by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Jase Kester has done his part in the good fight of keeping noise rock alive, untamed, and forward thinking. As a part of Buzzhowl Records, he released essential albums from Blacklisters, Thank, Territorial Gobbing, and many others, with a roster of bands equal part melodic and mutant. Including amongst the bunch was Don’t Try, Kester’s own band that we once described as “a brooding and pulsating industrial tinged rush.” It’s been four years since that last Don’t Try release, but Kester is back with Plan Pony, a solo project turned duo built on caterwauling saxophone and harsh electronics, skewing closer to noise music than noise “rock” music. With several releases over the past couple years, Plan Pony is set to share their latest, the Flocking EP, out today via Nim Brut.
Joined by saxophonist Alison Diamond, the pair are obliterating senses with “Can’t Say, Won’t Say,” the album’s centerpiece and spiritual fault line. If the EP’s title-track is the calm before the storm, with the lead single the storm has hit and we’re all in peril. It’s abrasive in that envelopes us with a constant barrage of noise and chaos, but there’s a distance to it, warped and faded ever so slightly to offer a false sense of security. Captured live, the pounding industrial rhythms and psychedelic wash of the vocals feel like textures rattling out your speakers with the goal to break free from the machine, to bring chaos in vivid form. Diamond adds color and saturation with siren like blasts of sax, squealing over a steady churn to up the aural insanity.