Review Summary: Come into my World of Dub, Rock, Trance and Tribal rhythms.
JMPZ is one of those bands whose sound is very hard to describe or to put in a single category. Hailing from France (Macon), they use a mixture of DUB, Rock and tribal rhythms to create their soundscapes. They are mostly part of a genre that is called Natural Trance, meaning the genre takes the energy of Trance but does it with instruments such as drums, bass and didjeridoos. To this day, JMPZ has released three full length albums and one DVD of their live performances during their last tour in 2012.
“Refuse to Lose”
Subsonic starts with Tooloose, a song that describes pretty well the idea of this band. Using samples for the vocals, we are thrown into the dub World with riffs from the two bass guitars and backed by the didgeridoo. The Rock riffs are more in the background and used to complete this atmosphere. JMPZ will oscillate between their DUB and Metal roots during the entire album. No Bounce is definitely closer to a Rock song than Tooloose with vocalization from the didgeridoo instead of playing with the harmonics. Their tribal influence comes clearly on Steeldrum Network which is a mix of percussions and Didgeridoo. Freak Style on the other hand is a clear demonstration of metal and electronics. Starting with a drum machine, the song evolves into a headbanging riffs from the bass guitars. In fact, this is probably their most intense song on the album. Highlights from this album are easy to choose, Dub Profiler with the didgeridoo perfoming the skank (usually this is done with a keyboard) and Ezeltone where the mix of Rock and Dub is done perfectly. In fact, Ezeltone is one of the few songs that has lyrics.
Apart from their outstanding mixture of genres, JMPZ is also full of very talented members. The drums performed by Seb Rambaud are very technical and flowing perfectly with the song structures. Bass lines are definitely one of the key factor of this band, and they don’t let you down. Performed by Ben and Juju we are gifted with melodic and tapping lines. Another notable performance is Rudy’s Didgeridoo on Ground Zero.
JMPZ is an UFO in this World. I have never heard any other band that sounded like them and were able to mix Natural Trance, DUB and Rock like they do on Tympan Alley or Walking On Our Head. The band ended in 2012 with a huge tour where everyone who played in the band had spot, with shows lasting for more than two hours. Rudy went on to create Adele and Zalem, a didgeridoo duo.
