By Phil Lederer
After two years in the studio, the Anna Maria- and Sarasota-based folk/psychedelic rock act Physical Plant steps blinking into the daylight with the imminent fall release of its first full-length album. The long-awaited but as-yet-untitled recording follows the self-produced EPs Are They Dangerous? in 2011 and Wisdom Toothin 2013 and showcases material from the band’s emergence post-college.
“At the time, we were sounding the best we’d ever sounded as a band and it was triumphant,” says Caegan Quimby, Physical Plant founding member alongside Lake Elrod and Josh Scheible, later joined by fellow New College musicians Dave Baker on bass and Zach Eidelman on drums. “We wanted to capture that sound,” adds Scheible, and the recordings reflect a departure from the immaculate production of previous releases in favor of something less clinical and more alive. “The sound in this record is how people in the scene from 2012–2014 really know Physical Plant,” he says.
In that sense, the album is a bit of a “document,” says Quimby, even more so that the band on the record is not the band currently playing. Elrod left more than a year ago to pursue graduate studies in England. Eidelman moved back to Fort Lauderdale. Recordings made before they left sat unfinished but imparted with a new sense of importance for the remaining members.
That explains part of the wait, they say, and, other than recording at the home studio of local musician Tim Moone, all of the production, mixing and mastering has been done in-house under the care of Quimby’s self-professed paranoia and perfectionism. “We took our sweet time but it’s better now than it would have been a year ago,” he says, and Scheible agrees: “We’ve continued to grow, and coming back to it you approach tracks differently.” Quimby gives special nod to Scheible’s ever-expanding guitar solo repertoire, brought to bear late in the recording process and on display in tracks such as “Southern Cross.”
But while the record is retrospective in its way, particularly in songs like “What’s Laid Down,” evoking the “country choir” element that Elrod brought to the mix and took with him when he left, Physical Plant has grown in the meantime. With Ryan McCarthy joining on drums, Quimby, Scheible and Baker continue touring and performing as a four-piece and as the conversation ends they mention plans to re-enter the studio January 2017. Quips Quimby, “The good news in the wait is that we’ve almost written an entire other album.”