Junior Boys "So This Is Goodbye" (OUT NOW!)

[busyboy]

It's pretty late, but better than never, they're great!

Junior Boys' Goodbye Goes Deluxe
Includes bonus disc packed with remixes, iTunes session

So that wasn't goodbye, after all. Electro-pop heartthrobs Junior Boys, determined to linger a little while longer after the parting words, the valedictory hug, the awkward pause, the second valedictory hug, the half wave, the second awkward pause, etc., hope to milk their Goodbye well into 2007. Hence, So This Is Goodbye (Special Edition), a two-disc deluxe version of the Boys' 2006 masterstroke.

Special Edition arrives June 5 in the U.S. and June 11 overseas via Domino. It features, on disc one, the unadulterated whole of Pitchfork's 11th favorite album of last year. On disc two: a hearty sampling of Goodbye remixes from the likes of Hot Chip, Morgan Geist, Kode 9, and Carl Craig (several of which crop up on the recent Dead Horse EP), as well as Junior Boys' fabled January iTunes live session.

For your complete Junior Boys fix today, do check out the new video for "In the Morning", burning up pixels right now over in Forkcast.

The duo's massive spring trek wraps up this week, with a couple scattered dates thereafter.

So This Is Goodbye (Special Edition):

Disc 1:

01 Double Shadow
02 The Equalizer
03 First Time
04 Count Souvenirs
05 In the Morning
06 So This Is Goodbye
07 Like a Child
08 Caught in a Wave
09 When No One Cares
10 FM

Disc 2:

01 Like a Child (Carl Craig Remix)
02 In the Morning (Hot Chip Remix)
03 FM (Tensnake Remix)
04 The Equalizer (Morgan Geist Remix)
05 In the Morning (Alex Smoke Remix)
06 Double Shadow (Kode 9 Remix)
07 FM (Marsen Jules Remix)
08 The Equalizer (iTunes Session)
09 Under the Sun (iTunes Session)
10 FM (iTunes Session)
11 When No One Cares (iTunes Session)

So this is hello:

05-01 Denver, CO - Hi-Dive
05-02 Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room
05-03 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
05-10 New York, NY - Hiro Ballroom *
06-08 Toronto, Ontario - The Mod Club

* DJ set
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Metacritic entry
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MySpace

[busyboy]

Video for first single "In The Morning" and for "Like A Child".

[oscillations.]

I like them, too, but I never bought the album. I'll consider doing so if I see it around.

[busyboy]

I like electronic music but only up to a point, especially if purely instrumental. They have a more "human" feeling to their songs, if you get what I mean, which I really love.

[oscillations.]

I know what you mean exactly. I tend to buy electronic albums that still harbor some kind of pop structure (The Knife, Vitalic, LCD, etc). Someone like Eluvium I can really appreciate, but I won't necessarily buy. I almost feel guilty about it, but I have to make choices, and I buy the ones I know I will listen to, not just throw on the shelf to look cool.

[busyboy]

Ditto. When such albums work, as with Junior Boys and LCD, the result is absolutely brilliant.

[jaxxalude]

busyboy said:

It's pretty late

Boy, you can say that!

As for Junior Boys, they're the best pop band around right now, along with Hot Chip. So, in a way, I wouldn't really put them completely as an electronic act. It's true that they use electronic instrumentation as the basis for their sound. But it's obvious that their final goal is to make songs, in the classic sense of the word. They're pretty much a pop act, as far as I'm concerned.
And So This Is Goodbye was probably my biggest miss when I had to compile my Year End Best Of list. It should have made my Top 20, if not my Top 10. Why I forgot it is still down to mystery. Even to myself, I guess...

[jaxxalude]

Oh, and this special edition will only be worth buying because of the iTunes Sessions tracks. The remixes are already out via the Dead Horse EP.

[oscillations.]

I think it's okay for us to create belated threads, because let's face it, half the reason we bother to at all is to promote/expose the act, not report news.

Think about how much cooler this forum is now, though. A year ago, even something as major as the new Arctic Monkeys album might not have had a thread in this section, let alone one with 5 lovely pages.

For those of us in the Pulse Obscurist Society, it's been a tough, grueling job, replete with long, thankless hours & backbreaking work, not to mention the tumultuous strain on our sex lives, but all our toils have finally paid off. Why? Because now 10 more people might buy the new Patrick Wolf album or check out a Blonde Redhead tune. And I think we can all agree that's as rewarding as watching a young orphan smile.

[busyboy]

LMAO at the Pulse Obscurist Society, I really agree about the promotion we can give an artist. It's definitely worth it.

[busyboy]

Since the link is still working from last August, here's a legit mp3 of "In The Morning".

[busyboy]

allmusic.com review for the deluxe edition...

So This Is Goodbye involves no input and no apparent residual fingerprints from original member Johnny Dark. On their second album, Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus depart completely from 2-step and late-'90s Timbaland twitter, polishing their sound to such an extent that absolutely no detectable scuffs are left. Improbably enough, the thematic springboard for the album appears to be "When No One Cares," a Frank Sinatra cover that flickers and hisses like a malfunctioning neon sign. Greenspan, whose vocal ability has improved remarkably, puts a typically fragile spin on the Sammy Cahn/Jimmy Van Heusen composition, though you can picture him on the brink of cracking up at the thought of this insufferable, pitiful character -- this underscores a semi-subliminal undercurrent of self-deprecation that carries through most of the album. Fragments of lyrics from the song inspire "Count Souvenirs" and "Like a Child," two other cases where Greenspan croons as if he were leaning against a bank of synthesizers, tie undone and hair disheveled, on-stage at the Sands' Copa Room. (Rest assured, Taco this ain't.) Over half the album consists of slowly unfurling material that projects a cool sense of comfort, as if Chicago house pioneers Larry Heard and Frankie Knuckles were brought in to transform jubilant Italo-disco and foppish synth pop into downcast club tracks and creeping torch songs. The placid grace of the album is interrupted only by the crunchy snap of "In the Morning" -- the only song that breaks a sweat -- which makes like a non-album single plopped in the middle of the album for no good reason (à la those old CD issues of the XTC catalog that slapped the bonus tracks in the middle, rather than at the end). Otherwise, this is a make-out album destined to be played most often by loners who, for whatever reason (a crippling breakup, a fear of human contact, the snowman melted, etc.), are only able to commit the act in their minds. [The deluxe edition, released less than a year after the original version, adds a bonus disc containing seven remixes and a four-track live session for iTunes.]



by Andy Kellman