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Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
(Domino) UK release date: 11 September 2006
4 stars
Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye

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track listing

1. Double Shadow
2. Equaliser
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

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Junior Boys


For a while now there's been an orthodoxy developing around the music created in the early 1980s. The commonly held belief is that the post-punk scratchy funk is where the real innovation took place; that the sound of The Gang of Four and The Fire Engines broke new ground.

Therefore its often claimed that the neon futurists who produced the buoyant synth pop of the era are fit only for the nostalgia circuit. Sure there is a certain inventiveness in those post-punk bands but its not the whole story.Guitars do not automatically bestow gravitas or soul and certainly not originality.

The Human League's Motown meets the autobahn pop or the electronic vista of OMD were far more unique and groundbreaking. Thankfully it sounds like Canadian duo Junior Boys share my view. This is Goodbye takes those pioneering records and mixes their DNA with the sounds of current club culture.

See this is a perfect kiss from a tainted lover. A dirty epic, genetic engineering, a poison arrow. So This Is Goodbye is full of lyrical spurts and urgent rhythms. A world of scorched hearts and club wallsdripping with intent. Bass heavy, melancholy and beautiful. Kraftwerk via Salford's Lads Club. House music with a heart. A new order, a sign post to the future.

Junior Boys have created an electroplated tank of a record. A spiky shape shifting mix of sculptured mercury and bruised beats. By turns tender of reason and striking in sound. Jeremy Greenspan voice glides across the grooves with the perfect grace of light at dawn. Matthew Didemus has fashioned a series of stark, yearning soundscapes, full of light and space. The room in the backdrops is juxtaposed against the stark dense maze of imagery. Greenspan lyrics can shift from clipped impressionist snapshots to spiralling narrative within the same verse.

If the Scissor Sisters make you put your hands in the air, then Junior Boys make you wear your heart on your sleeve. One moment I feel like I am listening to Underworld's frantic blast combined with the Blue Nile's slowly evolving elegance, the next it could be The Pet Shop Boys' sailing in the slip stream of Depeche Mode. I can't nail down the sound beyond the fact that it's breathtaking.

Junior Boys seem to conjure magic from the most basic of sounds. They have stripped away much of the complex rhythms from their previous LP Last Exit. Caught in a Wave unfurls from a static radio tone and a high frequency circuit whine via a base line and drum kick that are tighter than Bush and Blair. The rhythm track is so simple, a beat and click, but so deep and hypnotic. The bass lines are tense and heavyweight throughout. In The Morning welds one to a glittering melody line and a huge pitch bent synth riff. When No One Cares, takes a Frank Sinatra standard and spins it out into deep space. FM dissolves in fleeting bass notes and a sparkling starlight synth line.

Count Souvenirs is Soft Cell's Memorabilia written by Douglas Coupland and remixed by Gene Farris. Double Shadow is the dub house of Vladislav Delay's Lumomo project with lyrics replacing the vocal snippets. There is a energy, a desire that burns through the speakers. This record should be played loud and digested slowly. I feel love.

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