Planningtorock 8211 Powerhouse LP

This November, celebrated dance producer Planningtorock aka Jam Rostron will release their radical fourth album: Powerhouse. Powerhouse marks the Berlin-via-Bolton producers most intimate album to date, a kinetic, self-produced record flush with attitude, humour, vulnerability and swagger. W, Planningtorocks critically acclaimed 2011 debut on DFA, revealed a visionary and politicised producer. It offered up deeply queered art-pop tense, atmospheric dance music cut with classical flourishes, and spell-binding androgyny. But it was 2014s All Loves Legal (a masterclass in left-of-centre dance music, Mixmag), released on Rostron\’s own imprint Human Level, where Planningtorock, with banner-ready slogans (Patriarchy Over And Out, Lets Talk About Gender Baby), revealed their ability to combine pop-oriented music with a political message. Powerhouse offers up something infinitely more personal: emotionally-charged, biographical anthems drawn from Rostrons lived experiences as a non-binary genderqueer artist, experiences around family, identity and music itself. Powerhouse was written and recorded across Berlin, London, New York and Los Angeles. It comes couched in the precision-tooled synths that have become Rostrons signature, though critics and fanswill hear a subtle, ear worm-y shift in style here: from the Noughties US r&b swagger of Transome and the bubbling oldschool 90s house of \’Beulah Loves Dancing\’ and Non Binary Femme, to the funky, flute-laced Much To Touch (the only track on Powerhouse to feature a co-producer, long-time friend and collaborator Olof Dreijer of The Knife). Powerhouse by Planningtorock