Let’s consider the visual mythos that accompanied Jam City’s Classical Curves: busted-up shiny motorcycle on spotless marble floor, cascading walls of tropical foliage, elegant satin robe draped over a railing, and blackberry phone alone (without owner) in the corner. The album extended these signifiers into sound very well, primarily by isolating them in a suspended, sonic gallery space. Such, a new club aesthetic took shape through this free image/sound-trading; the album’s pivotal role in constructing the “new” club was because the vibe, the universe, was crystal clear.
“Unhappy,” the first cut from Jam City’s next full length, has hints of Sam Smith and New Order dissolved into a sappy, mellow silt — this is infiltration aesthetics pulling off something grand, something simultaneously nostalgic and contemporary. Perhaps the image experimentation has been replaced with the effort to build a narrative, experience-based situation for the image to maneuver in: the motorcycle rides on into the sunset, the marble floor supports the half-attended gala event, the satin robe is wrapped around the body of a newborn lordess.
The track does not necessarily need to be read as tongue-in-cheek in order for it to function properly. This is Jam City’s method — a knack for distilling the connotation of sound and image into effective, resonant composition. Yet, with “Unhappy,” we see the artist focusing on crafting an emotive object with the mass potential to chorus the events of folks’ lives, the spaces that already exist. One of the last images underneath the pile of clickable content on Jam City’s website expresses the overwrought “Dress Normal” concept. Maybe “Unhappy” has the artist “Dressing Normal” to escape fashion; but, we all know that move becomes fashion itself. Perhaps therein lies the frustration, the “unhappiness,” the reason why Jam City is sitting downtrodden in a pile of physical/digital rubble. Perhaps, it’s another reason to just “make something beautiful.”
• Jam City: http://www.jam-city.net
• Night Slugs: http://nightslugs.net
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