Proceeding the debut album with a mission statement, Jameszoo's focus ran amock in 'Blind', his sophomore record. Experimentation is fulfilled even more, lending Jameszoo's usual chaotic jazz and electronic embellishments a much required meditative control. What results is an impeccable display of contrast in rhythms, textures, and soundplay that will leave you blinded afterwards.
Once the track '“song”' starts, you know what Jameszoo is conveying in this record. His free-flowing appetite for jazz compositions that sweep away everything in its path started from his debut record. In that debut record, he treats the entire record as a playground for whatever careening compositions he will parse through, letting the chaos and wonky structure of his jazz compositions run free and never letting it smoothen out for even just a second. He seems to have fun with it, like a wandering child never stopping in their creative impulses. That in itself is great on its own, but it does make the album blur the jazz parsings in both synthetic and organic manner due to the looseness allowing the notes to run to wild directions, where the need for silence is brashly ignored… Up until now.
6 years ahead from Fool, ‘Blind’ lets the nu-jazz pieces run wild, but now Jameszoo’s grasp makes it tempered and subtle as he embraces more electronic elements to great effect. While 4 minutes longer than his debut, there is the contrast of volumes and embrace of tighter construction and track lengths that allows the experience to not blur itself altogether, where the standalone tracks are much more noticeable than ever before. An experience that uses subtlety to ascend, to create meditation amidst chaotic structures.
Retaining the chaos of his compositions, Jameszoo places an emphasis on modulation and measured control this time around. ‘Bugatti (etude)’ wallows through the main dominating piano progression that crashes across the track, allowing the splintering vintage synths, crashing drum licks, and subtle horn screeches to bolster the manic soundscape even more. ‘For drummers (and guitarists)’ leans in intimate guitar passages, before the distorted chime signals in the drums that blast through with its rapid and splashy fills. ‘Big Game’ allows the horns and bass guitar to play with spirit, before the two instruments alongside the drums speed up and exchange responses in a jam band-style manner. ‘Philip’ introduces these rapid drum fills act as stability for the shrilling horns and gentle synths to swirl around in, before it reels back and lets the playful piano leads the show where the tune stabilizes much more with the drum fills and horn screeches composing their chaotic nature. ‘Egg Modern’ sweeps through three different progression changes noted by quiet slopes, where the blaring synth piano move on its own melodic pattern, only accompanied by drum blasts and noise squeaks from time to time.
But unlike his debut, there is now an emphasis on contrasts within volumes and subtle changes, leading to the mood of the record being blaring and meditative simultaneously. ‘“Song”’ immediately displays this to let the listeners know what they’re getting into, a sputtering noise that ends for the pianos, strings, and synths to come through with hesitance. ‘music for bat caves’ puts the piano chords to careen through the mix, pushing through the limits thanks to the discord provided by the squealing synthesizers. It leaves in the second half as the gentle bass and horn take center stage, just before all 4 instruments clamor in to end the track. ‘Imps’ puts the raw bass in the foreground, with the staccato synth progressions and random noise streams in. ‘Hommage a qui’ puts its limping bass, sweet synths and chimes to play in funk progressions that get pulled away as the shrieking synths crush down. The back half then plays in a back-and-forth play in volumes of the stuttering synths, starting out with dreamy distant tones before it closes in and ends the track with a maximalist soundscape. ‘My Kingdom for a horse’ is an album ender that pulses through with ambient minimalism. An ambiance that gets louder and embellished with shrouded distortion, only for it to end, and let the wavy organ-esque ambiance alongside certain noise cues step in to end the album.
Listening to this from front to back, to first impressions to the finalized discussion, ‘Blind’ may as well be an album that makes its most loudest noises and rhythms and subtle plays of volume and melody control to enrapture its very core. It overall allows Jameszoo’s jazz and electronic compositions to not lose sight of the balance of contrasts and focus of its auditory experiences scattered on all songs of the record. It’s an experience that may leave you blind from Jamezoo's new world, weaving juxtaposed auditory textures, rhythms, volumes, and lengths that will evoke visceral emotions in the listener. It may leave the experience confused, annoyed, appreciative, or adored from the record. But maybe that is the thing, a record that will leave the listener blinded from all of what it is throwing right at them, no matter what feeling they may feel afterward as long as the record did what it has to do its very purpose: to keep the listener capture each detail of the auditory experience. Personally, it’s a blinding experience that leaves nothing but vibrant expressions out of it, where the balance between calm and chaos is brilliantly executed and the synthetic and organic textures blend themselves impeccably. It’s a maturation and experimentation that Jameszoo handles immensely terrific, where even if it’s gonna blind you to the very end, it leaves you in awe of Jameszoo’s bewildered perfection of sound and control.
Favorite Tracks: ALL OF THEM
Least Favorite Track: NONE OF THEM