instrumentation and its use of androgyny, it’s understandable why some people might label W “theatrical.” It’s the mystique that lies with such theatrical things that draws us in, pulled by a desire to understand and learn more. The album might have benefitted from the use of more natural instruments and less electronics, but, even so, W succeeds in sounding grand without drowning the creator’s personal touch. The foreboding undercurrent – that post-apocalyptic chill – of the album is possibly its greatest strength, demonstrating Rostron’s ability to tap deep into the subtleties of sound, ones that can infiltrate the deepest recesses of the mind. Maybe now, the letter “W” will mean even more.

W is out today on DFA.

Check out and download (click the down arrow on the right of the player) two tracks from W below.

Planningtorock - "Doorway" (Read MM post)


Planningtorock - "The Breaks"