British weirdo-dance duo Jockstrap will release their hotly-anticipated debut album, I Love You Jennifer B, on Friday, September 9th. Following a string of successful EPs and singles, Taylor Skye and Georgia Ellery (also of Black Country, New Road) have wrangled together three years’ worth of songs and squeezed them into an eclectic, unpredictable, surprisingly cohesive LP.
“It was never going to be straightforward, making a Jockstrap album,” Ellery tells Consequence. “Because everything is so different, all the songs. I think on EPs, it allows for that, maybe, because it’s just like a little taster. But we’ve made it work for an album. It’s different. And we’ve said in interviews, it’s a bit like a compilation album. But we’re kind of fine with that, you know?”
From the onset of the record, Jockstrap’s unbridled idiosyncrasies are on display. Take album opener “Neon,” which starts as a slow, acoustic ballad backed by a subtle sample of bustling wind before Skye’s off-kilter production takes over without warning. The remainder of the song swings like a pendulum between the sweetness of Ellery’s vocals and a cacophony of Skye’s design, climaxing in a distorted, shockingly melodic explosion of sonics.
It’s a perfect introduction to Jockstrap and what they seek to accomplish on I Love You Jennifer B, and it doesn’t nearly scratch the surface of uncanny timbres, wild structures, and beautiful resolutions found throughout the rest of the record.
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