STICKLIP Bec Plexus

BEC PLEXUS

STICKLIP

Introducing the wildly playful avant electronica of Amsterdam-based Bec Plexus, whose musical mantra is to invite and invert. Her meticulously structured debut recording STICKLIP wanders to unexpected places with each song serving as a channel for a secret to be revealed inside the absurdist confessional booth at the “church” of Bec Plexus.

Eight diverse composers from the Netherlands and the United States are among the more than 30 international genre-bending artists who helped create STICKLIP. That includes Arone Dyer of the inventive duo Buke and Gase, David T. Little—described by The New York Times as “having a knack for overturning music conventions”—and Richard Ayres, a British pioneer of electronic composition who studied with avant-garde composers Morton Feldman and Louis Andriessen.

This deeply collaborative process continued into the production room, with Plexus honing these soundscapes alongside Australian modular synth legend David Chesworth, as well as Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Chang from Son Lux, a band known for approaching music “with omnivorous taste and a penchant for wild improvisation.”

“I decided that every song would be its own world,” Plexus describes of birthing STICKLIP, an experience she likened to opening a new coloring book full of outlines ready for exploration and experimentation.

Armed with musical foundations built at the Conservatory of Amsterdam—where she studied composition formally with Joël Bons, a recent winner of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for composition, and Richard Ayres, who composed three songs especially for this recording—Plexus developed a growing fascination with the endless possibilities in electronic music and its multifarious ways to generate, alter and combine sound.

“I love music that’s adventurous—meaning going unexpected places—and complex while also being inviting and physically appealing,” she explains. “I love when music feels like my native language telling a story I could never have imagined. I try to create a similar foundation in what I write. That often ends up somewhere in between contemporary art music and pop music.”

What it ultimately comes down to is that Bec Plexus doesn’t care about measuring up to specific traditions or genres.

“All I care about is to notice wondrous ideas, to hold on to them and nurture them into existence,” she explains. “STICKLIP doesn’t feel like I’m jumping into a new world; it feels like I’m discovering my own world.”

However it’s described, Bec Plexus’ STICKLIP is an intoxifying coming-of-age musical journey from one of the most exciting new artists of the second decade of the 21st century.

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Tracklisting:

1) think out loud - Molly Joyce

2) waist high - Arone Dyer (drums version)

3) give me your heart - Richard Ayres

4) busy making steps - Bec Plexus

5) surrogate reality - Sanne Huijbregts

6) dare i dare you - Amy Beth Kirsten

7) whisperlude - Bec Plexus

8) i picked you up - Richard Ayres

9) mirror image - Pascal Le Boeuf

10) hold my tongue - David T Little