Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Julian Plenti is a Skyscraper


The sorting of email continues, and as I stumble through the ton of it that I have in front of me, I'll post some of the more interesting things that have shown up. That leads us to Julian Plenti.

Julian Plenti began writing music in 1996 in New York City. Almost immediately he started playing solo acoustic shows at NYC venues like Tobacco Road, Pete's Candy Store, The Knitting Factory, The Living Room, and “Lach’s Antihoot” at the Sidewalk CafĂ©.

In 2001, he stopped performing. Though he continued writing and doing occasional engineering work, he essentially went on sabbatical. That was until 2006 rolled around and he discovered Logic Pro. From there the three year trip that would wind up with his solo album being released involves, finding classmates, find sessions musicians, reworking old tunes, and convincing peers to appear on the record.

Miraculously, his solo effort Julian Plenti...Is Skyscraper doesn't sound like he ever went on sabbatical. His songs are atmospheric and kind of Interpol-ish at times and in listening to them you would never get a sense that he took five years off from music. At times the material feels like darkly tinged power pop totally in touch with its mortality.

Are the songs any cop? Yeah, they're pretty damn good and Julian should rest easy knowing that thirteen years in the making, he can write an album of music that's not only relevant today but pretty decent as well. Mr. Plenti's album comes out on August 4th and he will be performing on NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on Friday, August 7.

Download: Games for Days
Download: Fun That We Have

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