Planningtorock? Pickupthisalbum.

Hello, and once again grad­pants, apolo­gies for my absence. I’ve been doing grad school things. I’m not embar­rassed. But as long as I’m sit­ting here all groggy and use­less with the crusty begin­nings of the first flu of the season (thx room­mates, just in time for the weekend, jerks), I thought I should bring to your atten­tion this bril­liant album. Planningtorock’s “Have It All” [buy] is won­derful, and I’ve been rocking it for the past few days.

Plan­ning­torock con­sists of the highly visual bizarro art-rock antics of one Janice Ros­tron. Her voice has the same kind of unabashed big­ness that drew me to Roisin Murphy’s album last year, but as it were “Have It All” is lots higher on the weird factor — there are loops, strings, beats, and lay­ered vocals all together in one hott mess. Thing is, though, that she has all the kook, but she also has a keen sense of melody and timing, which is what makes this not just another batch of unlis­ten­able freak music. Listen to my so-far-favorite cut off the album, “Bolton Wan­derer” — it has the kind of stompy, author­i­ta­tive, 4–4 beat to it that makes me think of night­time street­walking scenes in movies, but the back­ground wails give it a more haunting, icy edge. And I love love love the har­monies. Then listen maybe to “I Wanna Bite Ya,” which seems to be about can­ni­balism. Does she actu­ally ask “what hap­pens if / buttsex isn’t enough?” I think it sounds an awful lot like she does, and I myself would like to know the answer to that question.

Now, Planningtorock’s videos are another thing alto­gether. They fea­ture a host of kalei­do­scopics against stark back­grounds, which has a kind of hov­ering alien over­lord vibe — watch this one for “Changes,” for instance, and see if you don’t agree: the sym­metry is creepy as hell. (Sorry, I suck and messed up girl­pants when I tried to embed that sucka, so uh, just click the link.)

Hooray! Now go buy the album. And you Europe-dwellers, go see Plan­ning­torock on her live tour with Peaches. Oth­er­wise, just wait til she’s in NY or LA with The Knife (!).