jj: "Let Go"

I didn’t much like jj’s debut LP, or at least that’s what I kept telling myself, but the truth is that I listened to jj n° 2 more than almost any other 2009 album—rolling my eyes at times, cringing at others, but still listening intently. The sound was magnetic even if the songs weren’t.

The lead single from the group’s new record, jj n° 3, is more of the same. “Let Go” begins with a Once Upon a Time in the West-brand harmonica lick that reaches a moment of indecision: could this be the low-key lead-in to an upbeat dance track or perhaps the basis for a moody, spare variation on a theme? jj splits the difference with some of the smarmiest Enya-ripoff production yet from a group that has made its name on Enya-ripoff production. Crudely composed acoustic guitar and vocal lines float on top of cloying, parallel-octave plucked strings and drums that make Vampire Weekend and Fela Kuti entities worth comparing. The lyrics are plain stupid, all “Take me away like I overdosed on heroin” and “I’ll never be alone again, ‘cause I got a friend” (on the album proper these come on the heels of shout-outs to “Around the World” and “My Heart Will Go On”).

But there’s something about the sound that makes all negativity float away harmlessly into the adult contemporary ether. However amateurish the component parts might be, they’re pieced together in a way that approaches grandiosity while keeping an undercurrent of seductive simplicity. Despite how-ever-the-fuck-many Balearic space disco glo-fi dreambeat chillwave competitors, jj’s music is instantly recognizable. “Call me today on the phone / the sun guided me home”; sure, whatever. This is manufactured guilelessness at its most manipulative—I’ll be back for more.