Les Jupes – Negative Space

Les Jupes
Negative Space
Independent
★★★

It’s not that Winnepeg’s Les Jupes have songs on Negative Space that are necessarily essential, but you end up thinking about these songs long after you have listened to them. That alone gives this EP weight.

This four-song EP is about a band that is expanding. Two years after Modern Myths, we find Les Jupes cranking out four modest tunes. Are they a taste of what’s to come or merely a means of experimental fancy in the context of what Les Jupes is all about?

“The Voice” pairs a tug of war between forgettable and egregious ‘90s rock and creatively smart alternative buzz, all wrapped into one. It’s a love-hate relationship with a Socratic conclusion. There is none. And that leaves a song like this to hang out in purgatory. The way the band layers instruments really turn a song like this into something special.

The delicate and dark prose of “Hold Me Down” prove Les Jupes do wonders to open your eyes about how they create pop music, a more popular approach than what Tindersticks do, but none the less relevant. If one song could make up four songs, it would be this one.

Even within four songs, you find diversity in the familiar. You experience a band pushing through. And you feel a force that will leave you contemplating well after the lights go out.