Various Artists – 'Plant Music' (Plant) Released 20/11/06

This is the second compilation release that resembles a classy collection of electro rock type tracks, showing off some of Plant Music’s previous 12” releases along with some new unreleased material. The tracks are hand picked by Dominique Keegan, the founder of the whole Plant thing, that included a Plant bar, till people danced too much and it closed. New York, tsk. Anyway some of these tracks have been tried and tested in Dominique’s, and label mate Marcus Lambkin's DJ sets. Marcus now resides in Germany as the tour DJ for DFA. And this is no surprise seeing as the overall feel of the compilation is similar to that of DFA’s champions LCD Sound System.

This is one of those compilation’s that makes you want to play it till the CD melts and forcibly becomes a soundtrack to your life until something better comes along. What Plant have done here is combined the excitement and innovation of indie rock and meshed it together with poisonous disco beats. On the one hand you can listen to the guitar parts or vocal hooks, on the other you can dance yourself into abandonment. The tracks are generally from New York outfits, but there are some euro-surprises with appearances from French pioneers like Rinocerose and Alex Gopher.

The Rinocerose track is called ‘Stop It’ and is one of the catchiest tunes on offer here, giving off a raw male vocal, on a bed of electronic bass and sproutings of an 80s guitar led theme song, think Miami Vice or car game Outrun. However Alex Gopher’s track, lacks the rock connection of the others and instead booms out synth-bass sounds with electronic acid lines to make you bust some serious moves. There are also tracks from lesser known artists like Champagne and Toronto’s Don Cash, who are clearly in the making, with hints of Scissor Sistersesque electro disco vibes - before they went MOR and courted Elton John. But its not all camp fun, there’s deep house sounds on Selway Lightwave’s riveting remix of ‘5.05’ by Columbian bred Ilana and post-punk darkness on ‘I’m Off’ by production duo The Glass and ‘Friend Crush’ by the edgy DJ Wool.

This complilation is a snapshot of the New York music scene post-electroclash, where the doors to creativity have absentmindedly been left open and there’s more fun to be had. Rock on.