|
|
 |
Francis Plagne
 Francis Plagne, barely twenty years old, is in reviews, articles and general chitchat, almost unanimously described as a wunderkind. One might have come across his music on the ABC live experimental music program 'Set', or in one of countless bars, theatres, galleries and dives in Melbourne.
Nursing a cold, Plagne has taken his last exam for the year, and is preparing for his first solo tour to Adelaide and third trip overall. Up until recently, Ned Collette (guitar/bass/vocal) was a part of Plagne's live band, but Connal Parsley is now easing back into the role he once vacated. In our chat a few weeks ago Collette remarked that Plagne is both musical and academic savant. The shy Art History student replies, "Uh...he could be wrong." One thing for certain is that Plagne's sound universe -informed by classic pop, loose-limbed free improvisation, and musique-concrete - is complex, arresting, and completely his own.
Plagne, who has been recording at home since he was an adolescent, cut his teeth on avant-garde music first as a customer, and next as an employee at Melbourne's legendary Synaesthesia Records. Store boss Mark Harwood, whose Synaesthesia label is synonymous with avant-garde music, was so taken with Plagne's home recordings that he asked the young man to compile what was to be his debut album 'Idle Bones' in 2005. Harwood has since relocated to London, and has along with Melbourne-based Mistletone Records co-released Plagne's second, self-titled album.
'Francis Plagne' is a lot to take in at once. Plagne, the hardworking music obsessive, takes up almost all of the CD's available space with 17 tracks - in the pre-digital era, 'Francis Plagne' would have been a double LP. "There's a couple of tracks that are almost entirely from a couple of years ago but I think even they have a [newer] vocal track or whatever. Nothing sort of stayed untouched". Plagne recorded the songs on his 8-track tape recorder, utilising primitive sampling techniques, stereo panning and the hum of roomsound to present a work of queasy outsider genius.
"On the first one it was a lot more separate. I sort of made all these songs, and made all this concrete, and stuck them together". On 'Francis Plagne', out of abstract passages bloom wonky pop songs, and vice versa, Plagne's apparent disdain towards sitting still reflected in his continuously metamorphosing arrangements.
It is when Plagne talks about music other than his own that he appears most relaxed. What Is Music? Festival co-founder Robbie Avenaim recently curated a series of performances at Melbourne's Bus Gallery. Avenaim, Dale Gorfinkel and Ernie Althoff set up homemade instruments and played twin prepared vibraphones and found instruments over the top, inviting a swag of experimental artists to improvise alongside them and Plagne was at three of the concerts. "They pretty much just made all these instruments that played themselves. And Dale and Robbie both had their vibraphones. Ernie just did really strange things. So they turned these instruments that played themselves on and off and then Robbie and Dale would just play live over the top and Ernie would play...like...jam jars."
"I mean the stuff they were doing was really incredible. The way they were playing was like an ideal sort of form of improvising for me. It was spread out in the space, really layered, really non-linear and strange. I mean the show they did with [Anthony] Pateras was amazing."
It is the self-prescribed linearity of Plagne's own live group sound that has led him to redefine his approach. Playing with Collette was an enjoyable experience - "it was something new every time," says Plagne, reveling in Collette's willingness to jump straight into the improv passages. In Adelaide, Plagne will perform with voice, electronics and acoustic guitar, leaving his myriad knick-knacks at home.
Plagne - two intriguing LPs under his belt, as well as a cassette-only release on Matt Earle's fantastic Breakdance the Dawn imprint - has tentative plans to travel abroad to England, to study, and indeed to tour. "I wanna try and go, actually. But I mean I'm just sort of confusing myself at the minute, because I want to go on exchange...It's sort of scary because in Melbourne I have some sort of reputation or whatever, and can get shows and stuff but even in other (Australian) cities, nobody knows who I am." Let's hope that's not the case for much longer.
Lenin Simos
Francis Plagne plays Gallery de la Catessen on Thurs 20 Dec with Tiny Ponies, Scott O'Hara and Ellen Carey, and Jon Dale.
|
|
The latest issue
available now!
|
