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With this release, Jumpel has succeeded in creating a decidedly cinematic mood over the course of the album’s thirteen tracks. Using the standard (for more minimal, electronic music, that is) mix of small rhythms comprised of mainly clicks and bleeps, Jumpel adds a much more organic layer of sound that helps free the record from the cold, detached feel shared by many minimal, electronic releases.

As I often feel with these kinds of records, the tracks that prove to be the strongest are the one’s that stray the furthest from the template of bleeps and clicks. Piano-driven tracks like “Interidium” and “Rainday” keep the small, digital rhythms as the background for a more organic piano/string sound that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Miyazaki soundtrack.

While the sounds do vary throughout, keeping the album from feeling like a stagnant re-hash from track to track, the sounds sometimes feel a bit too familiar. The album does benefit from a constant, if largely downbeat-sounding mood that any willing listener will happily be able to lose themselves inside. However, Jumpel’s shards of sound sometimes play like a retrospective of electronic music, specifically more minimal music, from the last ten years. With so many releases in this genre, new sounds are often as important as the songs themselves. And while Jumpel creates a fresh approach on fleshed-out tracks like “T-Ram” and “Cleo”, with it’s strings and bell sounds, much of the album sounds done before, both from the sounds to his approach to song construction.

At the end of the day, enthusiasts of minimal electronic music will find much to enjoy with Jumpel’s new album and it’s wide sound palate. Those looking for an entry point to the genre, though, might do best to start elsewhere.

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Reviewer: Will Joines Added: September 5th 2007