I will never ever forget the first time I heard this album, and in particular, the effect it had on me.
Around 1999, I had a pen pal whom I'd found on a DIY tape trading website I frequented. For the benefit of any younger readers, it bears pointing out that the web of the mid to late 90s was a very different place to the web today. Back then, there was no social media of any kind, so any online correspondence with people was mostly limited to email or AIM and its many variants. When it came to music, there was no YouTube, Bandcamp or SoundCloud, so if you wanted other people to hear your music, you had to send a physical copy of that music to them in the post. Prior to the exchange, all people had to go on was a written description of what your music sounded like so your descriptions had to be compelling enough to attract attention.
Based on what this guy had written about his music, I wanted to hear it, so I got in touch, requesting a CD and sent him one of my own tapes in exchange. From that, we started writing to each other regularly and would swap music back on forth, be it music we liked or our own. It also helped that we had a shared interest not only in experimental music, but in video games (we also swapped copied PS1 games) and anime.
One late September evening, I returned from work to a package from my online friend which contained along with the usual letter, a CD-R from a band called 'Jack or Jive' whom I'd never heard of before. I put the CD straight into my stereo and hit 'Play', not having any idea what to expect. The album began with a pulsing, electronic darkwave beat and moody synths. Siren-esque vocals weaved like smoke patterns across the soundscape and the affecting chorus immediately struck something within my inner being, right in a place I didn't even know was there. I continued listening, and the way this music made me feel was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before.
Strangely, the music spoke to a part of me I don't recognise as the person I am now. It had a strange sense of familiarity I could not explain, and as whimsical or trite as this might sound, it was as though I was suddenly remembering the existence of a former self, a self that existed in a previous life. Yes, it sounds weird, maybe even laughable to you, but that is how the music made me feel.
The mood of Jack or Jive's music is definitely nocturnal, recalling moonlight, spirit entities and rituals. Vocalist Chako doesn't sing any recognisable language, choosing instead to form utterances from a personal tongue. To be reductive or lazy, one might describe Jack or Jive as a Japanese Cocteau Twins, but that doesn't even tell half the story. Other than the made up language and otherwordly atmosphere, they don't really have that much in common. Cocteau Twins' music feels much more structured compared to Jack or Jive's whose songs are more free-form, typically built up around a singular theme that loosely informs the flow of the music.
Jack or Jive's music for me seems to exist in a world that is both completely alien and entirely familiar. It is a world of darkness, the beautiful darkness of the selenophile. It speaks to a place within my very being where such darkness is sacred and necessary, not to be feared, but embraced. As you might expect, the mood is quite downbeat and sometimes melancholic, but as per an earlier entry, I often find myself drawn to such sounds and find them comforting.
I went on to find as much of their music as I could get my hands on (some of which came from my online friend) and pretty much have everything they've put out including the limited run 'Towards the Event Horizon' CD and the ISSIN box set.
I'm not in touch with my old pen pal anymore (we stopped writing each other around 2001) and he will never know the impact he made when he sent me that unassuming CD-R that September, but I am beyond grateful that he did.
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