Multimedia alumni celebrate release of first CD

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Junior-Boys.jpg” caption=”Junir Boys band members Jeremy Greenspan, on guitar and Matthew Didemus, on synths, perform at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto.”]Three years worth of writing, recording, blog-sphere guerilla promotion culminated, and the eventual foray into the world of live music culminated Wednesday, Sept. 10 with the North American release of Last Exit, an album by The Junior Boys, a duo comprised of McMaster alumni Jeremy Greenspan and Matthew Didemus.

The album, released in North America on Domino Records, had a highly successful European release through Kin Records, the one-man army label that launched both the Junior Boys career and its own through their thoroughly unique sound (Visit www.electrokin.com for the full story on the rise of the Junior Boys).

The North American release, however, marked both the end of the Boys' infancy and the beginning of the bigger things to come with the backing that a major label can provide. Not that that was any of their concern that night.

At the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, The Junior Boys came to play, with Greenspan handling vocals, Didemus on synths, and both mixing up guitar and bass duties. The smooth, polished melodies of the songs shone through. Greenspan's voice came through strong and clear over the textured layers of oscillating synth patches and guitars drenched in both analog and digital effects. All this backed by the schooled beats of kids who grew up on 90s club culture, alternating between hip-hop flavored thumping bass, shades of disco, and the sharp, syncopated rhythms of UK garage.

Greenspan has a charismatic, humourous stage presence that seems in contrast with the stereotypical electronic act of lone gunmen bunkered in behind racks of gear. At one point in the evening, he invited the audience forward to fill the large gap of space on the floor in front of the stage because he “was tired of looking at it,” to which the audience uniformly obliged.

To see the Junior Boys live is to watch the joyful DIY collaborations that take place in the enthusiast's bedroom studio hauled out onto a club-stage, allowing an audience to share in their obsessively diversified love of music.

The tracks that began as strictly sample and softsynth computer compositions (“Birthday” and “High Come Down,” the first singles from the album) have gracefully evolved for the live stage.
Listeners can hear how the live aspect gradually influences the direction that the second half the album has taken and continues to refine their newer material into the kind of stylized orchestral pop that will ultimately have an enormous impact on the style of independent music to come.

The references to 80's pop that are seeded within just about every review that has been written about them are all valid. As with just about every trend and fad in western pop culture, everything old becomes new again. What the Junior Boys share with other seminal synth pop acts is the same pioneering spirit for exploring the technological advancements that their times have to offer, in order to keep afloat of the rising tides of the music market. But given the massive critical acclaim the album has received, the Junior Boys seem to have something more.

It marks an epoch in the history of pop music when a Canadian album like Last Exit, which has garnered so much world attention, can be written and recorded outside of a traditional studio setup. The Junior Boys renew a hope that pop music, the kind that does not elicit groans of disgust, may still retain some signs of life outside of the glut of disposable acts that come-and-go with an ever-increasing rapidity.

But for now, the moment belongs to the Junior Boys and Last Exit, a homegrown labour of love that effortlessly ensnares its listener with the kind of songs that absent-mindedly find themselves being sung and whistled along to, a wonderful distraction from daily life without the guilty aftertaste.