Chewing Pine

Joshua Jug Band 5 – Joshua Jug Band 5/Damascus Doldrum (Gulcher Records, 2007)

If you own The Quinne Tapes of the Velvets and you’re familiar with any of their extended form improvisations, this entire disc from the mysterious and foreign JJB5 ostensibly use this touchstone as a point from which to create the seven tracks collected here. All of this has been previously released on CDr, either on Slippy Town or Ramadan. But, in furthering the comparison between these recordings and those ever so priceless Velvet’s tapes from the ‘60s, much the same can be said for both in terms of audio quality. JJB5 sound distant and fuzzy, and to be certain, that adds to their mystique. Being a vocal free offering (apart from the moaning on Track 6 and mumbling on Track 7) instills a modicum of haze regarding identity, which allows the listener to become completely lost in each excursion.

To decide upon a standout track seems to be reckless exertion, but obviously the longer the track, the better the opportunity to explore musical themes. Track 2 takes the final minute or so to jangle in a garagey repetitive way that other tracks do not. The warbling from Track 3 on what’s either a flute, keyboard or controlled distortion recalls ragas whilea lithe and trebly guitar pick a path through a melody. But again, in a way familiar to fans of John Cale’s sonic experiments with the Velvets, these noises are a welcomed tone lavished upon a listeners ears. The next underground sensation? Surely not. But JJB5 worked to push what listeners can palate. And push far they did. Oddly enough, Jakob Olausson, whose musical adventure this is, recently released a Sub Pop album entitled Moonlight Farm, which works more within a folk and blues idiom. Shifting themes or focus seems sensible considering the fact that one man can explore an idea only so much after that idea being initially culled forty years earlier.