Junior Boys - It's All True

"ep": The obvious lead single from the album, especially hearing it in the context of the album. That is perhaps an indictment of the other tracks' "singleness," but I think that just because there's no "Hazel" or "In the Morning" doesn't mean other tracks can't function as singles. "Itchy Fingers" and "A Truly Happy Ending" would be good future singles.

Happy is an interesting look for these guys.

Greenspan actually pulls of the knot-in-the-stomach euphoria pretty well, though, and it's nice to hear.

"Banana Ripple": Great title for a song, by the way. This aims for the big finish but not in the hyper-calculated anticlimactic-in-reality cumshot of shitty trance music. The release is more cathartic than violent, like really good disco from the 70s.

They Rhodes on Playtime are great. Been waiting for someone to use some in the front of a track for ages. Kind of feel like they're more comfortable leaning on their writing rather than electronics/instrumentation on this album. By that I mean everything feels dead precise in the arrangement. At least more so than STIGB and LE.

this might be surpassing kaputt for my album of the year :-O

also the madonna vibes in Banana Split are so well placed. mmm

I don't like Itchy Fingers very much, it feels kinda forced, like it was written to be 2/3rds the tempo and then sped up. Rest of it is great. Also after years of being compared to it they've finally made an actual 2-steppy track.

I am enjoying this new album way more than I'd expected on forehand. I too think they will never top 'Last Exit', thought 'So This is Goodbye' was great, but I really had issues getting into 'Begone Dull Care' and feared they'd 'grow away from me'. But this album is great. It's perfectly balanced, between faster-paced and slower cuts, it's exciting in details and the sound is as lush as they get.

as a fan that sees all three (now four) albums as almost equally great, i'm a little puzzled as to the general consensus that last exit is the standard to which they've never lived up to (i've listened to all four more than once in the last month).

not being challoppy: would honestly love to hear ilmers reason why they stan for the debut over anything else.

I don't feel completely comfortable stanning for 'Last Exit', because I think 'So This Is Goodbye' is great too and the new one is also fantastic. I wouldn't want to put those down or take anything away from their beauty. However, for me 'Last Exit' is a magical record, whereas the others ones are really great, but not magical. It will have all to do with 'Last Exit' being their first, and it has a dreamy melancholy I haven't heard from them after. To me they've started to sound more 'condensed' with every album, more compact songs and more emphasis on those songs, stripping away the ambient meanderings that were woven through 'Last Exit' more. There's a dreaminess on the new one here and there that I've not heard since LE though, which has rather surprised me.

Rhythmically, Last Exit is miles above the other three - there's something about the interplay between the more syncopated beats and the rest of the music that really heightens the emotional effect. It works brilliantly on the opening track, and even more so on the title track, which has so much space in it for the beats to echo round. Sonically it's better as well, it sounds deeper, with more going on, than the later records.

Also, I think Greenspan understands his vocal limitations more on the first album (and to an extent the second), he's better as a hushed near-whisper than when he's going all out and straining for high notes.

Overall they lost a lot of creative input when Johnny Dark left, and while the subsequent albums have been good they don't quite have songs that match up to More Than Real/Last Exit/Teach Me How To Fight. The latter is closer to a later JBs sound but its kinda perfected there as well.

the debut is great but i'll stan harder for So This Is Goodbye, i think it's a pretty perfect marriage of the moody downbeat soundscapes of their debut and totally perfect songcraft. their peaks are "teach me how to fight"(!!!) from the debut, and then a ton from Goodbye—"count souvenirs," "in the morning," "FM"

best thing they do live is the amped-up version of "under the sun" that closed their set last time i saw them (Goodbye era show)

Matt DC: I don't totally agree with every point you made, but that was a great post, thanks. I relistened to "more than real" last nite and it's on a different level from anything else they've done. I just really like the less complex stuff too.

want to hear an amped-up "under the sun" now

There's a version of it on the So This Is Goodbye Deluxe Edition

I'm not sure how much I'll go back to this one, feels kinda naff in places for reasons I can't put my finger on. The vocals, maybe? He doesn't sound wholly convincing when he's doing uptempo tracks, kinda like he's karaokeing his own songs. I like him when he's slowing things down and singing in a breathy whisper. Love Banana Ripple and Playtime though.

Enjoyed this fan made video reappropriating Jorodowski's Holy Mountain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht4PTqeqO4U&feature=related

I'm not sure how much I'll go back to this one, feels kinda naff in places for reasons I can't put my finger on. The vocals, maybe? He doesn't sound wholly convincing when he's doing uptempo tracks, kinda like he's karaokeing his own songs. I like him when he's slowing things down and singing in a breathy whisper. Love Banana Ripple and Playtime though.

― Matt DC, dinsdag 24 mei 2011 22:04 (Yesterday) Bookmark

Whoa, for real? That's interesting, because I'm of exactly the opposite stance! The thing that put me off 'Begone Dull Care' were the vocals, I think it sounds insincere and, well, "pretend to be Junior Boys" on that album. And this one is such a return to form to my ears. Lacey breathy whispers, crystallic and hazy at the same time, so damn damn clear it's like he kisses you on the lips, hits in the heart. Incredible.

i like this album but wish the vox were lower in the mix & more subdued

I think I probably agree with Lex that his voice just doesn't sound RIGHT expressing joy or euphoria, it sounds forced, trying too hard. It'd be like if Beth Gibbons released an album of hands-in-the-air diva house bangers, just wrong.

do you reckon he's expressing much joy/euphoria on this record? I don't really see much

the general tone seems to be snideness in between trad JB wistfulness, with a bit of ambiguity on top

The song that sticks out like a sore thumb on this is EP. That’s the only one where there’s an explicit, unambiguous statement of affection, when everything else is tinged with a bitterness.

Anybody else think this might be a concept album about the break up of a relationship, framed chronologically? First song is where the ties start to fray, second is “this fight’s forever”, third is the breakdown of communications, fourth is the split. Then the fifth is the cold world-weariness, and the sixth is bitterness directed at the former partner. Kick the Can is the interlude (the passing of time). Then EP is the regret, and the wish to return, and the leftover emotion. Then Banana Ripple is a superior, weirdly triumphant kiss off, somewhere between “never go back” and “I’m over you”

That was just my reading of it the past couple of times I listened

Whoa, for real? That's interesting, because I'm of exactly the opposite stance! The thing that put me off 'Begone Dull Care' were the vocals, I think it sounds insincere and, well, "pretend to be Junior Boys" on that album. And this one is such a return to form to my ears. Lacey breathy whispers, crystallic and hazy at the same time, so damn damn clear it's like he kisses you on the lips, hits in the heart. Incredible.

I know exactly what you mean about "pretend to be Junior Boys"... His vocals have always slightly irked me, but he sounds like a real cheesedick on Begone Dull Care, and I think I basically shelved that record after two listens. I'll definitely check out the new one.

You'll Improve Me is my jam. I don't think we'll see a better chorus this year

i like this album but wish the vox were lower in the mix & more subdued

― i genuinely thought when i first joined that he was the admin (ilxor)

inclined to agree after a headphone session on the bus. Also I'm thinking the drums are a bit weak overall.

i would say the drums are restrained, not weak.

I burned out 'birthday' and 'high come down' from Last Exit. Still dig 'teach me how to fight' though. Hazel in 2nd place. In the Morning 1st.

This isn't really sticking to me yet. Agree that the vocals are way upfront. think 'ep' I like best.

I meant in the mixing rather than programming. I can appreciate the restraint. Can't fault a band for making an album of electronic music but avoiding the tropes of the heavy kick club mixing and making a solid album with 'songs' and electronic instrumentation. Sometimes it's hard to not need that kind of mixing with this kind of stuff.

i played "kick the can" in a lounge set last nite, it worked nicely

"Banana Ripple" is constantly being played in the shop beside my work and it makes me very happy stepping out for my lunch break to hear it, such a fantastic song.

still fuck w/ that song on the reg

so euphoric

So ... we're probably due a new one, no?

I really hope so. I'm sure I saw them say somewhere that an album was definitely coming soon.

Only came around to It's All True a few months ago with a cheap CD copy. Didn't even recall what I'd sampled at the time and had modest expectations at this point, but was immediately all "Whoa. How/why did I sleep on this one?" etc.

I think Itchy Fingers, ep and Banana Ripple are all up there with the best songs they've done.

Banana Ripple is the secret best song of their career in my opinion.

And they're back https://soundcloud.com/junior_boys/what-you-wont-do-for-love

god this is so good, i've been jamming to this all day

Ha, I posted that to Bobby Caldwell "what you won't do for love" C/D.

I was excited about new Junior Boys material, but I'm honestly not that into this. A big part of the appeal of the original song (for me, at least) is the easygoing, languid groove, and this has none of that.

Junior Boys have announced their return with Big Black Coat, their first album in almost five years.

Big Black Coat

Junior Boys have announced their return with Big Black Coat, their first album in almost five years, and also their first for City Slang, who will release it on February 5, 2016 (the record will come out on the band's own label, GEEJ, in Canada). They've also shared lead single 'Big Black Coat', a decidedly wintry track that sees them embracing their love of techno while simultaneously refining their soul pop sensibilities. Additionally, Junior Boys will be touring the US and EU with Jessy Lanza starting in February of next year.

A strikingly energizing and intuitively dynamic set of songs, Big Black Coat is shaped by what Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus have been doing in the five years since their last release. The Hamilton, Ontario duo have racked up four albums since they formed in 1999, including their 2004 debut Last Exit and 2006's So This Is Goodbye, two rapturous -- and rapturously received -- records that were as poignant as they were impeccably produced, and prefigured the digital R&B so beloved of many an artist in the last few years. Two albums followed, the last being It's All True in 2011.

The years since then have been filled with nourishing independent pursuits. Greenspan released two solo singles and a collaborative EP on Jiaolong, the label run by his old friend and fellow Hamiltonian Dan Snaith (aka Caribou, Daphni -- Greenspan also mixed several songs from Swim). Greenspan also co-wrote and co-produced Pull My Hair Back, the acclaimed 2013 album from Hamilton singer, songwriter and producer Jessy Lanza (more recently, the pair remixed Le1f). Meanwhile, Didemus -- who's now based in Berlin -- started releasing solo tracks under the name Diva and launched his own label, Obsession. This shift in both Boy's focus was crucial to the making of Big Black Coat.

"One of the nice things about doing the solo stuff," Greenspan explains, "and in particular the album with Jessy, because it did so well, was that I could stop thinking about Junior Boys as being the thing I do and start thinking about it as a thing to do. That meant I could work with Junior Boys music with the same spirit as I did when it was new. It was hugely liberating and invigorating me, because I was doing things I felt really good and confident about. I was really happy with the last two Junior Boys albums, but if I look back on it, they were challenging records to make, in a way that this one absolutely wasn't."

This renewed vigor surges through Big Black Coat. It's what carries its overall sharp mix of sounds. It's what encouraged the pair to strip their original "complicated" version of 'Love Is A Fire' down to its compellingly looped bare bones and made Greenspan experiment with vocal treatments, as he does on the idiosyncratically Auto-Tuned 'Over It'. But it's the title track that sets the album's scene. 'Big Black Coat' gradually warms and spreads light as it builds over seven minutes, nodding to Yellow Magic Orchestra ("their records are so strange," reckons Greenspan) and Plastikman as it goes. It also features a conceptually crucial percussion sound, made with a modular synth. "To my ears, it's the sound of fabric swishing," Greenspan says. "That day, I bought a coat -- in fact, a big grey coat, but singing 'big black coat' worked better. And it really encapsulated everything I was thinking about when I made the album, so I wanted that as the title."

The previously released 'What You Won't Do For Love' sees Junior Boys revising Bobby Caldwell's over-easy soul track from 1978, adding a subtle undercurrent of UK bass to what is only their second ever cover. Elsewhere, there's an acknowledgement of ESP's 1986 proto-house tune 'It's You', which uses an ultra rare Syntion Fénix synth ('M + P') and a ballad that reignites Greenspan's love affair with the hushed, soulful pop of Prefab Sprout, 10cc and Scritti Politti, via contemporary R&B ('Baby Don't Hurt Me'). Detroit is a strong undercurrent flowing through the record too, with nods to heavyweights Robert Hood, Dan Bell and Richie Hawtin throughout.

Fusing disco and soul with the industrial pop and techno of Greenspan's formative teens is what makes Big Black Coat so distinctive and compelling. It's the sound of Junior Boys both cutting loose and reconnecting. As Greenspan sees it; "The fact that we haven't put out an album in a long time has been liberating, in that we haven't been so phenomenally successful that everyone knows who we are. With this album, a lot of people will be hearing us for the first time. There's a freedom that comes from that."

Pre-ordered. Love the track.

I was skeptical about that title but I'm pretty damn into the title track.

going for a jesus and mary chain vibe

http://i.imgur.com/M63muVq.jpg

i really like this https://soundcloud.com/junior_boys/over-it

wow this song is really great

I'm avoiding listening to any songs from the album until it's released, but I hope it's an album that I return to often, which was not the case with their last one, save a few songs. Their first misstep, imo.

really think the direction of this album so far is interesting. the detroit techno embellishments really blend with greenspan's vocal

one of these days i'm going to "get" begone dull care. i'm revisiting it's all true right now and love it more than ever?

and the jessy lanza record from two years ago kinda quietly grew in my estimation and i think it's stunning now