«« »»

Jojo Blue: First On Air

More reviews by
Artist: Jojo Blue
Title: First On Air
Format: CD
Label: MENU (@)
Rated: * * * * *
The hyperbolic ascending directrices that the sound by talented Slovakian producer Jozef Miklos aka Jojo Blue on his debut album, released by Czech label MENU, are clear since the introductive track "Hactba", where some seagull cries, a sort of fairy angelic choir and the sea breeze confuses with the enthralling suavity and the veiled melancholia of harp, strings and a bassoon by evoking a mysteriously holy and naturally mystical dimension, which he manages to integrate with his sampledelic dubstep and its possible variations over the album, even if the initial chod progression on that kind of organ which was widely used by garage-house producers on the following "Apocalypto" could mislead listeners before the heavy and skeletal step and the typically dubstep grinding bass burst into the sequence of instrumental sketches he progressively adds. Jojo Blue's skills in bouncing beats and samples (mainly extracts from movies, old songs and vocals under exstatic raptures) is quite evident since these first rushing beats but become clearer and clearer over the listening: the puffed dry beat of the catchy "Blue Down" got enhanced by dropping samples (particularly amazing that sort of banjo), which on the following "Jocker" have been used to make the portrait of a devilish jester; on "Anthem Of Science (for Lilien)" - maybe the best track on "First On Air" -, Jozef builds splashes of bubbly dub which sounds performed by researchers during laboratory tests, while he peppers the following "Cybersex" with sizzling computational fibrillations, which surface in the initial part of the following "Goral Cut" as well, where you could surmise he awoke some Carpathian female vampires and the mummy of some monk who conducted a Gregorian choir by means of some spell casted from the handbook of an unknown necromancer, before narcotizing them again for the definitive eternal sleep on the soulful "Fusion", where he seems to reprise some "vintage" sounds of the last 90ies. Even if some rhythmical patterns could be still improved and in spite of its nostalgic halo, Jojo Blue managed to suggest a possible way to the so-called and somewhat undefined post-dubstep. Have more than one listening.

Comments

«« »»