Jack J likes to create a vibe solely to harsh it. The Australian Canadian producer debuted within the mid-2010s with two acclaimed singles of luxurious deep home that introduced essential consideration to Vancouver’s fertile digital scene and the Temper Hut collective he cofounded. However his two full-lengths have been marked by lowered music lengths and startlingly morose lyrics, delivered in a voice whose untrained reediness solely makes his supply really feel that rather more pressing. In 2022, Opening the Door solid him as an indie-rock unhappy sack not too far faraway from fellow Canadian Mac DeMarco, however his new album Blue Desert embraces a spread of classic references, from glossy new wave to ’90s chillout and diva home. The draggy sultriness of all of it makes the distinction along with his lyrics much more jarring: a space-age equal of Adam Sandler in The Wedding ceremony Singer, exorcizing his deepest emotions by means of cocktail music.
The lyrics level to a traumatic breakup, however with Jutson you’ll be able to by no means ensure. He’s notoriously press-shy—that’s almost definitely him on the quilt, wanting like a cross between Lawrence of Arabia and a cult chief in billowing white pantaloons—so it’s onerous to inform how severely to take his on-record pleas. (His most detailed interview to this point, with Shawn Reynaldo’s First Flooring publication, reticently touched on a “onerous time” in his life however didn’t go into a lot element.) Mix that with the downtempo slant of the music and also you’ve received a recipe for nearly insufferable passive aggression. He seduces you into underestimating his music by setting the tempo at a simmer and the vibes at couchlock. Then he makes clear that every one isn’t properly—that there’s one thing deeper happening, that possibly you’ll be able to’t simply write this off as one other rose-tinted pastiche.
Blue Desert is a compact pay attention; it’s over within the time it takes to get by means of roughly three listens of Jutson’s most beloved monitor, 2014’s “One thing (On My Thoughts).” Few songs surpass 4 minutes, and a few appear to finish or fade out one refrain sooner than they need to. He appears to toggle to the subsequent concept as quickly as he thinks of it. You get the sense of a disordered thoughts—of an individual whose ideas are burning too scorching and too quick to have the ability to sink right into a groove just like the “Present Me Love” organ home of “Unsuitable Once more,” the monster Andrew Weatherall lope of “Down the Line,” or the ambient, nearly Knife-like keyboard creepiness of the “Pink Sneakers” diptych. Followers who got here to Jack J’s early work for its unhurried tempo and lackadaisical tone could discover the expertise of listening to Blue Desert jarring, however had it been allowed to run longer, it might need been a bit too simple for the listener to zone out.
