Punko: Plants Singing | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Punko’s Liv Jansz arrives in mystical form on her debut, solo album. The enveloping reverb and hypnotic synths reflect the dappling moonlight, loop like the spirit returning to find itself again and climb backward through history, up the maternal lineage as she loses herself in hazy time. The journey is both subtle and cryptic, less music somehow and more a meditation. Here you may be able to find such a quiet and stillness that you can experience the almost imperceptible healing of the soul and while you’re there, you might also listen for the sound of the Plants Singing.

Jansz hasn’t always hidden away in folds of hypnotic synth, but you will find parallels here in the work she’s done with Sui Zhen. It’s tempting to get so lost in the more amorphous qualities of the sound that you could fool yourself into thinking this is ambient music. There are, however, also fruitful comparisons to be made to other spirit-travellers of the synth world: like Peaking Lights or Moon Duo. I think that Punko shares some of their predilection for head-spinning prog and kraut rhythms, though here they are deployed with the greatest of reserve. It’s not all vanishingly shy and quiet however, I’m very often reminded of the gothic splendour of Siouxsie Sioux listening to Jansz’ voice when she really starts to lilt.

The elliptical nature of Punko’s lyrics can really make you puzzle over her symbolism and work to understand just what she’s singing about; although the album’s opening cri de coeur is clearer than most.  “The understanding / It really hurts / When the world’s not ready / Nobody moves / Somebody gets hurt” she quivers, taking aim at society’s hoary institutions -in particular the media- and their inability to get with a more progressive mindset. In tune with  the mystical spirit of the record however, Punko is way too preoccupied with more more cerebral things to really be bothered: “I’m distracted by the future / I’m not looking at you” is her summary dismissal.

That dismissive tendency appears a few times across the album and can be quite brutal. I must admit I thought this might be a nasty breakup record. Then I read Jansz’ own track-by-track and realised she was not really concerned with matters so mundane. Take “Holding me close / Will hurt us both / Please come and collect yourself” on the song Collect -I mean, ow!- but she’s actually talking about her own ego and ‘breaking up’ with a negative internal dialogue. Still ow, but we’re always harshest with our own selves, I suppose.

There are actually legit breakup songs, like Cash Under Your Bed, but even these are usually circumscribed by philosophical considerations: Punko is less fixated on the memory of an abusive relationship than she is with plotting the path to healing through the looping cycles of time: “I’m not looking for it / I’m hoping it will find me soon” as she puts it. Occasionally, however, it’s exactly as harsh as it sounds, as on Undivided, where Jansz concludes “It’s hard to remember / Knowing you at all”. Now I really mean it: ow!

Painted By The Moon is powerful, punching through the twinkling silver moonlight of its ethereal sound with some of the record’s most propulsive rhythms. It picks out an anti-rape anthem in cryptic phrases, which are at their clearest when Punko proclaims: “I’m not in the mood to fear for my life”.

I often felt foolishly reductive, looking for typical breakups or love songs, when Punko’s more sublime themes were running rings around me. Sadly the reverse is also kind of true. White Birds seemed like images of angels and some kind of symbolisation of love and connection via almost religious interpersonal connections. It’s actually a straight-up celebration of the cockatoos of the Yarra River. So, I took a deep dive into some shallower water there, but pretty soon I was plunging out of my depth again. The delicious synthpop duet Time For Us with Christobel Eliot of Pillow Pro is much more than a love song, celebrating a bond of friendship that echoes back through the generations, honouring the connections between women and the wisdom to be found there. You’ll find very similar themes evoked on songs like Pray or even an actual love song such as Rolling Light Blue, which can’t help but take on a maternal aspect, as Jansz snuggles into the shapeless warmth of another and calls out for “Mumma”.

Sometimes I feel like I’m being pulled head-over-heels by the subtle forces of this record: yanked out of this world, plunged into a more metaphysical one and drawn inexorably back again. I think my confusion with Plants Singing is because, often I failed to realise when it’s operating on multiple levels at once. I hear a song about love and personal connection without taking in that its reaching across generations. I think love here is less mundane: it’s a spiritual portal, bridged by inner peace and prayer to a place where new possibilities and connections abound.

Punko’s journey ends on a very vulnerable note, on +/-, detailing the agony of losing someone close. It’s a time when even a spiritual adept like Jansz can find herself at risk. This admission of personal jeopardy, however, is still also another invitation to understand the value of multi-valent personal connections. When she sings “I can’t farewell you friend” it represents the need to reach out and find solace with others. Existing in this world, rubbing shoulders with everyone in it is no easy thing: Punko freely admits her own weaknesses here and I think I’ve adequately demonstrated my own, stumbling through her spiritual insights. There’s a lot to do, to find ourselves in this web of connections to this world and beyond. Take a moment however, to find some peace, to lapse into quiet and stillness, listening for the Plants Singing.

- Chris Cobcroft.