The Pitchfork staffer originally assigned to write a review of Lemon Jelly's EP collection determined that he was too cool for the job. And I have to agree. The guy gets sent demo recordings from Icelandic bands seeking his guidance/approval on material for their forthcoming albums. Rumor has it that Stephen Frears consulted him about what vinyl should be prominently displayed during High Fidelity. He's too cool to even wear vintage RayBan Aviator shades! Suffice to say, he's too good for this.
So Lemonjelly.ky was passed to me-- apparently because my cool-to-nerd ratio needs major improving. Though I haven't yet got what it takes to carry off designer stay-press suits, I feel comfortable in my facsimile RayBan Aviators. But even I'm too cool for the lurid banality of this record.
This compilation of three EPs' worth of downtempo ditties aims for the same market that scarfed up The Beta Band's Three EPs disc, but the similarities swiftly end there. The packaging is lush, deluxe and probably shortlisted for a graphic design award, yet Lemonjelly.ky's nine tracks consist largely of samples from atrocious Nana Mouskouri songs and soundclips nipped from 100 Strings' mood music albums. What binds these samples together is a series of predicable hip-hop beats and root-note basslines. In the UK, Lemon Jelly are probably pin-ups for a certain type of elitist freshman who considers himself ever-so superior for conspicuously enjoying this stuff.
By arranging Lemonjelly.ky in chronological order, we can at least appreciate that by July 2000's The Midnight EP, it had at last occurred to the duo of Fred Deakin and Nick Franglin that splicing Bert Kaempfert with drum machine presets wasn't going to get them the St. Tropez mansion they'd been promising themselves since The Bath EP was released in August 1998. I get all mangled up inside about Lemonjelly.ky as a whole, but it's The Bath EP that gets me frayed. "Nervous Tension" samples a relaxation tape monologue which, unironically, has the opposite effect on my well-being. The only person who might be truly thrilled with "A Tune for Jack" is Jack himself-- the rest of us can live without hearing Johnny Pearson's Sounds Orchestral version of "Wichita Lineman" mixed with the hypothetical beats of the Captain & Tennille's deck-shoe shuffling version of Young MC's "Bust a Move".
"The Stauton Lick" heads back into instructional tape land for a lesson in basic folk guitar techniques, and ends up sounding like a 14-year old imagining Fairport Convention covering New Order's "All the Way". "His Majesty King Raam" is the sick fantasy of two thirty-something Brits-- a kindergarten tale broadcast on the BBC's Jackanory program enhanced with Henry Mancini's "Days of Wine and Roses".
After these trite and scoffing appropriations of bad taste, the Midnight EP seriously engages. Here, Lemon Jelly have gotten beyond novelty value and begin to layer elements, and to distill some palpable beauty from their thrift store sources. Thus, "Kneel Before Your God" threads folk guitar lines with delicate turntablism and seraphic synth lines; "Page One" is skittering, piano-driven, and club-ready. And the guys display hitherto unexpected restraint during "Come", in which they refrain from lubricated smut in favor of a sparse, harmonica-led treat. It's almost as though the schoolboy graphic design team within the duo has been partially defeated by their adult musician personas. But the rout is merely an incipient one; this more mature Lemon Jelly is far from being a confirmed victory for subtle moderation.
Because the three tracks that comprise the Midnight EP rely far less on snickering, snobby kitsch, we can hope that Lemon Jelly will eschew juvenile mockery and perfect their technique. Only then will Deakin and Franglin overcome the tossed-off vapidity of Lemonjelly.ky and take their place with chill-out's recent masters. Of course, if the band choose to further investigate bad taste, they'd better consult WFMU's outsider music expert Irwin Chusid, and study Stock, Hausen & Walkman's considerably cooler Organ Transplants series.
