Eclectic Canadian electronica/rock act Junior Boys is eyeing an early 2006 release for its second album via KIN/Domino. The set will be the follow-up to last year’s acclaimed “Last Exit” and will be the first taste of new music from the group since its remix of Billie Holiday’s “Yesterday” from the recent “Verve Remixed 3” album.
“There are some new attitudes about the new material,” group member Jeremy Greenspan tells Billboard.com. “We’re trying to strip things down a bit. I’m trying to shed any part of our sound that is too highly edited, as I think that approach will become dated quickly.”
“Last Exit” was an exercise in what Greenspan calls “cold disco.” Combining programmed beats, soul, R&B (“I’m positively obsessed with R&B,” Greenspan says) and garage, the Junior Boys built sensual, tense tracks with chilling simplicity.
As they work on the new album, Greenspan says he and colleague Matt Didemus are gleaning inspiration from “a bizarre combination of Italo-disco, new wave (as usual, but with a heavier influence of Simple Minds, Magazine, Ultravox and others that we love) and strangely, the pervasive influence of classic Tin Pan Alley/Gershwin-esque songwriting. [It] sounds bad, but its definitely coalescing into something new.”
Fresh off of a long tour with Caribou and the Russian Futurists, plus select dates with labelmate Four Tet, Junior Boys are now in Europe for a handful of festival shows, beginning tonight (July 14) in Amsterdam.
“There’s a positive from all this traveling,” he says. “I hated traveling — I’d get homesick. I was surprised places felt as different as they did. But some of the best music we’ve made has stemmed from the people I’ve met and the friends we’ve made. We’re inspired.”
As previously reported, Junior Boys have also been tapped to participate in a remix album for Canadian comrades Stars, due next year via Arts & Crafts.
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