LA JOVENC (real name Giovanni Dal Monte) is an award winning soundtrack composer. He seems to have the approval of Barry Adamson so I am hopeful. Perverse polymorphous does in fact share a lot in common with that man’s solo work. It is an album cinematic in scope yet not in actual fact a soundtrack. Is there a genre for this type of music? Perhaps we should coin one? Cinesound? Cinetrack? Soundmatic? Perhaps not.
I find this type of work very interesting. I mean what is the drive here? Are they people who love soundtracks and want to make that kind of music? Do they love cinema more than music but find themselves more able to make music than film? Do they want their music to be more than just a listening experience? Are we to be transported to the film that plays out in our imagination as we listen to the music? One can only wonder and hope.
Opening track Fireflies contains the ambience of the natural world within its slow funk and introduces the slightly jazzy vocals that appear throughout the album. Fat Slut Scot Mod is a great dance track built on a crisp snare, gnarly keyboards and whippy breaks. The slightly mechanised chorus is addictive! Love Of My Life is a slight shock afterwards cause it is really jazzy in a vocalist smokes cigarette while intoning their lover to the accompaniment of horns and drums. “You can be my queen and still you can fart”. A sense of humour as well then or maybe deadly serious?
You Are Mine is a straightforward house track with an emphasis on sequenced and effected vocals and is not such a subtle listening experience. Nobody’s Baby takes us back to the smoky jazz club. It sounds like a vinyl sampled jazz band with his vocals on top but it has the effect of taking you back in time. Moonglow is a less fragile Anthony Hegarty in his Hercules and Love Affair setting and Come In From Out Of The Rain is pure filth on a faster techno rhythm with different vocal takes conversing with each other inside the track.
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So Much Time is again set in the jazz club and we can hear the audience chatting this time. “I’m not your guy, you’re not my guy but we can say goodbye”, is the song’s main message. I’m Switched Off takes us in a completely different direction with repetitive vocals on the theme of switched on/switched off. It has a minimal industrial feel with elements of glitch to it and the vocals are delivered in a lifeless manner, presumably by someone who has been switched off. The album finishes with Tanger-Algeciras, a mostly instrumental track built on a Morrocan style loop. It would be interesting to hear the ideas in this track developed more but it does work as an album closer. This album is maybe not quite in the same league as Barry Adamson but it’s not far off.
La Jovenc on MySpace
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