Craft archive · 1993–2022
James van Leuven — also known as Plan B — has built a body of work across bands, solo recordings, film, dance theater, skate and BMX media, studio engineering, remix work, and international collaboration.
Back to craft ↙Producer · musician · audio engineer · composer · remix artist
Working language
The earliest credits move through Seattle and Olympia bands including Liquid Zoo, Man-Suit Project, Automaton Adventure Series, Sub Debs, and Star Athena, grounding the work in live rhythm, ensemble feel, and independent recording culture.
Through Buoy Studios and related sessions, James’s work expanded into engineering, mastering, production, composition, and multi-instrumental recording for artists, labels, film projects, and performance companies.
Plan B music traveled through documentaries, feature films, dance-theater productions, commercials, skate and BMX videos, podcasts, compilations, and European performance contexts.
Timeline
Recorded and performed with Liquid Zoo, Man-Suit Project, and Automaton Adventure Series, establishing a collaborative foundation as a drummer and experimental band musician.
Work with Automaton, Sub Debs, Star Athena, Cub Country, Magic Magicians, and early Plan B releases connected James to K Records, Jade Tree, Suicide Squeeze, Luckyhorse, Pacifico, and Barsuk-adjacent projects.
Keepsake, the Buoy remix EP, Red Bull’s Lords of the Floor, Props BMX, Kopf Und Tuch, Granito de Arena, Oversize XL, and The Sound of Big Metal Boxes show a widening practice: recorded music, moving image, dance, and installation.
This period includes the full-length I’m The Captain, Where We Going?, remix work for Minus the Bear and Truckasaurus, compositions for documentary and independent film, dance-theater work in Europe, and the Laptop Orchestra Project, a GAP Award-funded investigation into the laptop as a playable, collaborative instrument.
Work from this period includes advertising music with Neptuli in Paris, documentary and dance commissions, the National Ballet/Don’t Hit Mama project Zwanenmeer Bijlmermeer II, and Plan B digital singles Digan La Verdad and Crow’s Nest.
Later releases continue the through-line between studio production, drums, songwriting, remix practice, and label-building, with Sun Breaks records on Sailor’s Rest and Suicide Squeeze alongside new Plan B work.
Selected credit map
Plan B, Automaton Adventure Series, Sub Debs, Star Athena, Origami Ghost, Paper People, Conrad Ford, Magic Magicians, Robot Horse, Foscil, Bridge and Tunnel Club, Cub Country, Sun Breaks.
August the First, Granito de Arena, A Little Bit of So Much Truth / Un Poquito De Tanta Verdad, The Sharp End, Recordings, Urban Scarecrow.
Kopf Und Tuch, Oversize XL, Crush, Laundream, Zwanenmeer Bijlmermeer II, Kunstbalie Festival / Roundcorner Dance Co.
XBOX Exhibition, Props BMX, Manik Skateboards, Diversion Magazine, Alliance Wakeboarding / Fuel TV, Amazon Wire, eZ Systems, Clé Des Champs, Stantum, Laptop Orchestra Project.
Recognition