Album Review: Time Traveller by Plantlife

The title of Jack Splash and his fellow revelers' third album is indicative, not that it wouldn't be telling as a title for either one of Plantlife's first two full-lengths. It's steeped a little more in synth-funk than Remembering Back to Now and The Return of Jack Splash, but Time Traveller is definitely all about funk, whether that means James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone, Funkadelic, or Prince. In various guitar riffs, basslines, and choruses, there are subtle allusions to '60s, '70s, and '80s funk nuggets -- "Was that Mass Production, or was it Heatwave...or was it both?" -- while "Agirllikeudeservesamanwhotreatsuhowulike" pretty much lifts Ray Parker Jr.

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In the opening seconds of Plantlife's sophomore album, The Time Traveller, producer and musician Jack Splash boasts incredulously, "Yeah, I was there when it all happened/ I made the whole planet rock with Afrika Bam." He continues to map a history of the modern popular beat and claims to have been present at every major event -- from telling John Lennon to leave the Beatles to smoking and making The Chronic with Dr. Dre. What gives this young upstart, who obviously had no role in any of these historic events, the right to make these claims? Better still, why would he even stake a claim on such well-traversed and mined territory?Splash's approach here is representative of the current synthetic approach to music.

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