Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye are the two faces comprising Jockstrap (“50/50”), the English duo that shot to fame with its debut studio album release, “I Love You Jennifer B,” in 2022. The dichotomy between Ellery’s gentle, soft-spoken vocals and Skye’s rough, electronic, vibrating work in “I Love You Jennifer B” landed the duo’s album at no. 57 on the UK Albums Chart. This success pushed Skye to take the work and throw it into a remix meatgrinder, skewing the original contents of each song and creating a cacophony of harsh, electro-driven beats that abruptly start and end at their leisure, named “I<3UQTINVU” (I Love You Cutie, I Envy You).
Perhaps skewing is not the correct term to describe Jockstrap’s newest album. “I<3UQTINVU,” released on Nov. 3, is the derivative of “I Love You Jennifer B,” a complete remix that leaves some of the past album’s integrity in place for a slight resonance of what once was. Yet, “I<3UQTINVU” still manages to separate itself so far from its roots that the titles of the songs are entirely different.
“Jennifer B” is no more, replaced by “Good Girl” in the newest album. “Concrete Over Water” has been torn apart and stitched together to give us “All Roads Lead to London,” which proved to be one of the less impressive songs on the album. Perhaps it is the interval of prominent vocals accompanied by a soft beat that throws off the momentum of the song, which starts fast after a clever dog howl. Nonetheless, it seems the synthesizer was ready to take a break, and “All Roads Lead to London” was the song left out for a little too long.
“Good Girl” cannot be overlooked. A memory of what “Jennifer B” once was, the song is a culmination of electronic beats supporting the distorted voice of Ellery, a voice afflicted by static and inhuman frequencies when it used to be angelic and minimally manipulated. Yet, the amplification of each sound and rhythm makes the once-catchy song into one capable of dancing along to and complements Ellery’s vocals beautifully. It is like a paintbrush: each stroke on the canvas is the introduction of her voice, resting on the surface just long enough for her to vibrate softly in the ears of the listener, painting an abstract that captures attention flawlessly.
“Red Eye” is manic, a synthesis of snarls, raspy voices coming together, and hyperpop rhythms that make keeping up with the song a spinning headache. Diving into the lyrics reveals the song is unserious at best and unamusing at its worst; “OwO tatted on my wrist, furry paws all on my beans” is not the most encapsulating line, but it is funny.
Because “I<3UQTINVU” is a remix of an already well-recognized album, the work is predictable, especially when looking at songs such as “Jennifer B” and “Good Girl.” Yes, the songs are unique in their own electro-manipulated ways, but they parallel each other closely enough to realize that they are constituents.
That is not to say this album does not have character; no other remix album has seemingly crammed electronic beats and tempos into a blender and run with the product. “I<3UQTINVU” is admirable in that it does its own thing; Skye’s brutal handling of the album is unapologetic and bloody. It is fun and appalling, a project born from a “why not” remark that scrambled the known “I Love You Jennifer B” album to a new limit.
Image from Jockstrap via YouTube.com
