Junior Boys: marginalia

My enthusiasm for the Canadian group has significantly increased. Accordingly, I thought I’d round up a few miscellaneous thoughts here

Graphic design

Strange one. I’m a bit puzzled by the design of their two album covers to date, they’re somewhat lacking in character/identity. Their debut seems to be reaching for some kind of Saville-esque typographic cool. Unfortunately, it falls short; in fact the design looks much better reproduced here than it does enclosed in the standard CD jewel case – perhaps on a 12″ cover it might look great. The design for the cover of So This Is Goodbye is similarly odd, with its combination of disc-like objects (CDs?) and leaves – combined with its autumnal colours it’s difficult to spy the significance. Pleasant, but no cigar. Perhaps that’s the key: as with the group’s music, it takes time to make sense.

Remixes

To date, Junior Boys have commissioned a number of remixes including ones by MFA, Morgan Geist and Manitoba. They’re all pretty forgettable – and that includes the fairly hard to get hold of Fennesz remix which, let’s say, doesn’t pull any white rabbits out of the hat. There’s more remixes on the way with an EP sporting versions by Hot Chip (of whom I’m also a big fan, fingers crossed, but not holding my breath), Kode9 (big fan, but Dubstep Junior Boys? hmmm I’m worried), Carl Craig (could be good), Marsen Jules and Tensnake (no idea). My advice? Stick to the originals.

Online presence

The group have a number of online presences: juniorboys.net (not kept up to date), myspace.com/juniorboys (cough, spit), juniorboys.imeem.com (video competition). Probably their most interesting endeavour is www.sothisisgoodbye.com, their site launched to support So This Is Goodbye. It’s hard to find – they don’t appear to have done their SEO homework – but well worth a look, being a place where visitors can leave farewell messages. The Flash implementation is a tad irritating, but it carries an unexpected emotional undertow that’s a pleasing echo of the group’s music.

Too much detail?

How about pictures of singer Jeremy Greenspan taken on his sister’s/friend’s/girlfriend’s Mac PhotoBooth?