ALBUM REVIEW: I – Jegong

As far as dystopian music goes, there’s a lot of bands and projects that can paint a picture of the dark future ahead. However, none feels so much like a soundtrack to the disintegrating world around us than JEGONG with their debut I. Inspired and born out of krautrock and 70’s ambient synth sounds, their heavy processing and psychedelic repetition forms a mesmerising ambient post rock that will draw you in.

Starting off, Sowing Dragons Teeth has an immediate effect with its murky synth melody. Like something from a numinous future, or pulled from the darker, psychedelic sci-fi ideas of the seventies. Humming repetition of thick tones, fractured pulsing and continuously swelling and compressing, this slow breathing ambient track is lush with texture and poises listeners in a mindset of deep layers and heavy thoughts. Sir Bell has a more mystical feel, a droning sitar style note drags up and down behind a stark and wooden percussion, a very organic sound under the weight of so much melancholy and meandering musing. Not as instantly captivating as the title track, there is a sense of dramatic horror to its slow drag and unwavering continuity.

One of the longer tracks on this record, Frames Of Reference sits on a drone of quiet feedback, and allows it to become an organic part of the general tone. The whole track shimmers and twists in inoffensive whisps across the soundscape like steam or fog, never keeping still enough for you to grasp but constant enough for you to be perpetually aware of them. If you give into the meditative state this album requires, you’ll be enveloped in a rising tide of static and tumbling loops, diverse melodies and beats interlocking and disappearing all at once, so compressed and well balanced you might not be aware of them gathering around you until well into the track. It’s wholly calming, but at nine minutes, it’s a sensual experience you have to commit to with a completely open and debatably blank mind.

Akashic gives the drums a go at taking the lead, to patter and swing, almost at random. A minute or so into the unusual drum patterns, the static fuzz rises and the darkly mystical sounds of the synth begin to cluster a melody out of the dense cloud of nothing. After the intro, the drums are almost none existent, and the world that’s built in Akashic is one totally alien to anything natural sounding. It’s a strange album for sure, as there’s so much expression without adhering to a lot of musical requirements. I is hard to pin down, and the juxtaposition of unfocused and the constantly repeating motions create something you can’t really explain.

Latest single Ghost City has a more thonking, rolling drum to accompany its downhearted, whale-song synth. It’s a trip into heavy experimentation; this is ambience that tunnels down into a despairing mindscape of dark images and dizzying sonic textures. While there are some very raw moments of emotion and beauty, this is a track that requires your imagination to play with the title to create something out of its abstract sound.

The Great Return Of An Escaped Spirit is much more serene and ethereal, with echoing drumming running off like a drip in a far off cave, over and over as a sort of calming drone lies somewhere in the beyond. It’s soothing and sparse, and while would be terribly dull at a show, for personal listening it’s delay tape warble and shining bittersweet shimmers are very pleasant.

Black Monk Lurking feels like a journey from our previous track into what for this record can be classed as upbeat. Keeping that whirr of continual sound, the divergent notes and noises are what bring this to life. Thuds, clanks, a crashing symbol, a lively tune rushes inside Black Monk Lurking like a current in a stream.

JEGONG really have mastered blending one track into another by this stage of I. Stable Off keeps an organic feel to its subdued, thudding rhythm, which feel more like feet marching under the weight of fatigue. You could feel a sense of something ancient and stoic here, like in bands like OSI AND THE JUPITER, but with a much more retro-modern instrumentation. It feels old and new at the same time; nostalgic for an antediluvian period of our existence while looking on with prescience to our dystopian end in the not so distant future. It’s stretched with widening drones and clean delayed notes that echo back and forth, with a message that only the listener can decipher.

Relying Relying Relying takes a slow funeral march and hollow, longing piano and crackling ambience makes this one of the more sparse songs on this album, but it’s haunting lack and low humming makes it feel like watching rain after a great tragedy or loss. Simple and beautiful, it’s the most post-modern sounding of the tracks on I. Faces of Earth takes us back into that nostalgic, heavy tape sounding synth, the stretch of each note and the breath of the almost 16-bit undertone gives a dreamlike state. By this point, you’ve either given yourself up to the expansive, cosmic sounds of I or it’s evaded your sensibilities. For those who can connect with this, will find a truly peaceful journey into something weighty and complicated, which might feel an odd way to describe something so ambient. If you can consider this as a piece of work to guide your imagination, however, there’s plenty to delve into and feel inspired by.

Hollow White Star is scattered with a wave of symbols, tastefully ebbing in and out of the foreground of the track, while tranquil idiophone sounds bounce beautifully and seemingly at random through the song. It’s akin to something from the work of Austin Wintory on the game Journey in all honesty, tapping into a sense of connection with the natural and spiritual through the music. Hollow White Star is the most natural sounding piece on this record by far, it shows how even with a continuity of sound, JEGONG can push the scope of their ideas and avoid becoming a one tone drone band.

As if things weren’t a bit weird already Spirit, The Horse really plays with dynamics a lot more than any previous track. It’s mysterious and a little dangerous sounding, like some alien laboratory where things are whirring and pulsing, a monotonous through-tone of a dull alarm. Then, suddenly, as if the experiment reaches a point of reaction, things overflow to life and a magical sprinkling and stretching looking to catch your attention.

JEGONG really enjoy the expansive, desolate feel to their music journeys, and People, A Donkey and 2 Souls is no exception. Wailing notes that feel like horn sound bellow out over a sand of crashes and a striking byzantine inflection to the melody drone feels fresh at this late stage. It’s still continuous and repetitive and might be tiresome at this point, but on its own has a flavour worth holding out for.

Our closing chapter Everything is Empty (Visible) brings us out of the earthly, and back into the future-sounds of our ethereal synth. Twinkling keys and unearthly whirring and fussing make for a bittersweet final song, both filled with hope and bright energy, and a little sense of loss and regret. It feels like the end of a journey, and considering the murky places this album began, this clear and clean ending is a tonic for the soul.

I is a big ask for one listen. With demands on your conscious and subconscious, JEGONG requires you expect nothing from this record, and just allow its synthy-ambience and the imagery of your own mind to be the driving force to your experience. This is will be a complete waste of time for some, an elongated artistic experiment that doesn’t tap into the traditional melodic places we want music to take us. However, if you can embrace this as a soundtrack to a story of your own making, a beautiful backdrop to a huge universe or dystopian reality, then you’ve stumbled upon something well worth the time. JEGONG have huge potential, and it will be fascinating to see what they can conjure in the future.

Rating: 7/10

I is out now via Pelagic Records.

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