Photo by Bethany Blanton
Review Under Two is a segment of The Marinade with Jason Earle podcast where host Jason Earle reviews a work he finds inspiring in under two minutes.
Our Review Under Two for Episode 98 with singer-songwriter Jeremie Albino focuses on Van Plating’s record The Way Down.
Van Plating’s forthcoming record The Way Down is a top self bourbon served neat on the back deck at twilight. Its complexities are immediately apparent but still best enjoyed with slow, rapt attention and an awareness of their context.
Plating spent her 20s playing and singing in indie rock bands. When her band Pemberley broke up she decided to take some time off from touring and making records. Then life happened and a little time off turned into years.
Once the need to create, the pang that pushes one to make beautiful things, enters the system it never leaves. Like a blood flute quietly doing its work, the need to make art will rear its head even decades after the bug first arrives.
Photo by Bethany Blanton
Plating’s 2019 self-titled record was the first manifestation of the creative bug pushing itself from the cocoon. The Way Down (set for release on 11/19/21) is where the butterfly takes flight. A decade of reflection and growth baked into a collection of songs that celebrates the person Plating has become and is becoming.
So often we think of creative change in terms of rebound or redemption. An artist who overcame addiction or was left for dead by the industry. In the case of Van Plating’s The Way Down, the change is not a return from oblivion. It is a leap back into a life that was always there percolating just below the surface of a “normal” existence.
The spiritual centerpoint of the record is the final track “Oxygen.” It is a song about the loss and recovery of love. Its imagery is stark and powerful, with the ocean setting the stage for an examination of what it means to lose something essential and recover it through perseverance.
“Whose side are you on? My wings are made to soar.”
“Oxygen” is the second song on the record to mention wings- the appearance of which nods both to Van Plating’s complicated relationship with the church and her determination to rise above the noise. Who should make art? How and when should it be made? Throughout The Way Down Plating decides the answers to those questions on her terms.
“Oxygen” is a fitting closer to the record. With little more than three chords and an acoustic guitar, Plating makes apparent that while she may have had a hard time breathing at points in her life, on this record the creative airways are clear.