They say diamonds are formed under pressure, but for Georgia Ellery and Jamie Smith the reverse is true. Ellery (who along with Taylor Skye makes up the art pop duo Jockstrap) and Smith (better known as the producer Jamie xx) are housemates who have been self-isolating in London. During last Friday’s episode of BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, host Verity Sharp presented a 12-minute instrumental that the two musicians had performed together whilst living under lockdown.
Prior to playing the piece, Sharp aired Jopckstrap’s new single “Acid”, which sounds as if a ’40s vocal jazz number has been yanked a century forward, as well as a conversation between Ellery and Smith on the recording process of their untitled composition. “It’s been nice to be able to make music without too much pressure”, Smith said of the piece, “something that’s so long with so few instruments … rather than an over-thought, over-arranged thing”.
“When you’re usually working with … three, four minutes, you try and stuff everything in”, Ellery elaborated, “[but this] was different to anything I’ve ever made … more freeing than usual”. On the piece’s beginnings, Ellery said that she had recorded some strings “which were kind of reminiscent of Górecki and I thought it’d be interesting to hear them married to Jamie’s production” though to my ears, they sound more like Reich. Whatever the influence, it’s clear that the key ingredient to the pair’s creative endeavour comes from being shut off from the outside world, “the luxury of never-ending time” as Sharp calls it. Well, that’s at least one silver lining to this pandemic.
“Acid” is the latest single from Jockstrap off of their forthcoming EP. Wicked City, the duo’s first release on Warp Records, will be made available on Friday the 5th on both vinyl and as a digital release. Ellery has described the EP as a “breakup/breakdown record that presents how I dealt with losing what I had when I wrote Love Is the Key [to the City]”, Jockstrap’s previous release. Having remained (relatively) quiet in the five years since his debut In Colour, Smith revealed a new song in April titled “Idontknow”. The music video was shot in Belfast the night before the city went into lockdown, and uploaded onto YouTube on the 6th of May alongside a short poem by director Oona Doherty. Watch the video below:
