Junip: Rope and Summit EP

Junip: Rope and Summit EP

Junip is a band headed by Jose Gonzalez and sounds just about what you would expect a band headed by Jose Gonzalez to sound like. Which is to say Junip's new EP is essentially four Jose Gonzalez songs complimented quite nicely with drums and a rhodes piano.

Its a simple, repetitive record that bares its soul from the very beginning. The first three tracks glide with driving jazz rhythms that recall early Nick Drake and Gonzalez's voice does little to quell the comparison. The strongest track is probably the last: "Loops" slows the tempo down and gently meanders through textures of thick finger picking, drums, and vocal harmonies.

Its hard for Gonzalez to escape his one-hit-wonder-cover of The Knife's "Heartbeats". His original work has been rather underwhelming, to say the least. With Junip, however, Gonzalez's song-craft has found some life that was grossly lacking before. Its a pretty good listen (especially with a good set of headphones).

Junip :: Rope and a Summit

You can download the EP for FREE here for the price of an email.
Expect a full-length sometime this year.
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