Group du Jour's Oval is one of those tricky albums to genre pigeon-hole, making it more difficult to assist fans who may be deciding how to spend their cash. This Oregon band have been reviewed three times before on Sea of Tranquility achieving ratings of only two-and-a-half stars for Waiting for the Sky to Fall and three-and-a-half stars for Terra Incognita and the "best of" compilation Listening in...To the Past 25 Years. Not a sterling performance by SoT standards...well, Oval's rating from me tops the lot of'em! I've not heard the other albums so can't begin to compare – though I have enjoyed this one sufficiently to persuade me to investigate more of their music.
Looking back over some of the previous reviews (and Terra Incognita was a round-table where it was also ranked at two-and-a-half stars) one sees that the band has been called "techno-ethnic" – whatever that means – and that reviewers have sensed some "sameness" in the sound: perhaps, but aren't most bands guilty of the same...I won't say fault, because if you happen to like that sound then that facet is seen as a good thing....aspect of their music?
So...let's leave comparisons aside and concentrate on Oval, which is a fine album.
To give you some idea of Group du Jour's musical soundscape, it will help if we list the instruments that they play: there are the "conventional" rock instruments of electric guitar and acoustic guitar, but that's it; very little else is "conventional; we have fretless bass and lap steel guitar (ok, nearly "conventional"); we have synths and piano; we have "samples, loops & sequences" and something called a "M-Audio Black Box" (I don't know what that is); we have harmonica; and, finally, we have a series of percussion instruments that create a hypnotic musical world that is characteristic of nearly the whole of Oval - gongs, xylimbas, tongue drum and marimba. The way these percussive instruments are played, by Bo Parker, often creates a mantric web to hold the listener in thrall, whilst other instruments – for instance the flutes or the electric guitar – paint bright musical colours. Unarticulated voice is occasionally also used as a "colouring" instrument but, more often, there is normal singing (there are lyrics to most of these, rightly called, "songs"). The overall "feel" is almost ethereal and I would perhaps categorise this as a form of "ambient": ambient-pop, perhaps.
More on this: Group du Jour's discs are released on what seems to be their own label, "New Weave Records". The clue is in the title – "weave" being the operative word, that is certainly what this music does, it weaves magical musical pictures. The label's description of their rationale from their website is also highly informative: "...artists whose styles range from eclectic pop, folk and traditional musics to ambient and world beat influenced original and electronic musics". Group du Jour are a trio that have been around for many years: as well as Bo Paker they are comprised by Paul Parker and Daniel Crommie.
The title track, "Oval", is clearly the major opus of the album. Its 22+ minutes are subdivided into four clearly musically demarcated sections: sweeping synths and flute predominate during "Shifting Sand"; "Vox Etherea" has the mantric rhythm building in intensity through the section, until they subside completely for "Eyes of the City", the third phase, which features chanting oscillating between the speakers for a pleasant effect before some vocoderised singing comes into the mix; the last phase, "3 Guesses", builds up the intensity again, some meaty electric guitar and flute runs painting a picture over a mantric backdrop. It's a good composition, fully justifying its length. Elsewhere, there are other highlights: the flute and the percussive instrument rhythms are always enjoyable; "The Voices" is as close to pop as you could get with its symphonic synth and romantic vocal; "Number Factory" is the folkiest number (and is also featured as a QuickTime video when you insert the CD into your computer – which shows the band for being the fun-loving, whacky loopies that a lot of folkies are!; sould be fun to see them play live!) ; the lap steel guitar adds an almost country flavour to "The Players". It's all very pleasant and reminded me of some music by Phil Manzanera's 801 (although I can't say why, maybe it's the Brian Eno connection, the band cite him as an influence), as well as the eclecticism form last year's album by CCA (Cider, Cushma, Alexander).
If you enjoy eclectic ambient music, then it may be worth giving this a spin, although bear in mind that the mantric nature of much of it means you need to allow some time to immerse yourself in its web.
Track Listing:-
1) Don't Speak (4:54)
2) Darker Than Night (5:04)
3) Art of Evil (4:12)
4) The Voices (2:45)
5) Number Factory (3:22)
6) The Players (dramatic personae) (6:39)
7) Oval (22:39)
8) On a Sea of Lost Vessels (9:10)
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