With their latest album, Haunted Organic Machines, The Mystery Plan continue to hone their affinity for club mixes and the perennial textures of dreampop. Largely defined by shimmering synths and ghostly vocals, the sequence alternately evokes exhilaration and melancholy, conjuring late-night frissons as much as the smoky haze of a morning-after.
“What A Day” integrates dance-y beats, synth-swells, and a resonant flute part, Jason Herring perhaps tipping his hat to Tears for Fears’ Curt Smith. The track initially occurs as straightforward fare. As it unfurls, however, it begins to roil mercurially, employing casual beats and electronic accents, a mix that remains tethered in the synth-pop domain but hints at avant-garde R&B. The remix toward the end of the project is comparatively unadorned, less beat-centric, and more spacious, but emanates a similarly wistful vibe.
“When can we gather again?” Amy Herring asks on “Inner Space”, echoing what we all mumbled on a daily basis during the Covid epoch, wondering if we’d been cast as extras in a dystopian sci-fi flick. “Late Night” basks in loungey delights while grooving on funk implications courtesy of Otis Hughes’ twangy/throbby bass part. And who says lounge isn’t psychedelic? You’re transported to an airport bar or some other Carver-esque limbo where a house band plays pensive melodies on their synths and horns. An unwavering beat keeps you alert as you wait for your flight to be rescheduled. You might even get up in the middle of the song and ask someone to dance, two strangers swaying together under light that’s a bit too bright or a bit too dim.
“I Think I’m Granola” navigates jazzy dreamscapes, reminiscent of Vanishing Twin or Broadcast on mild opiates. Synthy flares shoot across the sonic field like summer waves from The Truman Show, rousing heartache and the perennial yen for abandon, release, transcendence. “Snow Queen”, meanwhile, is built around a supple bass part, rave-y synthscapes, ambient vocals, and Patty McLaughlin’s hyper-catchy flute part.
The celestial “Holding My Interest” references cinematic vistas a la M83, serving as an elegy for 80s’ production values, vocals swaddled in chorus and reverb. But it’s a sober love song, ultimately, a duet brimming with stylistic and emotional range. We’re adored and adore others, the song affirms, and yet, the two voices are aptly offset, as if to illustrate the tensions and ambivalence inherent to even the most harmonious relationship. A sense of viral loneliness churns in the background.
Haunted Organic Machines, like many of the albums that influenced it, distinctly invokes the reality of impermanence. This is music that reminds you that there has always been something important prior to what’s considered important now … and that something else equally or more important will inevitably follow … and soon. Beauty, though, will serve as our vaccine, antidote, and distraction.
