At the end of May Jezebell released a track on The Ransom Note, the single minded dancefloor action of Weekend Machines. For much of the last eighteen months Jesse and Darren have created a Balearic soundtrack- their album Jezeballearic Beats Volume 1 borrowed the original Balearic Beats album's cover art, they sampled at length a monologue by legendary Ibiza DJ Alfredo, they pulled together samples and edits and rebuilt songs by Talking Heads, Siouxsie Sioux and Kajagoogoo, they purloined the 1988 Balearic classic Jibaro and Belgian underground classic from 1987 Max Berlin's' Elle Et Moi and on Jezeblue and Trading Places reimagined the Mediterranean sounds for 2023 into 2024. All this and more. A Balearic masterclass.
They're now edging away from this, away from the poolside and beach and towards the darkness of the strobe lit basement, music with the sole purpose of finding a groove and making people dance. The EP's lead and title track, Weekend Machines, has one of those acid 303 basslines that you could happily allow to play forever, providing some bottom end to everything you do. On top, the synths and arpeggios dance around. Beneath, the drum machine power on. The vocal samples, distorted robotic voices, tell of the coming of the machines. Enough already, as they say- just get on the floor.
The remaining three tracks on the EP don't let up. Autostrada is a motorik hymn to the Italian motorway system, a futuristic 80s journey from Rome to Milan, drum machine rhythms clocking up the miles on the tarmac, a sample by Italo house pioneers Mr Flagio providing the spark for Jezebell's krauty machine music. Citric is bumpier, a bouncing rhythm and bassline switching the flow from four four to shuffle, with gnarly guitars and synths. The EP finishes with a remix of the title track by Shubostar, cosmic DJ/ producer from South Korea but currently in Berlin. Her remix slows the pace slightly, drops the pitch and pulls the bass to the fore, and then achieves lift off with sci fi synth chords and bleeps, an 80s space TV soundtrack crossed with underground outer space chug.
All of which, without wanting to get too '80s TV nostalgia' on you, led to me thinking about Erin Gray as Col. Wilma Deering in Buck Rogers In The 25th Century...
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