La La Land

Plants and Animals | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 20, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Secret City Records
• ASIN: B003BUAOUM
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,861 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Tom Cruz

2. Swinging Bells

3. American Idol

4. Undone Melody

5. Kon Tiki

6. Game Shows

7. Mama Papa

8. Fake It

9. Celebration

10. Future From the 80's

11. Jeans, Jeans, Jeans

Editorial Reviews

It's not easy to label the kind of music Plants and Animals make, but it's easy for it to feel instantly familiar. Maybe that's because they record to tape, and their records sound like they could have been made in 1972. But for all their analog warmth, it's also impossible to deny how raw and recent the songs sound, and harder still to find anything else that sounds quite the same.

Anyone who took their debut, Parc Avenue, into their home and hearts probably already knows this. Since that album was released in early 2008 the band has played over 100 shows, circling the Western world more than once, including appearances at the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago, Primavera in Barcelona, Central Park Summer Stage with the National, and even one night in Columbus opening for Gnarls Barkley, after Danger Mouse discovered Parc Avenue and invited them out. But regardless of where it happened, anyone who has seen the three of them perform live knows that their big sound isn't some kind of studio wizardry.

Plants and Animals are Warren C. Spicer, Matthew `the Woodman' Woodley, and Nicolas Basque, the product of a musical three-way between two boyhood friends from Canada's East Coast, and a French-Canadian. As their name suggests, the band has been a creature of evolution from the start. Its first incarnation was entirely instrumental, with loose song structures that built sound around themes and came out like epic folk music. By the time Parc Avenue was complete, Warren was singing and some of the songs were even under four minutes.

The only thing that has really remained constant from the beginning is the attention paid to detail in the recording process--whether it be editing tape with razor blades, or spending a whole day micing the drums.

Plants and Animals latest offering, La La Land, is louder, and tougher, but also showcases them their smoothest and most cohesive to-date. Inspired by a rediscovery of electric guitars, amplification and fuzz pedals, it takes us up and away from Parc Avenue's Montreal-in-the-summer vibe, and out into the rock n' roll ether. The album was recorded at the band's home-base studio in Montreal, The Treatment Room, and at Studio La Frette outside Paris, a brokedown old mansion filled with vintage gear and a killer board in the cellar instead of wine.

Though plenty of wine went into the album. As Warren puts it, "the Paris stuff is like a nice Bordeaux and the Montreal stuff is more like a baked potato. Sessions in Paris ended by 10pm, sessions in Montreal by 6am." Rum and cokes inspired the initial Treatment Room sessions in late 2008. The album's first track, "Tom Cruz," eventually came out of these late nights. As the Woodman tells it, "it was December, pre-Christmas, so we fuelled the session with rum and cokes. They made us feel like Tom Cruise. It gave us killer smiles and made our enemies wither."

Ultimately it's this sense of hilarious confidence that currently characterizes Plants and Animals, and also gives La La Land its cohesion. The Woodman's drums sound bigger and groovier, Nic colours the album with extra guitars and keyboards like a mad painter, and Warren's vocals have taken even more ambitious strides.

In many ways La La Land is just as eclectic as Parc Avenue, from California coast vibes to Montreal winters and Spanish trains. But there's something more mature holding it all together now. As they might say in the movies, La La Land isn't a place--it's a state of mind. Plants and Animals have never been a band with much interest in posturing or unnecessary theatrics, but on La La Land the curtain isn't just pulled back, it's gone entirely.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Plants and Animals: Growing on La La Land, September 29, 2010

By 

bb - See all my reviews

This review is from: La La Land (Audio CD)

"We're Plants and Animals `cause we make music that's honest like a dog drinking water or a tree falling on a car and we do it with nothing but two guitars and a drum kit so we're not trying to fool anyone." - Warren Spicer.

Canadian indie rockers Plants and Animals dropped their second full length this spring (4/20), titled La La Land. Self-described as post-classic rock, described by The Montreal Mirror as a "folk-jazz-digital-improv trio," the sound Plants and Animals bring on La La Land evokes the spacey acid deserts of the Meat Puppets, and some of the more lyric/melodic moments in the Modest Mouse/Cymbals Eat Guitars vein. Think Fleet Foxes, but weirder. There is an air of the exotic, as on "Kon Tiki," and the American Southwest creeps in on some guitar leads that leave you feeling like you're standing on the floor of Monument Valley, as the album cover may hint. Infectious riffing keeps this approaching-ethereality on the ground. Also impressive, this seemingly offhand album flows extremely well (the transition from "Swinging Bells" to "American Idol" is nothing but clutch).

There is something spiritual in the echoing spaces of this album, but if it's church, it's peyote church. Not to say it's all that serious. In reference to the intro track "Tom Cruz," they explain, "It was December, pre-Christmas, so we fuelled the session with rum and cokes. They made us feel like Tom Cruise. It gave us killer smiles and made our enemies wither."

Humor and power, MIDI instruments and analog warmth, La La Land is a delicious study in contradiction.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorites, January 13, 2011

By 

Sharky - See all my reviews

This review is from: La La Land [+Digital Booklet] (MP3 Download)

This is one of my favorite albums I own. The Mama Papa was originally my favorite but now I've sort of grown tired of that one and others have stood out. Jeans Jeans Jeans is a great up-tempo song. Tom Cruz would be my next favorite. Also love Kon Tiki among others.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better live?, November 30, 2010

By 

E. Bower "erb" (charlotte, nc) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: La La Land (Audio CD)

I saw Plants & Animals as one of the opening acts for Frightened Rabbit on 10/27 and I was impressed. Based on that performance, I picked up this disc used on Amazon. Overall, it is pretty good, but I thought that their live sound/performance was better.