In the world of '80s sci-fi movies, misguided attempts were often made to imagine what music might sound like a century or two in the future. Generally, the results tended to end up somewhere around a slightly atonal Thomas Dolby. On their 2022 debut album, I Love You Jennifer B, UK duo Jockstrap cracked that decades-old puzzle, making an album that imagined, post-apocalypse, that the only faint memories of Western music culture remaining were partially melted Skrillex remixes and half of Joanna Newsom's discography.
I Love You Jennifer B impressed with its alien flavour combinations and unpredictable detours, and I<3UQTINVU — that's "I love you cutie, I envy you," Jockstrap producer Taylor Skye's scrambled reimagining of the album — reconstructs its predecessor's elements with a post-whatever, anything-goes ethos; In Skye's spaghetti-at-the-wall approach to music making, everything and anything can be turned into a beat.
The album is re-billed on Jockstrap's Bandcamp page as being by Jockstrap & Taylor Skye, with songwriter Georgia Ellery's presence largely reduced to a vocal confetti sprinkled amid the rest of the samples and guest appearances. In a recent pre-release interview with Document Journal, Skye described the project as "a bit like trying out loads of new haircuts, and not caring how you look" — that approach holds true on an album that prizes spontaneity and stimulation over traditional song structure or preciousness with past material.
The first half of Skye's experiment is the most cohesive, kicking things off with "Sexy," a kind of '90s-club pastiche of dance floor-ready beats that you might expect from the Prodigy at their most weed-calmed. "All Roads Lead to London" follows with an uncomfortable marriage of producer Ersatz's hype tributes to urban riches and ascendant hip hop wonder Coby Sey's poetic verses about being down and out among the up and coming. "Good Girl" turns "Jennifer B" into a vaguely menacing though fairly straightforward 4/4 stomp, while "I Touch" is a remix of "Glasgow" that ramps up the bpm and lacquers the strings in a digital sheen, turning pastoral longing into neon dreams.
The latter half of I<3UQTINVU is more chaotic and dislocated, starting with the broken trance of "Pain is Real," a stop/start anthem that sounds like the sonar from a sinking psychedelic submarine. "Red Eye" is an ADHD nightmare featuring rapper Ian Starr, blaring over a manic blender drink of jungle and dubstep. Australian enfant terrible Kirin J. Callinan guests on the obsessive "I Noticed You," equal parts mid-tempo rave track and sweaty diary entry. The album bows out on the palate-cleansing, acoustic "Sexy 2," wherein a flesh and blood Ellery pops up from behind the stack of samplers.
Taken as a bit of a lark, Skye's I<3UQTINVU exists as a bag of mostly disposable — but exciting! — what ifs. Without the grounded warmth of Ellery's songwriting, the album has the perhaps unintended effect of sending us back to the originals to appreciate the duo's more controlled creative alchemy. A wacky new cut and dye is always fun, but the thrill of novelty never lasts.
(Rough Trade)I Love You Jennifer B impressed with its alien flavour combinations and unpredictable detours, and I<3UQTINVU — that's "I love you cutie, I envy you," Jockstrap producer Taylor Skye's scrambled reimagining of the album — reconstructs its predecessor's elements with a post-whatever, anything-goes ethos; In Skye's spaghetti-at-the-wall approach to music making, everything and anything can be turned into a beat.
The album is re-billed on Jockstrap's Bandcamp page as being by Jockstrap & Taylor Skye, with songwriter Georgia Ellery's presence largely reduced to a vocal confetti sprinkled amid the rest of the samples and guest appearances. In a recent pre-release interview with Document Journal, Skye described the project as "a bit like trying out loads of new haircuts, and not caring how you look" — that approach holds true on an album that prizes spontaneity and stimulation over traditional song structure or preciousness with past material.
The first half of Skye's experiment is the most cohesive, kicking things off with "Sexy," a kind of '90s-club pastiche of dance floor-ready beats that you might expect from the Prodigy at their most weed-calmed. "All Roads Lead to London" follows with an uncomfortable marriage of producer Ersatz's hype tributes to urban riches and ascendant hip hop wonder Coby Sey's poetic verses about being down and out among the up and coming. "Good Girl" turns "Jennifer B" into a vaguely menacing though fairly straightforward 4/4 stomp, while "I Touch" is a remix of "Glasgow" that ramps up the bpm and lacquers the strings in a digital sheen, turning pastoral longing into neon dreams.
The latter half of I<3UQTINVU is more chaotic and dislocated, starting with the broken trance of "Pain is Real," a stop/start anthem that sounds like the sonar from a sinking psychedelic submarine. "Red Eye" is an ADHD nightmare featuring rapper Ian Starr, blaring over a manic blender drink of jungle and dubstep. Australian enfant terrible Kirin J. Callinan guests on the obsessive "I Noticed You," equal parts mid-tempo rave track and sweaty diary entry. The album bows out on the palate-cleansing, acoustic "Sexy 2," wherein a flesh and blood Ellery pops up from behind the stack of samplers.
Taken as a bit of a lark, Skye's I<3UQTINVU exists as a bag of mostly disposable — but exciting! — what ifs. Without the grounded warmth of Ellery's songwriting, the album has the perhaps unintended effect of sending us back to the originals to appreciate the duo's more controlled creative alchemy. A wacky new cut and dye is always fun, but the thrill of novelty never lasts.
