Junior Boys - It's All True

live, with much more guitar than they used on record, they would end first-album tracks like 'under the sun' w/ big shoegazey buildups

oh man yeah this sounds good

I'm gonna have to stop my listen to go to bed but it sounds p good, "Baby Give Up On It" is a bit boilerplate tho

I'll listen to the junior boys when that dude stops singing. Good gravy.

well this is really good

even the flimsier songs have some element that totally alters the environment

like "baby give up on it" which sounds unremarkable at first and then turns into a post-disco/minimal techno hybrid

"baby give up on it" is the exact point where i flipped from oh-good-more-junior-boys-this-is-nice to fuck yes

.......do you have it

― j. winters (josh), Wednesday, January 27, 2016 10:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was sent a promo of it, it feels like it makes a triangle with Our Love and Pull My Hair Back

i even like the wacky "what you won't do for love" cover now

those handclaps tho

trying again with this and ugh still not grabbing me...it sounds so samey, none of the melodies or songs are distinguishing themselves from each other apart from the ones that are slightly more boring. keep hoping they'll rediscover the magic of the first two albums but this isn't it

you sound so samey

new record is like if you took the inimitable aura of arthur russell's <i>world of echo</i> to the dancefloor so it wins for me

i think greenspan's vocals are the most incidental they've ever been to the sound of the record but i loooooove the sound

their new live show totally rocked so if you don't have tickets yet, hustle hustle

Seeing 'em in April!

I feel like the hit ratio has been p much the same for the last three albums? Love the first few tracks but the interstitial ones, plus "M&P" and "Love Is A Fire," kinda bore me. Totally came around on "Baby Don't Give Up On It," though.

pitchfork says it has something to do with detroit techno? i don't think i believe that

Heh, didn't see that, but came here more or less to post my takeaway is ... yes, classic Detroit techno, electronic Chicago house a la Larry Heard, etc. Not sure the album justifies the wait - it's kind of subdued - but to the group's credit it's still really identifiable as a new Junior Boys album. They got a sound and this sounds like it.

New ep Kiss Me All Night is out, and up on Spotify. Big Black Coat was the first JB album I couldn't really get into (as of yet I've no idea why, either). I'm digging the new ep though.

So, Mrs. Chachi and me were talking about how devastating the debut was -- how, for us, it was a shared musical moment that hit with profound impact, one of few moments like it over the past however-many years. we both enjoyed begone dull care, too, but felt that there was a sad / tragic / mournful note in the debut that we didn't hear since. i'm listening to big black coat now and wondering if I missed something - I hear notes of that sadness, that submerged personal deeply introspective note in e.g. "over it." anybody got thoughts on the last ten years or so of the junior boys they'd like to share?

i really need to revisit big black coat again, as i've said probably multiple times on this thread it apparently takes years for later junior boys records to open up to me. it's all true is front to back great imo but i'm not sure if it necessarily hits that introspective mournful note except on "playtime" and "the reservoir"; the primary vibe i get from it is almost a kind of manic bitterness

The debut remains amazing. My favourite JBs song, however, is The Animator from Begone... The way that songs moves is incredibly singular and beautiful to me.

"the animator" is probably my favorite post-debut mournful JB. don't think they ever managed to recreate that vibe in the uptempo songs again though like the first 2 songs on the debut.

"Sneak a Picture" might be my fave JBs sad jam

"Banana Ripple" is the one for me

There's a sense of space in the first one that the others lack, these perfectly constructed syncopated beats that play off all the other sounds and then drop off altogether, this rhythmic cage for the sadness in the songs to reverberate around, there's no sound there that doesn't need to be there. Subsequent albums lost that a bit, especially whenever they went upbeat, but I can listen to the title track of Last Exit and it works for me every single time.

The second album is wonderful as well but that Johnny Dark clatter bought something to the table on the debut that their progressively more straightforward subsequent albums have never quite recaptured.

I think So This is Goodbye and Begone Dull Care are about as good as the debut, albeit a bit less busy; iirc it was among if not the first sort of indie groups that seemed to be influenced by Timbaland-styled R&B production. This one (It's All True) is the first one that never entered regular rotation for me. The most recent one I only remember listening to once, need to revisit!

I agree with Matt DC

Banana Ripple is a whopper tune.

I still think of brad's "it makes me want to punch a cop" comment every time it comes on

that wasn't me, that was adam!

banana ripple makes me want to get a neck tattoo and punch a cop

― adam, Friday, December 11, 2015 9:24 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

most otm post in ilx history? who can say

Oh shit props adam

*three years after big black coat comes out* boy big black coat sure sounds good today

It's a teensy step below IAT imo but it's still very good. Looking forward to new material this year.

I did find this quote from an interview about the lyrics for the album interesting

Much in the way your last album was very autobiographical, I take it this album isn’t coming from your perspective, but the people around you?

Absolutely. I wrote this album thinking about the kinds of people in my hometown. It’s a typical rust belt, post-industrial city where 80,000 people were employed by the steel mills, and now there’s only 4,000 people employed, so it’s a run down, depressive city with lots of lonely resentful men wandering the streets. The songs tended to be from their perspective, filled with men dealing with emotionally complex lives that they don’t want to articulate, so it just comes across as loneliness. There’s actually a little thread of misogyny, because it’s men dealing with being creepy toward women because they have nothing left.

... hm

well i guess we'll see

tbc that quote is about Big Black Coat

oh wow so i guess it did work!

lol i'm really good at reading today

begone dull care is the one that I previously neglected but really clicked with me recently. so many great little details I’d never noticed, like the slide guitar at the end of Dull To Pause. and I love how spacious and unhurried it feels

BDC is a weird little record but "Sneak a Picture" belongs in any Junior Boys POX

Ah, I've been thinking about how much I still love this band a lot recently. I just played Begone Dull Care the other day. It's such a lovely record if you can get past the weird sequencing choice of putting Work as the second track. I've never understood why it was seen as a big drop off after the first two albums. Bits & Pieces, Hazel and Sneak A Picture are some of their best songs.

*three years after big black coat comes out* boy big black coat sure sounds good today

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Friday, March 15, 2019 6:03 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

just about ready for the next one, it should be illegal that they don't have a new album out every other fall

I don't know why it's taken four months of relative isolation to realise this but Last Exit is quite obviously one of my favourite records: its space of doubt, its metallic whispers, its interconnected, sprawling quality.

But why can't I really wait?
Don't you want me here so
I can offer you three words so true?
Like I know you

I assume they're just sitting on the next LP at this point. c'mon gents let's hear it

i've only listened to the first few tracks so far but the new Jessy Lanza might be a decent way to tide yourself over.

oh I've heard it and it rules. to the extent that I'd love to hear her add production to their records!