Send "Junip " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 If José González hadn't come along, the global advertising industry would have invented him. A Swede of Argentine extraction with an affinity for African rhythms, González initially drew worldwide-- or at least World Wide Web-- attention when his acoustic Knife cover turned up on a San Francisco-shot commercial for a Japanese high-def TV. The clip demanded a soundtrack with warmth and genuine feeling, but also a kind of cultural open-endedness, and González's wave-lapping "Heartbeats" fit the bill so well it's hard now to imagine other options ever existed. As one of the Bravia ad's producers prosaically put it, the song "makes you feel nice."Feeble as that "nice" endorsement rings, it's a pretty accurate description of what González's reedy voice and nylon-stringed guitar do-- both on the two albums under his own name and as part of Gothenburg-based band Junip. I'll toss another faint-praiseworthy- sounding adjective into the ring-- easy. Easy-sounding and easy to like are what Junip are all about on Fields, their first full-length record since González teamed up with keyboardist Tobias Winterkorn and drummer Elias Araya almost a decade ago. The trio put out one EP in 2006, but the project seemed stalled as a sideline to González's flourishing solo career until Junip nonchalantly dropped the surprisingly mature Rope and Summit EP this June. Fields makes good on R&S's promise with 10 new tracks (plus a reprise of "Rope and Summit") that casually assert there's more than one way to do chillwave-- and it involves psychedelic-space effects ("In Every Direction", "Without You", "Tide"), bossa nova sway ("Always"), economical song structures (pretty much all of them), and high-fidelity recording (ditto). Indeed, Fields is exactly the album you'd expect these guys to make. González's smooth synthesis of classical guitar playing, English folk traditions, and pan-African rhythms have long made clear that he values quality and consistency over risk and innovation and doesn't much care for trends or scenes. And while Junip clearly says "rock" and "band," they perform the same values with brisk professionalism....full text |
| Popmatters |
| If you were expecting a new direction from Jose Gonzalez when he reformed his band Junip, then you’re not only in for a disappointment, but you have lofty expectations. Gonzalez’s sound alone is richly resonant and intimate, and in Junip with drummer Elias Araya and organist Tobias Winterkorn, the trio doesn’t set out to blow up that sound, but rather to expand and build upon it in subtly new ways. The results on their first full-length, Fields, reinforce yet again the depth and reach of Gonzalez’s sound while setting it in a new, rumbling context. If there’s one thing this record brings forth, it is the propulsive nature of Gonzalez’s nylon-stringed guitar. Alone it seethes and growls, but coupled with drums and haunting organ, Gonzalez’s complex phrasings push forward at every moment, which keeps Fields—an ultimately subdued, hushed record—from ever feeling bogged down or faint. Much of the credit for this goes to Elias Araya, whose drumming here uses Spartan elements to intricate effect. You’ll never hear him crash cymbals to announce his presence, but on tracks like “In Every Direction” or the slightly funky “Sweet & Bitter”, Araya churns along on a dusty groove. On the more direct number “Howl”, he clacks and clangs along with the song, leaving any heft up to the interplay of Gonzalez’s guitar and Winterkorn’s keys, while on “Off Point” he sets a spare but pulsing beat, giving the track a sort of Krautrock insistence. For his part, Winterkorn, is here to fill in the small bit of space left in the wake of Gonzalez’s strings, and he matches the guitarist blow for atmospheric blow. Closer “Tide”, which starts quietly with Gonzalez virtually alone, works into a cascading finale that finds the Moog swelling and buzzing along with the guitar in a surprising wall of noise after such a controlled record. The best moments of the record work this way—Araya sets the sturdy pace, and Winterkorn either lengthens Gonzalez’s considerable shadow with his droning notes, or cuts it with small swaths of light....full text |
| Nme |
| Ire-fugged memories of ’ mawkish take on The Knife’s peerless ‘Heartbeats’ meant that clawing our mind open for the return of his pre-fame band Junip is a thorny task – but there’s a lost-in-the-pines dark undercurrent to the Swedes’ gentle psych-folk that makes it hard to hate. The listlessness that once made Gonzalez’ voice so infuriating gives the likes of ‘Rope & Summit’ a faintly disturbing feel beneath The Radio Dept. fuzz and twinkles. That surprising lack of offensiveness, though, isn’t replaced with anything to particularly excite, leaving it a tasteful aural curtain of an album without much of a view beyond. Emily Mackay...full text |
Junip lyrics
|
| ||||||||||
