Arrange – Plantation

It’s a great time to be a bedroom musician. With the influx in popularity of artists like Washed Out and How To Dress Well, the DIY music scene is thriving even without big budgets and industry contacts. The same goes for Ft. Lauderdale, FL’s Malcom Lacey, who records as Arrange. He released his first full-length album, Plantation, for free last week, and it’s a great testament to what one man can accomplish with his music.

Let me start off by saying that there’s a lot going on throughout Plantation. Instrumental opener “In Old Theaters” builds from a wash of noise into a powerful melodic number with driving ride cymbal and lush piano, but fades into “Tiny Little Boy,” which off the bat begins with a heavy electronic beat that would turn Deadmau5 on. Lacey’s unique vocals also make an appearance here, and we get our first look into the melancholy nature of the album: “I’ve been struggling / pulling brains apart / just lacking decent skill or patience / ’cause I’m built of hate.” There’s a tension that never seems to resolve – even when the beat drops out and we’re faced with shelter, there’s an electronic hum on the horizon that keeps me on the edge of my seat. This the kind of record that invalidates the use of genres altogether- “When’d You Find Me?” seems normal enough – standard song structure, standard verses – until the dub beat comes in a little over halfway through, and the album’s catchiest guitar riff fades into ambient noise towards the track’s conclusion.

“Gold Neighborhoods” is crackly and uses field recordings to great advantage and picturesque effect, while “Tearing Up Old Asphalt” features beautiful, melodic piano and is one of the most emotionally powerful tracks on the album. Worth noting everywhere especially is Lacey’s piano playing. The percussion always works, the guitar never feels out of place, but the piano actually feels like a treat. It’s never too complex, but it always manages to do a lot with very simple melodies and chords, and the keyboard tones on this album are just absolutely beautiful. The end of “Medicine Man” is noisy and chaotic, with runaway drum machines and overwhelming distortion, but the dulce piano melody trickles through, and this combination takes the track to the next level. He puts piano where it wouldn’t normally be, and it’s absolutely beautiful. The piano even sings the record to sleep on closer “Orange Glow (Thank You For The Night).”

But I can’t say enough about how well things fit together on this album. Juxtapose a track like “Turnpike” with “Blinds With You.” The former is incredibly sparse, with music-box piano and messy percussion leaving nothing for Lacey’s emotional vocals to hide behind. The track is desolate and powerful because it allows the vocals to shine. On the other hand, “Blinds With You” is the album’s “loudest” track in a traditional sense, with searing synth, handclaps, and a driving beat. And then, on “Veins,” Lacey shows us he didn’t need to sacrifice one for the other – despite having very little percussion, the tune manages to keep an undeniably moving rhythm and callbacks to the same layered synth elements. And then, for the two bonus tracks, Lacey really switches things up with heavy use of samples. “Sore” reminds me a lot of The Avalanches- definitely the “grooviest” song on Plantation, and a standout of the entire record. As Lacey himself put it, “When you put together the likes of Ayotollah, Engelbert Humperdinck, Common, and Johnny Cash, you really can’t go wrong.”

This isn’t to say that the record is too varied or loses itself in experimentation. It doesn’t. It has a unifying sound – it’s just made up of so many little pieces that it’s hard to describe THE sound. The only thing I can say is listen to it for yourself – I’m sure you’ll be engaged by each and every minute of it. And that’s another great thing about Plantation – it’s not unweildy in the slightest. The album, even with the bonus tracks, is a little under 40 minutes long. It’s a quick listen, but trust me, you’ll want to return to it over and over again. This is one of the best releases of the year so far, and trust me, you don’t want to sleep on it, because Arrange is going places.

Download Plantation now!
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