{"product_id":"connan-mockasin-jassbusters-two-184923128819","title":"Connan Mockasin - Jassbusters Two - Black Vinyl","description":"\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\n\u003carticle class=\"article-decorated\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLimited to 500\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAs a solitary janitor buffs the floor of a tired high school building, a furtively jazzy bassline slips under a door and down the hallway. It’s after hours in the teachers’ lounge; perhaps someone’s smoked a little confiscated weed. The leather-blazered and bemulletted faculty members of Connan Mockasin’s upside-down music department adjust their sock garters and try their strings, as Jassbusters, the most tangible band of imagined music teachers the world has never seen, prepares itself for a second stab at after-school stardom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePulled from the same fictive universe as 2018’s\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJassbusters\u003c\/em\u003e, the shrewdly named\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJassbusters Two\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emakes a languid counterpart to its predecessor – both albums were recorded by the aforementioned fictional band of schoolteachers from the as yet mostly unseen daytime TV miniseries\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBost’n ‘n Dobs’n\u003c\/em\u003e, conceived, directed by, and starring Mockasin himself, and possibly coming to a late night cinema near you.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn the mists of 2016,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJassbusters\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ehad found its feet in Paris, and\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJassbusters Two\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ematerialised only shortly thereafter in 2017, three-and-a-half-thousand miles across the Atlantic. “\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJassbusters\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewas the first record I’d done as a band,” Connan reflects. “I really enjoyed it, and wanted to make more music while we were still in character as this group of music teachers.” At Gary’s Electric Studio in Brooklyn, New York, Mockasin, along with Jassbusters’ real-life counterparts (Nicholas Harsant on bass, Matthew Eccles on drums, and Rory McCarthy, aka Infinite Bisous, on rhythm guitar), freestyled across long live takes, weaving under, over, and straight through each other’s blurry riffs. “I was playing the role of the guitar teacher in the band, who was pushed into being the singer who didn’t have lyrics. So, like the first Jassbusters record, the lyrics were improvised, blurted out.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWhile the band let loose with\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJassbusters\u003c\/em\u003e, its follow-up is so laid back as to be horizontal. Vocal improvisations — sometimes eerie, sometimes crooney, and often more shapeshifting, otherworldly sounds than definable words — slosh around Mockasin’s signature bent-over-backwards guitar arrangements. All here is smooth and unencumbered, viscous as a palmful of mercury. Opening track ‘Jass Two’, at first ghoulish and oversaturated, later sits back into its own mellow groove. The effortless flourishes of ‘K is for Klassical’ honour classical modes of play, Spanish-guitar-styled one second, and lutelike the next — though always with a maverick Mockasinian twist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eKlassical sentiment overhangs into lead track ‘Flipping Poles’, a perfect spokesperson for the multitudes contained within\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJassbusters Two\u003c\/em\u003e’s whole; rules by turns strictly adhered to and determinedly defied; here, as elsewhere, genres seeping into one another gooily: playful stringwork meets school-noise nostalgia meets science fiction sound effect.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e‘In Tune’ and ‘Maori Honey’ see the jassers swap leather for polycotton frills at a perfect pastiche prom; first a low-key, loungey wig-out, then later a punch-drunk slow-dance number. As ‘She’s My Lady’ plays, the band wordlessly watch the sun come up on the parking lot — and yet another day of coffee-stained carpet and red pen — and ‘Shaved Buckley’ brings things to a close in a subtly forlorn fashion; a lament, perhaps, for the passing of youth and its unhampered throes, and a reminder of the clock that ticks inevitably towards middle-age.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWith its bending of genre, a tinge of sensuality, and just enough wonk,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJassbusters Two\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eperfectly follows both\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJassbusters\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eand the wider Connan Mockasin canon, the artist’s playfulness, surreal characterisation, and improvisational knack melted down and spread into new directions; chopped, churned, and smoothed with a jazzer’s intuition, a country fingerpicker’s dexterity, and a funkster’s flow. Be you listener, player, or faculty member of the mind, this latest Mockasin master work invites you to forget the grind, just for a bit, and settle into the syrupy, boundless world of Jass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/article\u003e","brand":"Mexican Summer","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47589446254893,"sku":"184923128819","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0846\/5802\/8845\/files\/ReleaseProduct-246533-147254.jpg?v=1700161239","url":"https:\/\/mexicansummer.myshopify.com\/products\/connan-mockasin-jassbusters-two-184923128819","provider":"Mexican Summer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}