Pitchfork
May 24, 2010
Link
6.3
The son of a composer father and a French-speaking Swiss mother, Jeremy Jay recently relocated from Los Angeles to London. On third K album Splash, though, the real move is from Jay's usual Land of Nod to somewhere near what used to be called Alternative Nation. This is an elegant place, as Jay envisions it, full of yearning and wonder, but at times it can also come to resemble an empty stage set.
Splash represents only the latest sonic evolution from one of the recent pop underground's more intriguing stylists. After sleepwalking through a cinematic cityscape soundtracked by buoyant 50s doowop and brittle 80s indie on 2008's A Place Where We Could Go, Jay added John Hughes synth romance and swaying winter-formal rhythms on last year's Slow Dance. With Splash, Jay's shift toward the sloppy guitars and meaty chord progressions from MTV's "120 Minutes" heyday is, at least on its surface, no less masterful. His voice remains adrift between the airiness of former tourmates Deerhunter's Bradford Cox and the hiccupy dramatics of Morrissey, while jangling or distorted guitar melodies bound forward with a new sense of purpose, occasionally replaced by piano or streaked with feedback. The drums gallop now, rather than canter; the rollicking title track is perhaps the most urgent song in Jay's small, confident catalog. "Walking down the street at night with your headphones," he whispers at the end of tantalizingly brief "Someday Somewhere", seeming to describe the ideal listening conditions.
However, the increased directness of Jay's latest approach also exposes how thin some of his songwriting ideas can be, resulting-- at a scant 27 minutes-- in what is paradoxically this often-ethereal artist's least substantial album. Although billed as less aloof than previous releases, Splash doesn't really offer any easier way in than its predecessors. Jay still cuts quickly between his typical vivid images, here of street-lit cities, evening BMX rides, and pouncing jaguars, but this time he's no longer in a world all his own, and the artists who've been here before left more memorable impressions. "I was there wishing on a star/ Knowing it probably won't go very far," Jay sings on the draggy "A Sliver of a Chance", for example. With a repetitive, note-bending guitar line that distinctly recalls Modest Mouse, finale "Why Is This Feeling So Strong?" opens up the most-- "It can't ever happen, can it?"-- but it's still basically more of the same, unlikely to win over many new converts. Jay sings at one point of an "elusive angel," and one hopes his next plunge is toward something just as angelic, only less elusive. With Splash, the water's fine; it's merely the flesh that's weak.
