The Plum, Magnetic Terra Animata (Independent)

Plum Magnetic, Terra Animata, album cover

Somebody was bound to mate gentle folk (music, not denizens) with banjo, with tabla, with oscillating prog-rock structures traveling up and down through the chambers of the nautilus. The Plum Magnetic do it reasonably well, sporting subtle textures that stand out the more you listen. Steel drums, saxes and voices wander in and out, sometimes stopping to take a look around, sometimes just wandering.

The only thing that hits me wrong is the reggae, but that’s me. It may not be Jamaican but it slides and slips and slopes easily enough into jamming. These fellows probably sound better from several hundred yards off with a beer in one claw and a spliff spiked in your other set of talons, but I give this record a thumbs-up and urge them to drop the reggae, up the horns, and try for interstellar space instead of Earth orbit, next