Ultraflex
Work Out Tonight / Secret Lover

EM Records: ...Here's a tasty treat for all fans of DIY pop music: a multinational confection, the perfect blend of sweet and smart. Based around the core members Matt Jones, originally from Western Massachusetts, and Busan native Jee Eun Lim, who met in Korea in 2011, The Jee Jee Band fuses simple pop structures, airy instrumentation and breathy vocals with clever lyrics, in both Korean and English, often of a satirical or political nature. Currently based in Northern California, the band quietly celebrates Korean culture while also evidencing a cosmopolitan classic pop sensibility, blending K-Pop and other Asian pop elements with a classic and yet contemporary US/UK pop feel. The songs on "Glass Fish", all very fresh-sounding, feature performers from South Korea, America, and, on one song, the Khmer-language vocals of Cambodian filmmaker Vanntey Morn. Jones' Western Massachusetts pop roots allowed him to enlist the skills of former members of Sunburned, Sebadoh and others to help record this charming and refreshing release, sure to appeal to fans of the K Label, DIY sounds, and pure pop.

boomkat: ...Sterling first volley from Bristol’s Young Echo Records, featuring Sam Kidel (Killing Sound) and Amos Childs (Jabu) backing Rider Shafique’s incisive, intimate reflections on I-Dentity in modern Britain.Perhaps best received as a clear response to the divisive, race-baiting politics our times, in both parts Shafique presents an ice-cool yet impassioned dissection of the state of playlucidly channelling his thoughts in a rooted, low-key style that resonates with the delivery and impetus of classic dub poetry from Linton Kwesi Johnson and Mutubaruka.However, this being the first release from one of the UK’s most conscientious, variegated and distinctive outfits, don’t expect them to play to convention. This is most apparent in I-Dentity, where Shafique’s ennui and haunted ontological observations intersects Sam Kidel’s miasma of coruscating strings and insectoid inflection, creating a weightless, pensile and abstract space where Shafique ruminations on the stubborn hangovers of the colonial mindset and the semantics of its redundant taxonomies resonate in a wholly unique manner, similar to the way Kidel’s juxtaposed materials in his amazing Disruptive Muzak LP for The Death of Rave.For a smart contrast, in the flip side’s Freedom Cry, Shafique spells out a more positive, stately message, hailing the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement against Jabu’s unfathomable, melting backdrop of slow, celestial jazz swoon, with the lyricist holding tight to his message at the centre of it all. If we’re totally honest, on previous records Shafique’s delivery has seemed slightly over earnest or, conversely, even too droll to us. But here it makes complete, affective sense.Highly recommended!