Jumpel
Deuxième Bureau
Hidden Shoal Recordings

Deuxième Bureau is Jumpel's (a.k.a. Jo Dürbeck) second platter, following 2007's more than pleasing debut, Samuel Jason Lies On The Beach. Here's more dizzying, cinematic soundscapes, dreamscapes. Nocturnal music. More lay-back melodies for the laidback.

Jumpel serves the perfect musical therapy for your body and soul. F.i., if you're down with the flu or something (like me for the moment), this is the most pleasing cure one might get. Mild, gentle, discrete, slow. Simply... tranquillising. But, mind you, here's also dance-beat like passages. The press-sheet recommends "close listening with a good pair of headphones", to get to all the details and layers of the music. Sounds like good advice.

The elegance of Deuxième Bureau is stunning. Everything's quite cool and perfectly controlled, like f.i. "Considering The Kicker Knows It", or "Joe Couldn't Make It Tonight". It's done with some cool arrogance, without being arrogant at all. Maybe trying to act French ('Deuxième Bureau' is the French military intelligence service), as with the stereotypes: The French being cool and arrogant. Anyway, Jumpel's music for sure is an intelligence agency. Doing secret tricks with fragile piano and guitar chords, lazy drum machine beats, sound effects, various cut-and-paste clips, etc. Of my personal fave tracks I'd pull the exotic "Clay State" and the closing, whispering beauty, "The Sea/Friends".

Hidden Shoal file Jumpel as 'ambient micro-pop', which is quite an accurate description. This is ambient music with heart and soul.

Copyright © 2009 Håvard Oppøyen