Band:

Planet P Project

BiografieI’ve been plagued by a rhetorical question for many years; rhetorical because I don’t think any living person can have an adequate answer. If domination, subjugation and murder are wrong, how could an entire nation be coaxed into supporting them? It’s a heady question, isn’t it? Certainly it isn’t the standard grist for a rock album, but “1931” is hardly standard.



The brainchild of Planet P Project, also known as multi-instrumentalist Tony Carey, the album’s songs are bent sideways with pitch black humor, almost to the breaking point. One song in specific is almost cruel in technique. When the song “Work (Will Make You Free)” opens, it does so with the dialogue “Hurry up, you’ll miss your train”, initially, the listener may flash upon a workplace diatribe, but the train is headed for a concentration camp. The phrase “Work will make you free” was an aphorism driven into the minds of detainees and their freedom was not from entrapment but from life itself. How could I be so mistaken? This is actually the point of the recording, and an attempt to probe that rhetorical question I was talking about. Obviously I’m not the only one.



Thematically, “1931” explores the dangers of “group-think” versus individual responsibility, from songs like “My Radio Talks To Me” to the pointing-hands cover art, an interpretation of the logo from Fritz Lang’s “M”, a film that also confronted group-think. The hands are not the indicator. It’s the subversive swastika shape they emulate that speaks volumes. Again, how could I be so mistaken?



As a concept album trilogy, Go Out Dancing (or G.O.D.) is starting off strong in ideas, but the actual sound of the music is extremely anachronistic. While couched in the investigation of pre-WW2, Planet P Project’s sound runs more toward mid-1980s Roger Waters and his “Radio K.A.O.S.” disc, both dramatic and a little synth-funky. It works in theory but sometimes the insistent groove is just way out of place and a little out of line. Perhaps it is too a raw subject, this notion of how a society can be led, deceived or made to feel so small that fascism actually is a preference. It doesn’t naturally lend itself to the sort-of-dancepop as presented here, but it does fit in to the overall theory of humanity blindly going ‘out’, dancing all the way. The answer to our rhetorical question is right in front of us and we’re too shellshocked to learn it.



I found myself appreciating “1931” more as I liked it less, if you can imagine that. As the listener, I was being played as the fool, singing along to some rather heinous proposals, suckered by the propaganda with a beat, but don’t think for a moment that Tony Carey is espousing the doctrines of hate as a personal goal. Like any good teacher, and this disc truly does teach a lesson, Carey needs to show you what goes on from the inside out and he gets you there through an insidiously hummable hook and a beat you can dance to, just like a nation entering the tunnel, at one side jitterbuggin’ and out the other goosestepping. Think I’m kidding? Listen to him site some of our post-war atrocities and ask yourself if we’ve truly captured our history and evolved. It’s not easy to like a piece that shows you just how easily you too can be led. The sound against the message seems just plain wrong... It can’t be. It just can’t.



In short, “1931” is a powerful and valuable experience, but ultimately hard to love when you are given back unclouded eyes. I heartily endorse it but I’ll admit I won’t revisit it often. It is a well-made work, but I don’t like how it makes me feel. I guess I always had the answer to my question but, Lord, I never wanted to admit it.

Quelle: http://www.musictap.net/Reviews/PlanetPProject1931CD.htmDiscografie1982 - Yellow Power

1982 - In The Absence Of The Cat

1982 - I Won´t Be Home Tonight

1982 - Explorer

1982 - Heaven

1982 - No Human

1983 - Planet P Project

1984 - Planet P Project - Pink World

1984 - Some Tough City

1984 - T.C.P.

1985 - Blue Highway

1987 - I Won´t Be Home Tonight (Re-Release)

1987 - Bedtime Story

1989 - Wilder Westen Inclusive

1989 - The Story So Far

1989 - For You

1990 - Storyville

1992 - The Long Road

1992 - Some Tough City (Re-Release)

1992 - Blue Highway (Re-Release)

1993 - For You (Best Of)

1993 - Rare Tracks

1994 - Cold War Kids

1996 - Bedtime Story (Re-Release)

1997 - A Fine Fine Day

1997 - Storyville (Best Of)

1999 - The Boystown Tapes

1999 - Gefangen im Jemen

2000 - Retrospective 1982-1999

2003 - Go Out Dancing Part 1 - "1931" (Internetdownload)

2004 - Go Out Dancing Part 1 - "1931" (Eigenproduktion)

2004 - Island & Deserts

2004 - Go Out Dancing part 1 - "1931" (Re-Release)

www

Reviews

1931-Go Out Dancing Part One - Cover
"Detroid, 1939 - Berlin, 1939. The family’s sitting around the radio on a Sunday evening, like all the other families.
TIPP