Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
Chicken soup for the indie rocker's soul. Soothing indie rock - though not lo-fi. These guys keep steadily mid-tempo beats, but the the unaltering guitars and soft indie-pop vocals can still bring you to that indie-zen place. Good stuff... - READ Magazine
…this is good music. The mood isn’t too different from a band like The Shins…reminds me of Elliot Smith, so let’s leave it at that. He was a bit tough to classify as a pop artist, and The Seldon Plan do sound quite a bit like him. These guys have a way with hooks… - Left Of the Dial
This debut release from The Seldon Plan is filled with well-crafted pop music such as the Teenage Fanclub influenced tracks ‘Top Left Corner’ and ‘Westchester’. The best song on Making Circles just might be the bouncy but original ‘Love Again’. What is most impressive about Making Circles is the fact that although this album is a self-released effort it sounds like a top-notch release from a major label.
- erasingclouds.com
Amazing, delicate, and intricate intelligent indie rock!
Making Circles is a simple delight. The songs on this disk are a fine example of mid-tempo inteliigent indie pop for those with discriminating taste. Songs like the title track "Making Circles" and the downtempo "Samuel P. Huntingdon" recall early REM and and early Cure, while the overall sound of this disc is closer to the latest efforts by Spoon mixed with the energy and tone of the record "Proximity Effect" by Nada Surf. This record recals a time in music when it was OK to make your lyrics somewhat intellectual and your pop catchy and complex. This is a great CD by a great band. - CD Baby, Jake Ramsay
The Seldon Plan is a great new band from Baltimore. These four guys play guitar pop that is reminiscent of some of the greatest bands of the 1980s and 1990s. Two things missing from the majority of average pop bands are excellent melodies and great vocals. The guys in The Seldon Plan have both. Making Circles resounds with catchy tunes with top notch vocals. These guys make music that sounds familiar while managing to retain unique character and creativity. The guitars sound inspired and totally lovely. When combined with those heavenly vocals...the overall effect is cerebral and heavenly. We rarely hear independent releases that even come close to the quality of this disc. Destined to be a favorite among fans of underground pop, the guys in The Seldon Plan are doing everything right. Killer cuts include "A Rhyming Dictionary," "Making Circles," "Westchester," "Love Again," "New Instant," and "Chicago 2003." Recommended. - babysue.com
One listen to Making Circles and you’re hooked like a smallmouth bass. - Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover Magazine
You can hear a hint of emo in The Seldon Plan which is all you want to hear. The quartet plays tuneful, wistful rock that Seth Cohen (of “The OC”) would probably dig - David Malitz, The Washington Post
The Seldon Plan blend to perfection swirling power pop inside a indie-rock sense of sublime melodic structures to make “Making Circles” one of the more fresh sounding indie releases that has come along in the last few months. - Bruce Bodeen, Not Lame
Baltimore’s The Seldon Plan employs the kind of pop-rock that all the indie kids are craving as a follow-up to their seminal Husker Du albums. A post-rock quartet, The Seldon Plan even managed to record with Frank Marchand made famous for working with Bob Mould as well as other local heroes like Jimmie’s Chicken Shack and Good Charlotte. They swirl pop harmonies amid dynamic guitar melodies that showcase their immense songwriting talent. Indie pop for the crowd that doesn’t mind saying that they enjoy emo and whose idea of indie rock isn’t Weezer. - smother.net (J. Sin)
Like Death Cab For Cutie and Cabrini, the Seldon Plan is one of those bands that treads the line between emo and indiepop. The songs are jangly and catchy like any good indiepop tunes, but they also have a more mature and polished sound you would hear in a lot of emo. Even with its catchy songs, the album has a generally subdued feel with hushed vocals and a restrained sound...there are enough really good songs on here, to make me want to listen to it over and over. - indiepages.com
Discography
The Living Room EP (The Beechfields) - 2003
The Seldon Plan / A Throwaway Society Split CD (OTPRecords) - 2004
Making Circles (OTPRecords) - 2005
The Collective Now (NOT YET RELEASED)- 2007
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
An Introduction
The Seldon Plan is a Baltimore-based band that plays “tuneful-wistful rock...” (The Washington Post). The band’s live performance schedule has been steady throughout the northeast US over the past two years as they supported their first full-length record Making Circles – including shows with Matt Pond PA, Now It’s Overhead, I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness, Explosions in the Sky, and Jet By Day.
Making Circles has been widely critically acclaimed and made its way onto a number of top-record of the year lists, including a selection as one of “the top 40 releases of 2005” by influential indie-magazine The Big Takeover. Chris Connelly of On Tap Magazine sums up the general sentiment from critics and audiences about this band, saying, “catch them on the ground floor, before this wonderful secret gets out.”
The Seldon Plan presents The Collective Now (out 2007)
The new record by The Seldon Plan, titled The Collective Now, is an expansive exploration of the band’s on-again-off-again relationship with pop music. The Collective Now was originally meant to be a dance-pop record with a healthy reverence to early 80’s college radio. However, The Collective Now evolved into what the band suggests is their own mature, widely influenced brand of modern indie pop.
What results is an interesting essay on the tension a band might feel between simplicity, accessibility and artistic expression. Listeners might hear The Collective Now as a diverse intersection between Maritime, The Little Ones, Band of Horses, Earlimart and The Swirlies. No matter what you hear, you are sure to enjoy this sophomore effort from The Seldon Plan.
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