In the background of Jai Paul’s website for‘Jasmine’ is a repeated and unexplained picture of a Mercedes Benz and a random dude smiling. Arranged in the headache-inducing style of Microsoft’s tile background option, it brings to mind a very bad graphics student’s attempt at a collage, or a teenager’s quickly thrown together Myspace page.
According to XL, Jai has a DIY ethic. Like
the band website that seems deliberately shit and brings to mind nostalgia for the
internet’s blocky early design era, Jai’s taste in an unwavering self-effacing
public image chimes with the fact that offsetting music against an incongruous
and shambolic aesthetic is distinguishing. This is especially when most around
you are trying to do crisp, clear and easy to comprehend.
Jai Paul is far from that though. He is an
iconoclast. ‘Taking a break’ or so it would seem after self-produced ‘BTSTU(Edit)’, he reclaimed the critical limelight with ease after five years out
with only track, and formerly only one track to his name. Now ladies and gents,
we have ‘Jasmine’. The song was on Pitchfork and other leading music blogs
almost immediately after it was posted to Soundcloud and was invariably
lavished with praise.
Despite being released by XL (Adele, The XX,
Willis Earl Beal), ‘Jasmine’ has the interesting qualification ‘(demo)’. To me
this is interesting because a demo
that’s brill, as opposed to a single
that’s brill, makes you think the ‘real thing’ will be even better. Except because
the ‘demo’ is actually the ‘real thing’ / the version that’s being released in
stores near you, this is clearly not a demo at all! ‘Demo’ both excuses ‘Jasmine’s
vague crackly production and smartly suggests that this clearly brilliant
record is not Jai in full flow, but half-formed, casual demo…ism. This might be the thinking anyway.
Also, when you hear ‘Jasmine’s cassette-like
muffling, you’ll swear you’ve ‘discovered’ Jai, even if you do notice it’s
already clocked 700,000 odd plays on Soundcloud. It has that demo quality; that
personal touch that ‘BTSTU (Edit)’ had. Where the latter went "Don’t fuck with
me, don’t fuck with me" in its disturbingly gentle opening, this pulses with a skittery
funk beat whose distant production sounds like it was recorded in a church
confessions booth.
Jai is enigmatic. At only 21 odd when XL
signed him, ‘BTSTU (Edit)’ was I believe his only available track online, which
makes you wonder what XL knew about him that we didn’t (or don’t), particularly
given that he seems to be a songwriter/producer first of all. Yet Stereogum have called him ‘possibly visionary’; in an interview with XL owner Richard Russell about XL's success, Russell said ‘Jai is a wizard.’ The BBC even cast him in their Sound of 2011 poll for 2011's most promising artist or band, such was the furore surrounding Jai’s exceptionally good but small output.
That year, RockFeedback’s feature on Jai (complete with his provisional driving
licence photo) just concluded “There’s not much we can do with Jai Paul nowapart from to carrying on listening to the pop genius of ‘BTSTU.” That’s then.
The story of Jai Paul is certainly
intriguing so far. Whatever happens next though, ‘Jasmine’, I’m sure you’ll
agree, is indeed superb, worthy of the praise lavished upon it. If ‘BTSTU
(Edit)’ struck music’s beating heart once, ‘Jasmine’ can do so again.
Pre-order 'Jasmine' on limited vinyl here.
Pre-order 'Jasmine' on limited vinyl here.
