Junior Boys - so This is Goodbye LP

Junior Boys re-release their critically acclaimed sophomore album 'So This Is Goodbye'. The LP includes an exclusive 2nd disc featuring live tracks and remixes by Hot Chip, Carl Craig, Kode 9, Alex Smoke and Morgan Geist amongst others.

 

Junior Boys is the labour-of-love of Jeremy Greenspan, an Anglophile from Hamilton, Ontario. He had almost given up on the band after five years of going nowhere fast, but interest from the UK's KIN label reignited Jeremy's passion and he created the 2003 album 'Last Exit' as a solo project, with assistance from engineer Matt Didemus.

It may have been a 'bedroom' record, but it transcended those introspective, lo-fi connotations. It may have been an electropop record, but with none of the sniggering retro irony that term suggests. And with 2006's follow-up, 'So This Is Goodbye', Jeremy and Matt created a fully-realised work of crystalline beauty, precision and poignancy. Its songcraft is every bit as delicately assured as current indie darlings The Shins, but bolted to a steely thump learned from immersion in dubstep and techno, and boasting a command of atmospherics that would impress Eno or Flood. Jeremy's voice, meanwhile, acquired a rich, yearning quality redolent of David Sylvian.

Following the rapturous reception heaped upon 'So This Is Goodbye' Domino are re-releasing the record with a second bonus disc of remixes and live tracks.

An all-star cast have been enlisted to reconfigure the album's many highlights. In the morning is a dirty bassline led stepper that get the thumbs up from us. 

 

Like a child LP version is a blissed out belter in its own right, no wonder second-wave Detroit techno alchemist Carl Craig picked picked on this to twist into a sleek bullet-train ride through the industrial zone. Carl has surpassed himself again on this progressive builder that is as deep as they come and is reminscent of his massive falling Up remix of last year. Worth the asking price alone! This is the bomb!

 

Dubstep auteur Kode 9 hollows out the paranoid spaces between the beats of 'Double Shadow' and drop another detroitian flavoured ambient dub step track that will be winning fans on the electronic floors.

 

Kompakt Pop Ambient hero Marsen Joules opts for a dreamy, weightless re-rub. And Hot Chip - probably Junior Boys' closest musical contemporaries - subvert 'In The Morning' with their own mournful refrain and a sprinkling of moog action and add some low end bass that drips and climbs like The Big One for fun. Also including are four tracks of the Jbs recorded live in the studio, and in fine form - 'Last Exit's 'Under The Sun' is a particular highlight, reconfigured from the spectral original into a sledgehammer Krautrock stomp that has sent crowds into paroxyms of delight whenever it's played

Junior Boys, then: simple, direct, sentimental… and smart. Exactly how pop music should be.


Tracklisting

CD 1.
1. Double Shadow
2. The Equalizer
3. First Time
4. Count Souvenirs
5. In The Morning
6. So This Is Goodbye
7. Like A Child
8. Caught In A Wave
9. When No One Cares
10. FM

CD2.
1. Like A Child (Carl Craig Remix)
2. In The Morning (Hot Chip Remix)
3. FM (Tensnake Remix)
4. The Equalizer (Morgan Geist Remix)
5. In The Morning (Alex Smoke Remix)
6. Double Shadow (Kode 9 Remix)
7. FM (Marsen Jules Remix)
8. The Equalizer (iTunes Session)
9.  Under The Sun (iTunes Session)
10. FM (iTunes Session)
11. When No One Cares (iTunes Session)
 

 

The Dead Horse EP came out on 9th April on 2 x 12"s and via digital download and the full LP is out on 11th June

SKIDDLE.COM (10 out of 10 for this track alone!)