Pluxus Solid State
It starts with a series of crackles and pops, then a melody line straight out […]
It starts with a series of crackles and pops, then a melody line straight out of the Morricone songbook begins forming out of a mass of thickening beats. Enter guitars, keyboards, and drums, and a sugary electro-pop tune emerges. That’s “Transient,” the opener on Solid State, the new full-length by Swedish trio Pluxus. The formula is repeated on “Kinoton” to even better effect. The tune thumps along on bass plucks and electronic fuzz, then really comes on with a burst of playful guitars and lovely space-age vocoder-treated poetry (“Shine like a star/Shine down on me”). But the song seems truncated at three and a half minutes–the best part appears ready to launch and then suddenly it’s done. “Sansui” and the title track shuffle and bump in the same fashion, though slightly darker, and with just a hint of Scandinavian winter in the air. Pluxus leaves you wanting more.