GutterPutter

Since 2019, Jockstrap has been hyped up as one of the next big name in Britain’s underground scene. Consisting of lead vocal singer Georgia Ellery (yes, the same violinist from Black Country, New Road) and producer Taylor Skye, there’s a lot of hype around them for their unconventional electropop which relies on glitch influences, a glimmer of chamber pop, and even folktronic aspects. Their EP in Wicked City, released in 2020, cements the duo’s place on the map, demonstrating a variety of fun, yet utterly crazy production with violin playing on top of twists and turns that few could expect given their young age.

With their debut in I Love You Jennifer B. on September 9th, there’s a certain excitement to be found in how far the duo will push their experimentation. After all, if they mention that it’s an cumulation of three years’ worth of work as they mature as aspiring artists. The final result, to me at least, is a record that shows a lot of creativity over the past three years’ worth of recording, but it falls very short of consistency and even its balance between accessibility and eccentricity.

With some serious IDM chops, Jockstrap’s production relies on sharp stop-start dynamics with distortions with occasional drips in acoustic instrumentation. You can find it in ‘Neon’ with its slow fingerstyle in the beginning, ‘What’s It All About?’ with a softness of the Carpenters, or ‘Glasgow’ which carries the magic realism of St. Vincent. However, it doesn’t always pan out well as the certain choppy production can detract from the experience such as the end of ‘Angst’ which feels too clustered and sped up, the droning in ‘Debra’ which detracts rather than compliments, or the absurd sample of a classical singer in ‘Lancaster Court’. The electronic instrumentation may have helped to spice up the duo’s music as having left a stronger impact than a lot of their contemporaries, but it doesn’t always compliment the chamber components.

When the two’s expertises do land together, it lands together very well and it does end up leaving two rather stunning song in ‘Concrete Over Water’ and ‘50/50’. For the former song, the beautiful chorus, with its twinkly future bass synths and yearning vocals, makes for an artsy prog-pop hit with notable psychedelic influences alongside a fairy tale-like thinking of a relationship. Skye’s production works like a charm and Ellery’s singing is perhaps at her most subdued and best. Not only are the instrumentation aligned well, but the lyrics is largely gorgeous in its imagery – “The tower’s blue and the sky is black/ I feel the night, I sit, it’s on my back” is a pure display of re-imagining a romantic fairy tale in a modern world. The religious references only helps to make the song feel subtly transcendental.

‘Concrete Over Water’ makes for a gorgeous single, yet it feels like a sharp contrast with ‘50/50’ which is predominantly a breakbeat type of song with strong IDM and industrial influences. The lyricism and the singing takes the backstage compared to the signature erratic style of Skye which, to put it simply, leads to a zany bop of a dance track. The glitchiness is still apparent, but it doesn’t permeate the whole structure of the song. Instead, it supplements it through adding a sense of unpredictability, leaving next to no clear direction over when the climax kicks in. This chaotic focus leads to one of the most riveting songs I’ve heard this year; one where its tasteful electronic use could make some arguable parallels to Radiohead’s ‘Idioteque’ with young adult fervour rather than apocalyptic alarmism.

There are other parts of the album that is worth talking about such as the mix of alien hi-hats and industrial sounds that gives the title track a certain groove or the faux-80s-90s bricolage of a pop song in ‘Greatest Hits’. Yet, there lies a certain inconsistency within the album that makes it hard to like. When the synergy in the programmed snares align with the synths, there always tend to be that one sample that distracts its effectiveness. Just as Ellery’s vocal hits a high note which doesn’t come off as being awfully clichéd, the otherworldly editing of the audio distorts it to the point of risking her technical talent as being out of place. What this leaves I Love You Jennifer B. is an eccentric entanglement of forward-thinking music that’s conflicted between its artsy display and its appeal without a middle ground. Check it out if you’re a big fan of Black Country, New Road like me or if you like art pop that goes in unusual directions. Just don’t be surprised if, even by your account, that it feels too zany for your taste.