Music
Press
one man army, Plenty Face, recorded a homemade record that sounds like it was made on a big budget in a studio owned by Rick Rubin.
...his attitude is: confident, creative, and careless-to-expectations.
Armed with real bass skills, acoustic trills, ghetto blasters, noise-makers, bullhorn, distorted microphones and gadgets of all type, his art dances and it is the essence and hopefully the future of private expression embracing community. That means dancing sweaty and thinking at the same time, with playful head-bobs to lost pop mutations like grebo (anyone remember the hip-hop fashion-damage dance skronk-pop of Hayzee Fantayzee?)...
...a vocalist and arranger who seems as assured of his playful strengths as David Byrne in his prime. You can actually hear fun happening all over this disc,
"Something Poetic" seems like a perkier Ten In The Swear Jar, a rough-house bitch slap on chugging indie pop, great guitar work woven over cheery slap-back electronic drumming.
There is no genre for The Singing Gag, but fans of Beck, Gorillaz, Adrian Sherwood, or Tackhead would find this pure pleasure...
- ThreeImaginaryGirls.com
...PlentyFace stands out... his self-released debut album, The Singing Gag, captures a freewheeling, lo-fi eccentricity that may remind some of pre-Geffen Beck or a more hyper, unpredictable Folk Implosion. "
"Everything about PlentyFace is slightly off, and to that I say, "Right on." "-DAVE SEGAL - The Stranger
"...warped electro/disco funk hybrid PlentyFace. If Napoleon Dynamite hadn't danced to Jamiroquai, he would have danced to this."
"Earl Muehlenbach is an electronic genius." - Seattle PI
5 out of 5 stars Plentyface = a 25-armed Juggernaut
Reviewer: David Bratton
The fact that this psychedelic freakout of an album is made by one man in one basement amazes me still. The Singing Gag - a skanky tornado of samplers, drum machines, found sound, and guitars - reminds one of Zappa smoking hillbilly weed in a spiral staircase, angelic flaming children pouring out of his moustache. An insanely epic testament to the possibilities of home recording. - David Bratton- MTV2
Discography
Oars: Oars- LP
Plenty Face:
The Singing Gag- LP
Totalizer- EP
Husband of the Deep - Single released on "The Last Perfect Day" compilation. Beep Repaired.
"Dibs" Video- by Stranger Award winning videographer Jason Ryan.
"Stuck to Its Gunk" single second Beep Repaired Compilation "Family Tree"
Wilds: Surveyor EP
Tracks from The Singing Gag have enjoyed international airplay from Serbian Radio Fedra to New Yorks celebrated break-core show on WFMU with Jason Forrest (DJ Donna Summer). The single "Something Poetic" is featured in the movie "Fast Friday."
Singing Gag tracks can be streamed at:
myspace.com/plentyface
http://cdbaby.com/cd/plentyface
"Dibs" video can be viewed at: http://www.jasonryan.net/plentyfacerough.mov
Wimbledon:
Cumershul - LP
Suck Up - EP
"Trillion: Million Million" - single on Mass Transit by Woodson Lateral Records
Photos
Bio
After months of fevered creation in a frigid Bushwick basement an unassuming duo emerged into the light of an excited Brooklyn music scene wielding a buoyant set of oddly cut pop gems. Live shows soon found the duo tweaking home-grown beats and belting bright vocal harmonies while building shimmering walls of smart, soulful pop instrumentation which often necessitated switching instruments with drill team precision. Drawing from myriad streams of modern music Oars now garners comparisons to The Knife, Holy Fuck, Prince, The Postal Service, Junior Boys, Pinback, Bowie and The Sea and Cake. Their self titled debut album captures their live energy within a lush framework of pop melodies. Cascades of swirling keyboard, guitar and bass are infused with surreal narrative, psychoanalysis, mutinous diatribe, horn blasts, hand claps, and hairpin turns of dense polyrhythm.
David Bratton and Earl Muehlenbach connected amid the house parties and basement shows of Seattle's burgeoning DIY scene in the late 90s forming an avant-rock four-piece that inspired the underground art and music collective Beep Repaired. Wimbledon and the collective soon outgrew their subterranean roots and began hosting art/music events, performing in larger Seattle clubs and getting airplay on KEXP. After releasing two records on Beep Repaired's label, Wimbledon branched off into their own projects. Earl released a solo album as Plenty Face, The Singing Gag, (named one of the 10 best DIY albums of the year" by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) while David toured and released EPs with his spaz-art side-project Pomeranian. Two years later, finding themselves on the east coast together again Dave and Earl hooked up for a new musical collaboration and Oars was born.
Earl also plays in Iran featuring Aaron Aites and Kyp Malone (of TV on the Radio). He has shared the stage with Kimya Dawson, The Fruit Bats, Destroyer, The Hold Steady, Kyp Malone, Dengue Fever, and others.
Oars has currently expanded to a 4/5 piece live band and is booking local shows and tours as they write a new album for early next year.
Here's some props from the critics for Erin Earls' past projects:
" PlentyFace stands out... his self-released debut album, The Singing Gag, captures a freewheeling, lo-fi eccentricity that may remind some of pre-Geffen Beck or a more hyper, unpredictable Folk Implosion." -DAVE SEGAL, The Stranger
"...a vocalist and arranger who seems as assured of his playful strengths as David Byrne in his prime...his art dances and it is the essence and hopefully the future of private expression embracing community."- Three Imaginary Girls
"If Napoleon Dynamite hadn't danced to Jamiroquai, he would have danced to this." "...an electronic genius." - TIZZY ASHER, Seattle PI
"...his art dances and it is the essence and hopefully the future of private expression embracing community. That means dancing sweaty and thinking at the same time. " - CHRIS ESTLEY, Three Imaginary Girls.
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