With their second EP, Jagwa, Colchester, UK pair Plaitum immerse themselves in themes of sex, death and obsession; the result is a mountainous wall of sound pieced together after long nights of writing and world-building using a textured and poppy-yet-menacing approach.
Plaitum is singer Abi Dersiley and producer Matt Canham, 20-year-old multi-instrumentalists with a childhood bond that turned into a musically productive partnership. This followup to their debut EP, LMHY, is a much darker concoction that works as a shadowy back and forth battle between Dersiley's flexible vocals and electronic fine-tuning. Opener "Jagwa" plummets listeners into a spiralling world of dark love with mounds of synth layers, while "Slave Red Stag" plays with Dersiley's soft vocals and is reminiscent of Chvrches. "Contort" features minimalistic percussion that leaves space for a vast, droning landscape.
"Que Sera" closes the album, and dynamically so, blasting powerful vocals parallel to a muffled computerized melody; Dersiley singing "Take me home, lover" is a cry of desire that is by no means romantic, but instead beautifully desperate. While some of the computerized aspects throughout the EP are repetitive, possibly overused, they provide a pleasing complexity to the synth-pop tones.
(Wolf Tone)Plaitum is singer Abi Dersiley and producer Matt Canham, 20-year-old multi-instrumentalists with a childhood bond that turned into a musically productive partnership. This followup to their debut EP, LMHY, is a much darker concoction that works as a shadowy back and forth battle between Dersiley's flexible vocals and electronic fine-tuning. Opener "Jagwa" plummets listeners into a spiralling world of dark love with mounds of synth layers, while "Slave Red Stag" plays with Dersiley's soft vocals and is reminiscent of Chvrches. "Contort" features minimalistic percussion that leaves space for a vast, droning landscape.
"Que Sera" closes the album, and dynamically so, blasting powerful vocals parallel to a muffled computerized melody; Dersiley singing "Take me home, lover" is a cry of desire that is by no means romantic, but instead beautifully desperate. While some of the computerized aspects throughout the EP are repetitive, possibly overused, they provide a pleasing complexity to the synth-pop tones.