By It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the ethereal North Carolina pop music of Kate De Rosset’s IT WILL BURN and the engaging psych rock of plantoid’s FLARE!
Kate De Rosset – IT WILL BURN
Genre: Ethereal Wave, Ambient Pop, Bedroom Pop
Favorite Tracks: “What Wish,” “Silver Screen,” “The Spark,” “Cool Blue Flame,” “In The New”
Yearning is common for musicians, but it’s how they express it that differs. Some keep things straightforward, others give it layered complexity, and Kate De Rosset clings onto that feeling like no one has ever felt before. She feels like it’s her entire world, the means to escape and to breathe freely, straddled across ambient pop and indie folk that’s plastered all over her entire discography.
IT WILL BURN, in particular, returns to the ambient pop she started with, but amplifies the dreamy sheen to expound the yearning that sounded more spacious. “What Wish” is swimming in glossy organs and fuzzy drums, as Rosset gently ruminates upon her worries that hampers the passions that she wishes to give to provide for a hurting connection. The gauzy “Silver Screen” emphasizes how the romantic spirit transcends the physical and into the spiritual, where letting hesitation in only creates separation, and must be let go to feel the majesty of being in love.
The consistent use of distant vocals and glowing atmosphere creates that transcendent passage, and the tension that comes with distance and worries. It gives the percussive focus of “The Spark” and the sweeping melodic gloss of “Cool Blue Flame” to sound respectively weighty and soft. As the final song, “In the New,” embraces the fleeting moments of time and accepting what’s new in the future, yet there’s a quiet melancholy in the love that will soon be away. “This shining heart / Can feel you call on me / Soft and strong,” Rosset sings. She acknowledges the strength regained throughout, but carries the ache of what she will leave behind.
IT WILL BURN is true to what is on the tin. It shimmers to the point that it gradually lights up, evoking passion that can move someone to a different space. As De Rosset gets older, she never lets the passage of time stomp her immeasurable yearning, if that means holding on to passions beyond life itself. Listen to this ethereal album on Bandcamp.
plantoid – FLARE
Genre: Progressive Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Favorite Tracks: “Ultivatum Cultivation,” “The Weaver,” “Dozer,” “Good For You,” “Splatter,” “Slow Moving”
plantoid began as a bud, quickly becoming a full tree. Their debut album plants the seed of their progressive rock sound, unwinding into jagged riffs and sauntering into giddy crescendos. It becomes a statement of a band finding their own footnote, prancing and spinning in their musicality to paint out their melodic blueprint. All of it changes through FLARE, their second.
Their curiosity to implement poppy structures in jazzy progressive rock tones gives it a remarkable tunefulness, and Chloe Spence’s singing makes these songs even more expressive. Whether that be trampling grooves of “Ultimatum Cultivation,” where Spence’s upper register nimbly tiptoes around, or “The Weaver,” where her vocals eagerly float across playful instrumental melodies. The expansion evokes a sense of smallness the band writes about, stretching over to the arc of trying to toughen up despite how fragile and stuck things can get. The buzzy math rock jam of “Dozer” and the lilting flutes, soaring coos, and vibrant melodic crescendos of “Good For You” evoke the yearning need for someone when things are feeling down. It extends to the ruckus jammy compositions of “Splatter” and the airy softness of “Slow Moving,” where things might fall apart for both partners, but they keep on going, even despite them and the environment they’re in begin to stagnate and chip away.
FLARE is a continuous progression from what plantoid has offered beforehand, finding new ways to keep their tunes exciting. The band has delivered overall, with the full embrace of Spence’s expressive vocals, fascinating writing, and pop structure deepens their melodic and emotional intricacies. Listen to their colorful album on Bandcamp.
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