Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye

and hahaha, the last thing i need right now is romanticization of canadian winters!

I'm out. That was the only thing I really liked about the record.

Use of synth arpeggios = promising. This is one of the things most indie attempts at house forget.

I wonder if Mark K-Punk has heard Coloma? So This Is Goodbye might end up quite close to them.

Dear god. I hope it doesn't.

Something tells me Coloma won't make many freunds in the K-punk camp with their penchant for turning bleak streetscapes into cheeky, pathos-laden postcards.

I'm a fan of Japan, the Blue Nile and Junior Boys—just to contextualize my own taste in melodrama—but there is something about Coloma that I find deeply insulting. That's probably for another thread.

The absence of those two-step beats, to me, is going to be a big plus. As much as I love Last Exit, there is something that hasn't aged well about it. (Already!) I'd probably locate it somewhere in the actual qualities and timbres of the drum sounds themselves, something that will probably change with software upgrades, better gear, etcetera.

I don't think there's that much of a gap in quality admittedly! I love the track immediately before "Teach Me How To Fight" as well.

for real

Last Exit was an album I really wanted to like, but it left me cold. Japan is my favorite band, and I kept hearing that it sounded like them, and it does in a way, but without the fun, and without the amazing rhythm section.

oh yes

oooer! Jeremy Greenspan vs Kelley Polar FITE!

i'll have to listen again for the "people are people" comparison, but i do think the vocals on "count souvenirs" are straight-up martin gore.

not sure what i think overall, at least in comparison to 'last exit.' i like some parts a lot, but i too miss the more complicated beats.

i just realized what ned meant by this

rad. when is this out? i still play around with "bellona" in mixes.

yeah that's totally true... everyone was parrotting that one line about 2 step/timbaland which i assume just came straight out of a press release

I think song-for-song Last Exit is going to be a hard album to top, but I'd say that the new one is lyrically different from the first. There's a vagueness to the lyrics in general that I find appealing, but there are a few moments (like on "Like a Child") where there's a line of feyness that makes me cringe a little.

The original demo ep that the Junior Boys were sending round was much more 2-steppy - "You Want To" and "I'm So Into You" were practically straight 2-step tracks with only tiny vocal snippets (sort of in the vein of Dem 2 circa 1999) as was the remix of "High Come Down".

The 2-step influence was basically Johnny Dark who was Jeremy Greenspan's original collaborator. The subsequent demo stuff I've heard from Johnny has also been in this vein (looking forward to hearing his forthcoming EP!). I suspect the above tracks were left off the first album because they were more Johnny than Jeremy.

Tracks from the first album like "Under The Sun" and "Teach Me How To Fight" were made after Johnny left, which adds to my suspicion that Jeremy was much less enamoured with 2-step than Johnny (not that this was to the detriment of Jeremy's music, though my favourite track from Last Exit remains "More Than Real").

On first listen I really like So This Is Goodbye, though I think its arc from uptempo to drifty is perhaps a bit too pronounced, they maybe should have mixed up the quiet and loud tracks more. The Aguayo reference is pretty spot on, one of the earlier tracks actually sounds like a MOR-pop version of "Drums & Feathers"!

I like to think that the "too young" line in "In The Morning" is a Phoenix reference... in some obscure way the two groups remind me of eachother, i dunno why. I guess for both groups their best work is quite superficial - not in the sense of being shallow, but in the sense of the energy being put into sparkling surfaces that don't need anything behind them. It's almost more of a dance music impulse than it is a pop music impulse, but it might result in great pop... "If I Ever Feel Better" and "Too Young" almost transcend Phoenix (as in, they're embraced by people who have no interest in Phoenix the group) and I could imagine something similar happening to Junior Boys if they ever focused their energy on crafting a crossover hit.

On a somewhat related note, does anyone still have the Junior Boys demo that was floating around before the album was released? I stupidly deleted it at some point and keep thinking that there were some more skittery Johnny Dark-type tracks.

"HCD2" was on there - the two other Darkish tracks on there were "You Want To" and "I'm So Into You". I should pull them out again and listen again to see what I think of them now.

I like the EP a lot too, but I think I still like "HCD2" the most, which now must be about 4-5 years old at least! I think the best thing Johnny could do is go further in that direction, continuing with the beat frenzy and vocal manipulation but using raw song material that's not conventionally 2-step-sounding - the result is really startling, whereas the other tracks are much easier to "place" I guess - very much in a post-Dem 2 mould.

A couple of things really strike me about it. The first is that it initially seems so similar to Last Exit in mood and tone, but on closer listening they're constructed in totally different ways. I like the greater emphasis on loops this time round (and arpeggios, wow!), the way you can follow a thread through a song while barely listening to the vocals or the main melody. I can envisage some remixes of So This Is Goodbye, Double Shadow or The Equaliser that would sound amazing in the middle of a really hypnotic minimal set.

The second is that the removal of the Johnny Dark rhythmic tricksiness has left other elements of the sound to blossom. This is every bit as complex and detailed a record as Last Exit, possibly more so. It's not really the rhythms as such (and it's not exactly rhythmnically simple). It's the meticulous attention to detail that's been given to the tone and timbre of every sound. No note that's held for more than a fraction of a beat sounds the same from start to finish - especially on When No One Cares, which consists of little other than these big open chords, but virtually every single one of them sounds different. There's so much depth and subtlety of texture there that only really hit me when I listened to it very loud on headphones.

Also, the swell two third of the way through Like A Child sends a shiver down my spine like no other moment in music this year.

completely OTM. it seeps so gently into your subconscious. the remixes, thus far, have been only decent (the alex smoke one) and poor (the morgan geist one) but i know what you mean about them sounding possibly amazing in a house set.

"In The Morning" is still terrible but this album is better than Last Exit.

Is this for "In the Morning" or "The Equalizer"? I haven't heard the former, but the latter is rather nice, if not too earth-shaking.

i think it's out later in the month.

http://www.juniorboys.net/index.html

gekoppel, i actually like your description of ItM and i agree with you while not liking the song.

also i do think the album is already very dark but i tend to pay alot of attention to lyrics straight off.

"when no one cares
and the phone never rings
the nights are endless things

you're like a child that cries
...
you're like a star that dies"

but they did this to great effect on Last Exit, too.

"if you think you're falling
oh, i'll catch you just the same"

The 22nd in North America, according to record-store guy.

http://www.dominorecordco.com/site/index.php?page=artists&artistID=218

http://www.dominorecordco.com/site/player.php?fileID=811&action=listen&list=artist

i heart 'the equaliser' so much.

the new album is pretty much the best thing ive ever heard.

sell-outs! booooo oo.

Sep 5 2006 8:00P
Middle East Boston, MA
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Blue Dome Tulsa, OK
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Record Bar Kansas City, MO
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High Dive Denver, CO
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Amigo's Saskatoon, SK
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Pyramid Cabaret Winnipeg
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400 Bar Minneapolis, MN
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Empty Bottle Chicago, IL
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Astoria, London (Supporting Hot Chip) London
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In THE FIRST PARAGRAPH of a Graun music review! You're learning fast, Dom.

no no drama
no no no no drama

Gotta catch up on this - liked the Johnny Dark solo EP

i just can't figure "pretty but sterile" around this album

reminds me of what some people say about The Knife.

also, a yellow polo and a white blazer = ROCK STAR

i still really love the album! 'fm' is just gorgeous.

And you people thought they were going downhill?

(They are nowwww...)

stylus praise: http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/junior-boys/so-this-is-goodbye.htm

gigwise savage:
http://www.gigwise.com/contents.asp?contentid=22122

it's very chill out compilation stizz

JOHNNY DARK mix
SA-RA - 'Hollywood Hollywood' (Epic)
Simple Tingz - 'Shortee' (Vibe Rate Records)
Till West & DJ Delicious - 'Same Man' (Vendetta)
Robeejay - 'The One' (White Label)
DJ Dread - 'Body Kiss' (Black OP's)
REVL9N - 'Walking Machine' (SebastiAn Remix) (White Label)

JUNIOR BOYS mix
Kelley Polar - 'Here In The Night' (Environ)
Love Club - 'Hot Summer Nights' (West End Records)
Booka Shade - 'In White Rooms' (Get Physical)
Bo Boss - 'Tequila' (White Label)
Ago - 'For You' (White Label)
Kein & Mbo - 'Wonderful' (White Label)

The band also has a new flash website you can interact with: http://www.sothisisgoodbye.com

Taken from www.factmagazine.co.uk

http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/da/40694

JUNIOR BOYS
Canada’s The Junior Boys have are about to release their second LP, 'So This is Goodbye'. Like their debut album, 'Last Exit', it is an electronic pop record which shivers with late-night emotion. But 'So This is Goodbye' is no mere reiteration of 'Last Exit'.

FACT spoke to the Junior Boys main man, Jeremy Greenspan, about the influences that came to bear on the recording of the new album.

The most obvious difference between 'So This is Goodbye' and 'Last Exit' is the beats. Why did you drop the distinctive stutter-beats you used on the first album?
It’s funny because it didn't seem so obvious to me at first, but the more the album came into focus, the more apparent that became. I think that there are several reasons for it. First of all, I feel like I've made 'Last Exit' so I don't need to make it again, but that's not quite a complete answer. I think the real rhythmic difference to this record came out of a very cognizant effort on our part to explore a different sort of tempo.

Obviously one major difference between this album and the last has to do with the influences that went into making it. The principal influence on the new record is disco, and I think that had a tremendous effect on the 'rhythm of the record'. Disco, we came to realize, occupies a strange rhythmic place, because while it’s very steady, it’s also rather slow. It’s usually about 110 to 120 BPM, much slower than modern house/techno music. So we thought it would be really interesting to set our music in this kind of space. So a lot of the record has that strange slow propulsion to it.

What would you say are the most important differences between the new album and the debut?
Well I think that this ties into what i was just saying about tempo. There is a sort of simplicity and rawness to this record. As opposed to keeping the songs locked in the computer we used a lot of hardware (ie. real synths, mixing consoles etc) while making this record. Many of the songs were built out of very basic sequences and arpeggios that you get when you turn on a synth and say go. While making the record I was reading a bio on Neil Young, who is adamant about keeping mistakes and 'noise' in his recordings, I became quite inspired by that. I love the raw electricity of the equipment. As Robert Moog says it’s great to ‘hear the circuitry’, which you don't quite get when the songs are captured entirely in the soft simulations computer-based instruments. These issues of equipment and tempo may seem trivial, but I think they're fundamental to what a record is going to sound like, at least for us. So much of what we do is a sort of fishing. We basically gather a bunch of equipment and set the conditions up for how the equipment should operate, and then press "go" and wait for the tracks to appear, it’s often really that simple.

A whole set of new influences come to play on the new album, particularly house (Jamie Principle, Mr Fingers). Why did you turn to these sources?
Again, it was the slowness of it. The deep melancholy of it, the empty spaces, and the unresolved chords etc. Early house music has all of that. I like that it doesn't have the aggressive energy of all that house became. It’s much more twitchy than manic, if you take the distinction...

Also, and perhaps most importantly, is the fact that early house moves so directly out of disco. I think it's the pop element that interests me. It not to say that I don't love the pure abstraction of later minimal techno, but the fact that early house still in some bizarre way links to pop music makes it unique. The vocal hooks and the strange disco lyrics all give it that funny "half-human juke boxes of the future" quality (to paraphrase John Foxx).

I think that I have a consistent appreciation for all types of art which place themselves outside of pure abstraction. I mean that's why I like a lot of new wave, namely because it was pop music. Pop music just at the cusp of abstraction, but still coherent enough that it could seep its way into commercial radio and Top of the Pops, etc. Basically I like to see the hints of what's being abstracted. This same thread draws me to everything from early house to Gershwin et al. It's the way in which pop music meets the avant garde, or fringe culture or whatever, that's interesting, the way they overlap into each other.

Can you explain Matt Didemus’ role?
Matt has always been involved with the band. There has never been a Junior Boys track that matt wasn't involved with the final mixing and engineering of. But on this record he definitely became much more of a partner and less as simply an engineer or something like that. People have asked me what is matt's role or what was Johnny [Dark]'s role, and it's pretty impossible to answer. I mean it usually comes down to ‘ok that snare is mine, that synth is his, that synth is mine’. I mean we each have our own strengths and particular skills, but I think that there is a temptation to assert some kind of traditional rock roles on us, that just don't apply. With the Junior Boys, there have been a few songs that I did by myself, but basically I think of myself as a collaborative type of songwriter, I am energized and inspired by the talents of the people that I work with. And I think the music generally is improved by that.

The Sinatra cover is dramatically different to the original. Why did you want to cover ‘When No-one Cares’?
’So This is Goodbye’ was the first song we wrote for the album, and I think that I was setting it up as a sort of homage to a lot of the over the top emotionally defeated crooning of the '50s. Something about the professional melancholic of Sintatra's ‘When No-one Cares’ persona appealed to me. I just wondered why somebody like Sinatra - you know, a ‘man of the people’, an ‘entertainer's entertainer’ - would be compelled to do these suicidal albums. And moreover, why were they successful?

Anyway whenever I was at the piano, I would end up messing about with this arrangement of ‘When No-one Cares’, just for fun. But eventually I thought that I should put it down, and when I finally did the arrangement and recorded it, I think I came to realize that the song had become important somehow. I think it connects the album, or at least the rest of the album connects to it, somehow, but I'm not quite sure why.

To me so much of the album is about collections and connections, finding connections in things, in objects, in moments. I think that there are connections to be made between all of the songs, but that song stands out somehow, and I think that the people who like the album sense that.

The album seems to be very carefully structured, with the songs becoming spacier as the album progresses. What was that deliberate?
Not at all, the album originally had a totally different running order. But one of the people from domino suggested a different running order (the one that it is now), and when I listened to it, I realized that he was right. Now, I can't imagine it being another way. It’s funny how quickly things like that solidify.

In my initial remarks on the album, I referred to a feeling of ‘nomadalgia’. The songs seem to be full of references to homesickness. Do you agree? And if so where does that feeling come from?
The whole album deals a lot with issues of nostalgia for sure. I think there is something about collecting that became important to me. I became extremely moved by peoples desire to meticulously catalogue their lives. I think that’s just part of my nature a bit. I love old things, I love museums and galleries. The strangeness of seeing an object moving from a thing you use to a thing that is filled with all types of hidden significance. People who are moved by that sort of thing tend to be homebodies, the kind of people who are often homesick, who have a comfort zone, and are painfully aware when they're away from it.

You’ve said that the album has a Canadian feel to it. I agree --- but how would you define the Canadian features of your sound? You still live in your hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. What impact does living there have on your music?
I don't know what Canadian art is exactly, although there are several Canadian artists who have become massive inspirations to me. Painters like David Milne and Christopher Pratt, the films of Norman Mclaren, and of course Neil young, but despite not being able to identify exactly what their 'Canadianess' might be, I'm totally aware of some thread that ties all of these people together in my mind.

But I do think environment is among the most important components of making a record. The place where you are, the conditions you set up for yourself, effect what you produce in countless and often inexplicable ways. I think of both of our albums as intrinsically linked to the countryside and cities of southern Ontario. It’s hard to qualify exactly, I don't know why I think of my records as ‘Canadian’, but I do. I think there is something about the vastness of Canada that influences me. Both ‘Last Exit’ (the song) and ‘FM’ which is kind of an extension out of ‘Last Exit’), deal explicitly with the northbound highways which lead from greater Toronto to the never-ending emptiness of northern Canada. There is a kind of agoraphobia that comes with driving in Canada, the feeling you get when you realize that your on a highway that leads seemingly with no end to absolutely nowhere. It’s a very familiar Canadian experience. In America, I've found, you feel that the highways always lead somewhere, if you drive long enough eventually you'll hit some city, some place you've heard of. In Canada it’s the total opposite, unless you're on a direct path to somewhere you'll got totally lost.

The other thing about Canada that I find appealing somehow, is its total lack of a clear identity. There are so few recognizable landmarks, or places of historical familiarity. Instead there are modern, moderately cosmopolitan centres that seem carved out of the wilderness, where you feel completely overwhelmed by the periphery of modern life (strip malls, highways, etc) and Hamilton is the embodiment of Canadian life in a city. It’s a fair-sized city an hour outside of Toronto, and its relationship to Toronto strangely mirrors Canada’s relationship to the United Sates, because it is a forgotten place, a sort of afterthought, a little brother so to speak. But at the same time its filled with jewels, there are incredible pieces of turn of the century architecture, and beautiful manicured gardens peppered around these vast industrial zones, where there are two major steel plants which dominate the skyline. And all of the more 'beautiful areas’ seem abandoned and in disrepair, which of course make them all the more romantic, to me at least. I probably make it sound more interesting than it is, but I am really attached to it, and it does influence me a great deal.

Is there any other contemporary music that you feel an affinity with?
It’s hard to say. I constantly hear things I like, but over the last year or so, I've definitely been on a retro tip, finding all sorts of stuff that I hadn't heard before. I'm listening to more and more Disco, and a strangely increasing amount of '70s MOR AM radio music (Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers, ELO). I guess that is also a byproduct of the love of collecting and nostalgia.

I was able to do some music with Morgan Geist recently, who is among my favourite contemporary musicians, and I would probably say that the ‘Kelley Polar’ album was my favourite thing that came out last year. I'm pretty lucky that almost all of our remixes have been done by my favourite working musicians. I'll be getting Kode9 to remix us next, which is natural, because as you know, we've known each other for a long time and I've wanted him to do something for us for a long while. I'm quite into the Marsen Jules album from last year at the moment. I constantly listen to pop radio in the car, I love the radio, and even when it’s shit, I never give up on it, but I'm fickle, and right now I can't think of any songs on the radio that I care enough about to talk about...

What are you planning to do next?
Right now, my plan is to tour as much as possible in the next year and generate enough money so that I can finance my idea of doing our next record in China. Like I said before, these two albums have truly been Canadian records and it’s time to make a change. I think that circumstance has presented me the opportunity to go to Shanghai and make what I guess could be the complete opposite of a Canadian record...

'So This Is Goodbye' is released on Domino records on 11th September

For more, check: www.juniorboys.net

Interview/words: K-punk

the album is still very beautiful!

took me a while to get round to this, i ended up with the two-disc version (with all the remixes and four 'itunes session' tracks on the second disc). last exit never really grabbed me like this does. love how icy the second half of it gets.

it'd be interesting to hear an alternate version of the record done in the live style of the itunes session, because those four tracks are really fantastic. perfect fit with the stuff on the balearic revival thread.

Double Shadow

thoughts on AFI's Junior Boys-biting Blaqk Audio project? i'm finding CexCells laughably hamfisted, for the most part. but, you know, some of these melodies are just undeniable. bring on the remixes!

Ha, this I have to hear. In related news, I had no idea Kin Records was still going until I got an email about a new record they have coming soon. Can't at all recall the name right now but nice to see anyway

http://www.electrokin.com/images/fact_big.jpg

Yeah I just looked it up, sounds pretty good. Just playing Last Exit now, man I'd forgotten how lush this is

Stereo Image has two songs out on Bleep, and it sounds like they're going to press it up, too. Not bad, little bit of an early Junior Boys feel compared to the other stuff Johnny Dark released.

Anything new coming up anytime soon? Anyone who knows?

Looks like the Morgan Geist album out in September has Jeremy doing vocals on all tracks.

Nice, I think I will like this as much as I did Last Exit. So This Is Goodbye never really delivered for me like it did for other people, maybe I need to give it a second chance.

Metro Area's Morgan Geist will release his second solo album in September on Environ.

Featuring vocals from Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys, Double Night Time will undoubtedly have a poppier bent than its 1997 predecessor The Driving Memoirs. And the press release accompanying the album promises as much, claiming that the album indulges his "own early influences and guilty pleasures: techno-pop, prog rock and pure electronic music." Prog rock? We'll just have to wait and see what that means.

Judging by his latest solo work—and the recent boogie turn of Metro Area—we're expecting fully orchestrated epics that should work just as well in the home as they will in the club. With Greenspan listed as a co-writer of 'City of Smoke and Flame', we'll place our bets on that one as the inevitable pre-album single.

Tracklisting
01. Detroit
02. The Shore
03. Nocebo
04. Most Of All
05. Skyblue Pink
06. Ruthless City
07. Palace Life
08. City Of Smoke And Flame
09. Lullaby

Double Night Time will hit stores in September.

^^^ That was a copy / paste from Resident Advisor.

why in a junior boys thread?

meaning--this deserves its own

Allmusic's review of this ends memorably: Otherwise, this is a make-out album destined to be played most often by loners who, for whatever reason (a crippling breakup, a fear of human contact, the snowman melted, etc.), are only able to commit the act in their minds.

listening to this now. might make some soft pretzels soon. listen to this.

how r the pretzels

i had half the box so far and they were fine. thanks for asking!

you made them in a box?

http://mojosavings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Super-Pretzel.jpg