Jeremy Jay – Slow Dance

Author

Marisa Wikramanayake

Published

Monday 30th March

With a David Bowie like sense for knowing the exact aural impact of words and a Pulp like feel for pop beats, you will love Jeremy Jay’s Slow Dance. It is new wave, but it is also mellow lounge like electro pop. The lyrics can often surprise you as Jay doesn’t aim for a story but instead for the images the words conjure up and how they sound. In fact, the few songs that do have any sense of story are not the best ones though We Were There seems like something between a generic fantasy novel plot and a game of boggle and In The Lonely Town is definitely an old DOS based text adventure game converted into music. However even these tracks at least still interest and intrigue you.

The best song is Slow Dance 2 which after listening to half a record of synthesizers, surprises you with an R&B ballad like melody. In fact, you half expect a trio of backup singers to break in at any point and go “Doo Wop Doo Wop”. Will You Dance With Me?, reminds you of the Dresden Dolls and Gallop is just fun with Nick Pahl on drums. Both Slow Dance and Breaking The Ice are sheer exuberance at throwing words around and seeing where they land. Four bonus tracks are included and if you have never heard a synthesizer playing a hip hop beat, listen to Jet Stream. Go buy this album now because you will never hear anything so inventive, intriguing and fun ever again.