jj no. 2: A mix of Scandinavian balearic (I know)/outer space R&B/folk-y gloriousness...

I can find very little info online about this group, "jj," except that they're Scandinavian, they're mysterious, and their album is this amazing mix of spacey R&B, reverbed-out balearic guitar washes, Ali Farka Touré-ish guitar lines, and flight-y & folk-y lyrics. It's basically awesome. One track, "Ecstasy," is based around a sample of Lil Wayne's "Lollipop," but makes it sound like something on Italians Do it Better; other tracks are like a haunted Ciara singing over Studio's "West Coast." I'm flagrantly street teaming for this at this point, but it deserves it.

The Fader has an MP3 Here: http://www.thefader.com/2009/6/25/freeload-jj-from-africa-to-malaga-mp3/

http://www.thefader.com/ys_assets2/0009/3945/JJ.jpg

Does anyone know anything else about them?

Hmm, that song sounds a bit like Liz Frazer covering Paul Simon...

http://www.sincerelyyours.se/produkt/YOURS0115.jpg

The whole album is streaming here

"from africa to mlaga" is very pretty and nice, yes

ha, the one with the "lollipop" sample sounds like invisible conga people

yes

They're on Sincerely Yours, The Tough Alliance's label, and I suspect they're TTA with a girl singer, but I've got no proof. And I havent looked into it enough, or at all, to be proven otherwise.

Played this straight through three times today! I don't know Tough Alliance at all... what should I check out?

you shouldn't

i really love the track "1981 -" off of A New Chance fwiw.

This is great!!

Yeah I played From Africa To Malaga last night and it definitely hit the spot. I need to get the album really don't I?

"album" - it's only twenty six minutes. They seem enamoured of the 2.40 - 2.50 range.

"Ecstasy" is so great and vaguely disturbing.

i listened to it yesterday and really wasn't feeling it at all

the 'lollipop' one just made me want to listen to 'lollipop', which i don't even like that much. the much promised ciara vox never happened. nothing much happened, actually.

Kind of with the Lex on this one. But might give it another chance if I didn't have to keep hitting play every 30 seconds.

It reminds me a bit of Pooka and parts of the first Heather Nova album.

Yeah this thing of having to reload very 30 secs is killing me. I think hearing this at work on small speakers is not doing the music justice either.

It's the kind of thing I *should* like. And for £5.40 I should really splash out.

However, the first track comes on with that kind of cod-ska thing that was all the rage a few summers ago when everyone from Lilly Allen to Paris Hilton was doing it and I really can't stomach any more of it. Even if the rest of the album is nothing like that.

cod-ska?

I'm sure that's the wrong term and I knew that as I posted it. But I hope you know that thing I mean.

i think these guys are running with my least favourite things about Air France (this sounds a lot tweer/less melancholic than No Way Down for me) and Tough Alliance (less robust production) instead of the best bits. could be a grower tho.

I know the thing you mean kate but not the track? None of these sound like "Stars Are Blind"/"L.D.N."/etc. as far as I can tell.

The very first one! "Things Will Never Be The Same Again" comes in at 0:09 and it just makes me twitch.

No ska bassline or beat at all though. The light shuffly beat and watery bassline is just basic scando balearic pop maneuvers surely - though I can definitely see how that might make a person twtich.

I am convinced that you and I listen to music in such different ways that we might as well be listening to different records.

We'll throw it to the jury.

Do you just not hear that off-beat synchopated guitar coming in at 0:09? Accents on the 2 and 4 beats. That's the absolute hallmark.

I'd never seen this intro to LDN before! Fantastic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p_V0y7C9vc&feature=fvst

I can see the resemblance between these two tunes - that whole sunny vibe, light upbeat shuffly, 4X4 groove, keyboard stabs on the offbeat. I guess I just associate "cod-ska" with horns, reggae lilt, bass etc.

"Stars Are Blind" is such a great shameless example of all the elements:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gO3mGPXeSE

Those synchopated guitar stabs on the 2 and 4 beats are all over all those records.

Yeah sure but it's fairly backgrounded in the jj track so I barely noticed it until I went back to listen for it specifically. It seems like a pretty big staple on a lot of this scando-pop kind of stuff, so maybe I just don't associate it with "cod-ska" anymore - see Air France's "Beach Party" for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58X5nMnziLQ

kate, you listen to music differently than we do. same thing on the black meteoric star thread.

i think these guys are running with my least favourite things about Air France (this sounds a lot tweer/less melancholic than No Way Down for me) and Tough Alliance (less robust production) instead of the best bits. could be a grower tho.

― Hard House SugBanton (blueski), jeudi 9 juillet 2009 14:56 (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is exactly how I feel about this. At the moment, it does sound a bit too bland... It will probably grow on me a bit, but there's no way I'll like it as much as TTA or Air France.

I think I know what Kate's getting at although I have yet to hear the track in question. You do hear it a lot in this sort of stuff partly because it's a bit of a route-one signifier for 'laid back, light and summery'.

Yeah, I think that's exactly why I don't like it. It is lazy songwriter's shortcut to "summer voibe" - stick some reggae/ska offbeat accents on a guitar and some vaguely steel drum tones (or synth sounds occupying a similar sine wave tone soundspace) in there. Don't really like that Air France track posted either, for the same reason.

But, then again, I guess to me the 4-part harmony says "summer" in a similar sort of way thanks to west coast sunshine pop of the 60s.

i wonder if kate would like kuniyuki takahashi - i think i said on the air france thread, and it applies here too, that this stuff strikes me a as a twee, mimsy, kinda irritating take on what he does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8wtUl6Y8zU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg6-IBzZUJg

oh i didn't mean to post the first one! 2nd one, 'you get me', is more similar to what we're talking about, w/the smooth female vox and blissed-out feel.

huh i hadnt thought of that lex--i guesss i can kind of hear it but takahasi seems so clearly to be coming out of a like pat metheny place whereas air france is so st etienne that i wouldnt have compared them

Kate I get yr point above totally. I think I was just thrown because Paris Hilton etc. were reviving ska so much more ostentatiously, this is more like generic ska cues that get mixed with everything.

Also the kuniyuki stuff is awesome. But yeah sort of more Studio vibe than Air France vibe, if you were going to come up with balearic scando-pop reference points.

NO NO NONONONONOOOOO THIS HAS THE DREADED STAMP OF LITE JAZZ ON IT AND MAKES ME WANT TO BREAK FURNITURE

this is more like generic ska cues that get mixed with everything.

which is much more why I don't like it.

one of the things that i find so cool about the concept of balearica or beardsmic is the way you can have studio and air france and takahashi all arrive at similar places but come out of very different traditions

i don't actually hear half as much st etienne as y'all do in air france and jj - i think insofar as st et appeal to me, it's because of their lyrical and melodic focus, not the "moods" they create, so once that's dissipated, i'm left with a whole lot of nothing.

kate im just going to warn you, the deeper you get into anything that gets called "balearic" the closer you get to lite jazz, so you may want to turn back now

haha yeah kate is otm about the lite jazz in kuniyuki. didn't realise it'd be a turn-off!

IIRC kate's favoured strand of balearic is lindstrom et al, which in the context of air france and kuniyuki, seems like a completely different genre

i dont know anything about takahashi but i always assumed he WAS a lite jazz artist who had just been "found" by the mysterious curatorial forces of balearica

not really sure wht jordan means been listening to no.2 and it's pretty great

If loving jj is wrong I don't wanna be right.

lol @ the lite jazz discussion upthread, so true

not re:jj

yeah i don't get it - i like the tough alliance and love air france thus by rights i prob should like jj but i don't. snooooze.

they took the bad bits from both instead of the good bits. this has grown on me a bit tho (at least From Africa To Malaga and Ecstasy have).

no idea who those two bands are, will investigate

serious coz?

'balearic' totally passed me by (I'm assuming they're balearic); big blindspot. only acts I've heard in any depth are studio, d. lissvik and mungolian jetset

yes, balearic they are/were considered

try meanderthals lp also cozen

oh yeah, I have that too (and a few others that don't come immediately to mind)

will def look into air france/tough alliance cos I really like the jj stuff

try smoking weed on the beach too if ur into that kind of thing

so into that kind of thing

both these records are great imo

they are basically as much old-fashioned "indie pop" as balearic tho no?? kinda need a taste for that kind of stuff.

half the shit labelled balearic just sounds like saint etienne 2 me

balearic is a ~~mindset~~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QXJy-wlZe8

few influences here and there

didnt think i really fucked w/ the st etienne indie end of balearic but i will fuck w/ this in a second, the version of that akon song they do is the best of their rnb covers, but i guess just bc i dont like the orig. (on the other hand their lollipop and birthday sex covers are just limp sounding 2 me)

what is the reason that their 2nd album is so much less acclaimed same review in p4k i think gave it like half the score?

also this is shockingly awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sycfHnxJdHg

they are good at being "inscrutable"

what is that 5 minutes thing? from their 2nd album?

no its from swedish radio, like a mini mixtape i guess

I'm grindin' until I'm tired
You say you ain't grindin' until you die

you posted on the wrong lil wayne thread

blasphemy, i'm sure, but these days i'd rather hear jj than The Game

well yeah, it's just weird that you posted those lyrics as if she wrote them

wasn't my intent. just love the way she sings them.

these days i'd rather hear jj than The Game

^^^^^

these any day

http://stereogum.com/591901/jj-cover-the-dream/video/

their schtick has grown soo tired imo, it's starting to remind me of those open-mic acoustic guitarists who take pop songs and just slow em down and sing em all heartfelt-like

yeah that cover reminds me of youth group music in the worst way. zzzzzzzz.

i think it sounds really pretty but i'm a total sucker for jj's sound

http://www.sincerelyyours.se/yours0159.php

How much mileage do you think is left in this idea? I am enjoying this mixtape but I can see how it's twee feyness would irritate.

Scandinavia doesn't feel very Balearic these days:
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/Norway/Oslo.htm

everyone who like these guys should check out the high summer ep - i'm really loving it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYF7ptiLBsw

i'm as far as you can get / from the american dream
yeah

http://i.imgur.com/1bKQ1.jpg

Metro Video Centers

I was so repulsed I tweeted about it the other day. ~~modern era~~

lana del rey - "west coast"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKxuiw3iMBE

tove lo - stay high (habits remix) (feat. hippie sabotage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYM-RJwSGQ8

sorry, i didn't mean "west coast" i meant "ultraviolence":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFWC4SiZBao

Lol this band put an album out recently. Anyone hear it?

Metro Video Centers

― buzza, Saturday, November 17, 2012 10:27 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am weirdly nostalgic for this kind record and i cant find my copy of it anywhere

loll never knew that quote in 'my way' is charlie manson

"ecstasy" was their only good song