Plan B Polyvinyl sampler
Described as ‘like a cross between a Yuletide log and a mistletoe kiss’, Plan B’s Christmas present to its readers is a pretty brilliant CD put together by American indie label Polyvinyl, and glued neatly to the cover of the current issue. In case you haven’t heard of them, Polyvinyl’s bands include Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Of Montreal and Headlights. And if that still doesn’t mean anything to you, think idiosyncratic indie music that you’ll be pleased you stumbled across for free on the front of a magazine.
Examples? Of Montreal’s ‘Gallery Piece’ is an upbeat bit of electro pop with a dark underbelly. Sample lyrics; “I wanna slap your face, I wanna paint your nails, I wanna make you scream, I wanna braid your hair, I wanna kiss your friends, I wanna make you laugh, I wanna dress the same.” Or then there’s Headlights’ ‘Cherry Tulips’ (TJ Lipple Remix), a song described in the sleeve notes as, “Like the bit where the geek takes off the glasses and turns out to be smokin’, Aloha vibraphonist-in-chief Lipple here transforms his labelmate’s coy retro curtsey into a voluptuous Sixties stomp. What’s his secret? Vibraphone. Lots of vibraphone.”
It’s all good, and then there’s the magazine itself, with Antony and the Johnsons, Plan B’s albums of the year, and musician and comic book maker Jeffrey Lewis, who gets two whole pages to cover with drawings on the subject ‘My 2008 in a nutshell’. It’s out now, and since Plan B won’t be delivered by Stack until some time later in 2009 it’s worth going out and buying yourself a copy.
