Plum – Bodies in Motion

The story of how Bodies in Motion was made is almost as interesting as the record itself. Rather than returning to the methods that produced their debut, Plum decamped to a cabin in Wisconsin and essentially tried to forget how to be themselves. Songs were built from tarot card pulls, graphic scores, vocal improvisations in the woods, and deliberate constraints — write something with asymmetric phrasing; move toward the ideas you’d normally avoid. The process sounds like an art school exercise. The results sound like a band discovering what they’re actually capable of.

Jeff Kelley, Heather Perry and Eric Ridder — the latter joining on drums in 2025 following a Japanese tour that clearly did something to the band’s sense of scale — operate here with the precision of people who have rehearsed spontaneity until it becomes genuine. Opener “Asymmetric” has the Talking Heads’ sideways momentum and sharp edges, but the debt is worn lightly; Kelley’s angular guitar and Perry’s melodic bass pull in different directions without ever losing sight of each other. “Bodies in Motion,” the title track, adds krautrock repetition to no-wave brittleness in a way that shouldn’t dance as insistently as it does. “Too Much Sunlight” is the album’s most disorienting moment — spiralling and off-kilter, the kind of track that makes you conscious of your own feet.

Where the debut Can’t Hold On To It ran on groove and propulsion, Bodies in Motion is more intricate and more patient — songs that build through interlocking rhythms and counterpoint rather than forward momentum alone. “Club Scum” and “Faster, Brighter” close the record with a taut, coiled energy that suggests the live show would be something to witness.

Self-released and entirely on their own terms, this is the record of a band who went into the woods uncertain and came back knowing exactly who they are.