Jam Rostron

Jam Rostron will be participating in the roundtable discussion “Sound Minds: Reclaiming Mental Health” on Friday 2 November at Böhmischer Kirchensaal. For tickets, click here.

Planningtorock – aka Jam Rostron – is a Bolton-born Berlin-based singer-song writer, composer, producer and director with three critically acclaimed studio albums of left-field dance music to their name – not to mention various collaborations, Opera’s, film scores and remixes. A self-taught, non-binary, working class musician, they’ve spent a decade plus queering sound and vision as Planningtorock. Planningtorock debuted in the Noughties with 2006’s Have It All [Chicks On Speed], finding artistic community among fellow DIY outliers and gender outlaws such as Peaches and The Knife. Their sound – tense, spellbinding dance music with classical flourishes, unexpected brass and gender defining pitched-down vocals that have become Planningotorock’s signature and have earned them a dedicated following. W, Planningtorock’s critically acclaimed 2011 debut on DFA, revealed a visionary and politicised producer. It offered up deeply queered art-pop –2014’s All Love’s Legal (“a masterclass in left-of-centre dance music”, Mixmag), released on Rostron’s own imprint Human Level with banner-ready slogans (‘Patriarchy Over And Out’, ‘Let’s Talk About Gender Baby’), revealed their ability to produce queer pop music with a political message.

Planningtorock’s new album Powerhouse is their most personal record yet: emotionally-charged, biographical anthems drawn from Rostron’s lived experiences as a non-binary genderqueer artist, experiences around family, identity and music itself. Recorded across Berlin, London, New York and Los Angeles, Powerhouse is a celebration of liberation, a groove-filled record that sees Rostron consolidating power both personal and artistic.

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