Pictureplane : Sex Distortion
Seen in his Alien Body fashions and heard especially in his later catalog as Pictureplane, Brooklyn artist Travis Egedy doesn’t just have a vibe, he has an aesthetic. As his streetwear juxtaposes elements from scenes like horror/sci-fi, hip-hop, and pro wrestling, the new Pictureplane album Sex Distortion pulls liberally from a long line of tech-heavy post-punk spinoffs. Egedy is a repeater and recontextualizer in the grand tradition of zine culture and Warhol’s pop art, and Pictureplane configures the moody and aggressive into the cool and accessible.
Sex Distortion is stuffed with entertaining darkwave interpretations. “Neon Bloom” sets ethereal synths up against a syncopated stomp, while the slap of real drums and distant rockabilly guitar haunt other corners of the album. Rumbling vocals suggest The Sisters of Mercy throughout, and even dip deeper into En Esch territory on the title track. The wiggling lead keyboard line of “Heaven is a State of Mind” could easily have been lifted from early Depeche Mode, and you’d be forgiven for hearing new Nine Inch Nails in “Glowing Wounds,” except the militarized struggle is with love instead of with the technology of Tron: Ares.
Indeed, Sex Distortion finds Pictureplane focused on romance in dark places, among dark people, with songwriting that seems to speak to listeners in simpler terms than, say, Technomancer did in 2015. “Night Falls” tackles the nerves and impostor syndrome in just seeing someone pretty across a room, while songs like “Bitter Blossom” and “Stiletto Heel” are straightforward expressions of desire and plans for pairing off (“In between your thighs/We can synthesize”). Egedy makes many references to bleeding—the cutting words and actions of a partner causing pain both good and bad—and closes the album with “Fallen Crown,” a Rage Against the Machine-quoting ballad of independence.
This is the music of teens and young adults adorned with costume contact lenses, fumbling in the dark, looking for themselves in anime soundtracks, scrolling shooters, and goth nights. Pictureplane and Sex Distortion collectively paint a detached picture of youth gone wild—his past self, and the children of today. I could argue against liking this album because it’s clearly derivative, a copy of a copy of a copy of sounds from obvious forebears across decades of synth-pop. But really, most music arrives informed by something that came before, and all is forgiven if your work grooves and pounds like it does here.
Label: Music Website
Year: 2025
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