Pictureplane

Pictureplane’s sound is some where between 8-bit dance like Crystal Castles and Baltimore cut and paste hip-hop beats like Spank Rock. I got tipped off on Pictureplane on Pitchfork in an article about HEALTH and had to check them out. On the myspace they have friends like the aforementioned HEALTH and Drop The Lime who I also love. Pictureplane are from a Denver art scene that comes out of a place called Rhinoceropolis, which from what I can gather is something like LA’s The Smell, an all ages D.I.Y. art space. They seem like kindred spirits, just a quick look on their myspace suggests so as The Mae-Shi are playing there in the near future.

Pictureplane is a one-man band that is pretty much just beats, keyboard and vocals. He makes one hell of a sound though. We get Baltimore booty bass and beats with cut up elements similar to Crystal Castles vocal stuff. There is also a guitar element to some songs as well that add some interesting noise to the proceedings. The vocals are often cut up and pitched up and down for melody effect or echo drenched. The tunes manage to sound both scuzzy, dirty and sun drenched all at once. This is my tip of the day to counter balance my cut copy review earlier. Pictureplane has some tunes up for download in his myspace go and check them out for your self here. I will do some searching and see what else is coming from Rhinoceropolis soon, it looks promising.