You Should Be Listening: Lemon Jelly
Jake Breeze takes us on a trip to the unknown with his first in a series of obscure music finds.
A small disclaimer before I share some of the music I’m going to share with you (hopefully) over the next few weeks. The word ‘hipster’ is thrown around far too sparingly these days. Hipsterism is an unhealthy development for music, as it’s come to represent tarring those who actively seek to play the contrarian, superiority-complex wanker; with those whose genuine love of scouring the musical sphere for undiscovered wonders, allowing for those obscure and unsung artists to continue doing what they do. In fairness, to even call some of the artists I’m going to be covering ‘obscure’ does them a disservice, but ‘artists I like that the general population haven’t seemed to stumble across in my general experience’ doesn’t really have the same ring to it. Anyway. Lemon Jelly.
Lemon Jelly are at their core, a trip-hop duo. However, trip-hop in itself is a pretty broad genre, so I’ll elaborate. What makes Lemon Jelly so interesting to me is the sheer flexibility of their sound, and how they’re proof that genre can be as loose a term as you wish it to be. For example, compare ‘The Staunton Lick’ to ‘Experiment No.6’. I’ll wait…
Now, what struck me (as I’m sure what struck you), is that Lemon have a knack for allowing their innovation to define them, rather than their ‘sound’. I mean who else is using sampled vinyl crackle as a beat? If those two tracks interested you, listen to all three albums (KY being my favourite), and you’ll see what I mean. It’s ambient trip-hop that isn’t really just ambient trip-hop: a truly unique cadre of music. Lemon Jelly prove time and again that electronic music can be fairly repetitive without becoming uninteresting to listen to, and I think more electronic artists could take note of how to make a progressive track that still remains catchy and .easy to listen to.
Go further down the rabbit hole and the duo become even more interesting. They’ve been on hiatus since 2008, after a career spanning 10 years. In fact, their original website is now owned by a fan who bought the domain a while back. Yet their legacy endures both in the trip-hop genre and in music production in general. I could rail for a fair few words on their artistic endeavours; as well as the fact that for artists who have headlined stages at multiple festivals, they fly/ flew very low under the radar. Either way, this isn’t an essay, just an introduction. If you like what you hear, check them out. And if you liked what you read, be sure to let us know, I’d like to make this a regular chat.
Ciao