More Jam Money goodness leaked forth at the end of the year, but only now am I able to deconstruct the deconstructionists. Actually, that’s false; as with the first Jam Money LP to come across my doorstep, this too is an odd bending pop journey that is incohesive, inconceivable, and yet all the more entertaining and enjoyable because to hell with conventions. Jib Kidder, Avey Tare, and R. Stevie Moore are just some of the easiest touchstones to glean throughout A Gathering Kind, the most apt name for an album since…? Jam Money indeed gather their influences into a fleeting, floating album of every imagined pop idea (and many that were not thought of until JM made them so). Bent, steely guitar strings racing to become out of tune form a beachy melodies — if that sunny oasis of ocean real estate were wafting in space past beeping satellites in search of extraterrestrial life. At some point, you begin to question your own sanity — not because of a silly beach metaphor placed in space straight of a MST3K plot — because Jam Money can’t be THIS good and THIS unhinged at once. But once more, you think of their deviant pop mentality and it’s easy to see that yes, yes you can be both and those who strive to reinvent pop should work toward the same ambitious sounds found throughout A Gathering Kind. I’m just sad I couldn’t unpack this delightful enigma sooner; it would have been attached to a carrot high atop my 2016 leader board.
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