4 out of 5

Label: Discrepant

Produced by: ?

A compilation of radio cuts and some rare singles, showing off some of the many sides of PLU: the goofy, the maddening, the brilliant, the emotional; sides which often intermingle to produce some of the weirdest and most satisfying pop.

Befitting Vicki’s ability to smush together seemingly disparate beats and samples into woozy bops, ‘Abridged’ is sequenced quite perfectly, justifying its random seeming selection of songs from the early 00s. While both sides of the album do the normal PLU shuffle of unearthing the weird and mapping it to the vaguely familiar, there’s a kind of “lost” song vibe that persists – like you’re tuning into an unnamed and unknown between-channel oddity; the A-side makes this a little silly and bouncy, with lightly folksy vibes, while the B-side slows things down and can become quite delicate and sad at points. More micro than that, you can somewhat divide the styles based on the sources: tracks from a remixology session on WFMU show Vicki at her most aurally inventive, stretching across genres and doing what should be scattershot blends yet stitching them into, essentially, smooth DJ sessions of samples. Tracks from a John Peel session are this, but erred more towards humor and oddness, and allow for the more (arguably) annoying aspects of PLU, with a lot of repetition and unfriendly sounds. Lastly, the tunes that were crafted for albums are logically the most directly “complete,” and often the most accessibly emotional of the batch.

This kind of range can be found on many PLU albums, though the compilation factor of Abridged – even with its considered sequencing – maybe makes a little less cohesive than stuff produced for a set release. Either way, this is a really well-rounded set of People Like Us material.