- "Hear the drum / De-genderize all intellect." It's not exactly your standard house lyric—but then Planningtorock has rarely made anything approaching standard house music. Still, after the expansive synth pop manoeuvres of her W LP on DFA in 2011, Janine Rostron's recent singles have taken a distinct turn towards the dance floor. Last year's "Patriarchy (Over & Out)" fired the starting gun, with Rostron intoning "Patriarchal life, you're out of date" over a frenetic electro framework. Misogyny Drop Dead is its follow up and, as the title might suggest, it expresses a similar sentiment.
It's hard to think of a more righteous message for a release timed to coincide with International Women's Day. These themes are common for Rostron, whose prosthetic augmentations and stark, androgynous vocals seem tailor-made to subvert the normative expectations placed on female musicians. These new singles, though, are her most politically direct work to date.
The title track is the main attraction, a supremely odd house anthem whose queasy central riff will earworm you in seconds. Rostron's voice is typically pungent, swaggering almost, before it takes a back seat as the ramshackle first half gives way to deeper atmospheres in the second. "Agender" is a slighter instrumental interlude, but Rostron returns to the mic on "Public Love," whose massive synth-horn stabs hint at the brash energy of grime as well as Berlin's cavernous club spaces. You will struggle to find a more compelling and unusual dance release to have emerged so far this year.
Tracklist A1 Misxgyny Drxp Dead
A2 Agender
B Public Love
