Jet Jaguar

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Jet Jaguar is Michael Upton. Well, obviously Jet Jaguar was an Ultraman-esque humanoid robot-type in Godzilla versus Megalon, but in this case, Jet Jaguar is Michael Upton, New Zealand-based recording artiste and samplemeister. If I can nick a thought from Gil Gershman's review of JJ's labelmate and friend, Aspen aka Bevan Smith, this Involve stuff is very evocative of futuristic transportation systems - there's a momentum akin to those great monorails, skytrains, and moving walkways in modernistic sci-fi comics. What will it be like in the year 2000 indeed? It's kinda comforting to know that some of it sounds closer to those visions than our transport systems turned out. Again, other similarities between Jet Jaguar and Aspen work are clear: the great sweeping washes of sound over intricate, almost insectoid, rhythm patterns, and a strong sense of space to the music - real dynamics. Like Aspen, it's also beautifully constructed, with immense skill and precision. However, I don't want to overplay the similarities - they're actually quite different sounds and approaches. Most significantly, Jet Jaguar's takes a much funkier outlook, and is more immediate than Aspen's studied ambience. It really swings, lending a warmth common with much recent smart electronic music i.e. B. Fleischmann, Solvent, Isan, etc. There's a dubby feel to the drifting basslines, particularly on the track 'Errol', recalling Kit Clayton's latest, and of course, Pole. After researching via the excellent New Zealand-based Obscure site, it becomes clear where some of the rich instrumentation comes from too, as he's apparently experimented with Chinese mime and physical theatre, composing soundtracks for plays, sampling Balinese percussion orchestras and mixing it down with drum and bass. Sounds fantastic, and I'd love to hear it, but this is as close as we'll get for now. It's all constructed on Upton's sampler, with the exception of 'Cul-De-Sac' which was co-written by, and features the trumpet of, Toby Nairobi. As usual, with Involve, it's a well-designed package too. More quality stuff from New Zealand.