Damien Jurat
Reggae movie star
Maraqopa Records
2022
A cinematic sweep of ropes opens Rogerthe first song Damien Juratthe eighteenth album of Reggae movie star. Screaming on movie strings is usually a lazy music conversation, but in this case, it has to be said. Reggae movie star is an album that owes much of its themed muscle to cinema. Here is a group of songs that exist between sleep and celluloid, songs whose images appear to be filtered by the gauze of nostalgia or subtly modified by the gaze of a silent audience. Vintage technology seems to be able to take advantage of the transmissions of another time: the old radio Rogerfor example, it becomes a kind of magical artifact capable of bringing hope or sadness.
Jurado has had a very good career treading the line between nostalgia and raw emotion. 2020s What’s new, Tomboy? it was a blurry collection of songs about sadness and longing. Reggae movie star it involves similar ideas but with a more cohesive structure. The poetic voice is maintained everywhere, references to film and television (especially in the American sitcom Alice) keep the piece together, and the result is an album that is in itself filmic. Meeting with Eddie Smith, which begins in a bleak surrealism and turns into a haunted mix, blurs the lines between reality and Hollywood fiction. Jurado’s tired delivery and washed acoustic guitar are the basis of his sound, but he is able to pick up the pace when the song requires it: Roger’s hearingfor example, it receives a strong percussion kick halfway.
And, as in the simple and complicated protagonist, What happened to the class of 65? – is brilliant when it comes to encapsulating the cautious hope that comes with missing someone. Here, as elsewhere, there is a kind of double exposure: real life superimposed on cinema. And like one bleed to another, you’re never sure which one is which. The effect is disturbing but very satisfying. Turned on Location, not revealed 1980the mystery crystallizes into something tangible, but still on the border between the imaginary world and the lived experience, as Jurado sings: ‘I would never live a life without you / I would never do not do another film’, a line that appears later in The pain of non-return. Literary theorists might see something postmodern in this technique, a constant play between diegetic and mimetic narration perhaps. But it is probably more useful to see it as a reflection of the narrator’s mental state, fractured by the rarity of the silver screen, repaired by love or human kindness.
This fractured mood is best observed in Robot Day, a song related almost exclusively to dialogue. We are never sure if the dialogue is professional or if it only exists in the mind of the narrator of the album. In the same way Ready for my close-up it begins with quiet, everyday details before fading away and back with a bunch of words that finally leads us in the unlikely direction of the eruption of Mount St. Helens.
Active musical diversity Reggae movie star it is even more surprising given the conceptual clarity of the album. There’s a rock sound from the ’70s: insistent drumming and bass-swallowing Recorded in front of a live studio audiencewhile What happened to Paul Sand it’s like a sadder Paul Simon. Lois Lambert it looks like a lost fragment of some existential composition by Jimmy Webb. A couple of songs are added with a surprisingly delicate piano. The final song, Gork meets the desert monster, is the most varied and complex. It splits in two, rather like the narrator, and slides into a restless, pregnant silence.
Reggae movie star it’s not an album that provides easy answers, but despite its cryptic nature, it never feels dense beyond interpretation, and that’s thanks to Jurado’s fascinating way of words. You feel that you are revealing a set of clues before your eyes that a new truth can be revealed at every moment. It is an addictive listening, full of faded beauty and illuminated by a distant hope.
Reggae Film Star premieres on June 24, 2022
Pre-booking through Bandcamp: https://damienjurado.bandcamp.com/album/reggae-film-star
