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Review: Juniper Douglas - "Error to Introspection


Psychedelic and experimental music is notorious for being deliberately difficult. Artists gladly make things as dense as possible, often solely for the sake of doing so. Taking the precedent and smashing it to pieces is the ultimate artistic pursuit, or so some might say. Juniper Douglas, a musical collective based out of Minneapolis, certainly fall into this category.

They manage to walk the tightrope of bizarre and tasteful throughout the 63 minutes of their debut album, Error to Introspection. With sloppy precision, sounds are splattered on an ethereal canvas of invitation. Each song on the record acts as a coat of multi-colored fluorescent paint. There is a techno-like study in layering on Error – each corner can be peeled back to reveal something new, confounding, and often wonderful.

The record kicks off with “Promiseland Bakery.” Lowkey drum machines and acoustic guitars invite the listener to cross the threshold and immediately the overwhelming scents possess their senses. It is a bit of a beautiful smorgasbord. The song segues into a jazzy flamenco breakdown and back into an atmospheric piano segment. The willowy vocals partition the ecstatic flourishes peeking out from the background. “mush marsh,” the boggiest tune found here, starts with a bubbly sound that evokes boiling water. This Animal Collective-aping song accelerates with machine gun strumming, and much like the previous track, dissolves utterly. It becomes formless and shapeless, like watching dandelion seeds disperse with the breeze. Thus far, the album has felt almost like a solo affair, instead of the work of a band.

“fibastimpastastan” is the album’s highlight, and a total bop. The layered cliff face of vocals and guitars weathers a typhoon of synthesizers and keyboards. It is a tower of vibrant strata presented as sound.

Unfortunately, no one walks the tightrope perfectly on their first try. The subsequent trio of songs leans heavily into the improvisatory and experimental side of Juniper Douglas’ sound. “like an umbrella you see in a pot on a windowsill” gives hints of an icy video game level with stabs of synth and xylophone. The falsetto vocals take melodrama to comedic heights, only to fade into a keyboard solo. While the transition is quite clean, the next track – “tea w/t.” – is four minutes of fizzy noodling. It seems all too possible that it started as an interlude, only for the band to forget to turn off the mics for another couple minutes. “carrot eat dog” is essentially the same as the prior track. There is a beautiful, crystalline segue that unfortunately returns to vague piano soloing, but now with loose vocals on top. An iambic discontentment enters the scene at the end, indicating a return to the quality of the first chunk of tracks.

“g” injects energy with a frenetic drumbeat and more Super Nintendo synthesizers. Jazz-inspired solos restructure the tune for a gear shift halfway through. Newly-minted psionic guitar and reverb transcend the vocals. “2 in 1 Conditioned Air” sounds like it is literally simulating a sci-fi air conditioner. Throbbing drums press on the corners of your ears, singing ricocheting off of a synth part ripped right from Blade Runner. After meandering for too long, the drums get a clue and start propelling the track into something that could be considered a song.

Every psychedelic album needs to have a nearly-10-minute centerpiece, and “B. George Keith Beekneeth/Fun Gus” fulfills that role for Error to Introspection. It lives up to all the expectations the listener would have from such a song. A levee of bass starts to crack and finally releases a leaf storm of different parts. Everything fluctuates in and out of each other in the best way possible. The trumpet player is allowed to exist in their own universe and provide a spattering of color. A handful of the previous tracks hinted at and likely aspired to be like this tune. What makes it work is the breathing room it was allotted. It is able to actually sustain the experimentation to a point where it becomes enjoyable and distinctly engaging. The world crafted by the song feels natural yet utterly unprecedented.

The record’s third single, “Gah, My Eyes!”, appears to set a mind-bending precedent for the last third. A cyclical chain of fuzzy guitars is the first traditional “rock” lead and indicates what a more traditional Juniper Douglas release would sound like. Alas, the precedent was a total misdirection. A mess of noodly drums and vocals tries to anchor “Error,” but fails to go anywhere.
Indulgence is reinvented with “Introspection.” A wasteland of nonsensical samples – “It feels good to poop,” “Everyone wants to be boots until they’re boots” – seems to indicate a string of unfunny in-jokes that snuck onto the record somehow. There’s a section of agonized screaming, flute, and more. Experimentation and insanity happen for no reason than just for the fun of it. The myriad of concepts here hint at a great deal of potentially bizarre and unique ideas, none of which are explored. Every leftover idea and recorded take was put through a sifter and tacked onto the album. If anything, I can’t help but express some admiration for the band having the sheer gumption to place something like “Introspection” on the album. “Endo Friendo” continues on until the candle of the record is blown out.

Outside of a few missteps, Error to Introspection finds Juniper Douglas building a surrealist diorama, only to set it on fire and gleefully watch it crumble, burning fiercely and crumpling like mythical Styrofoam. Onlookers can’t help but be transfixed by the oddly comforting yet unreasonably vivid flames. The band throws everything at the wall and proudly hopes that nothing sticks. The point isn’t what could have been on the wall, it’s what is currently on the ground. The Minneapolis scene needs bands with such an unabashed adoration of experimentation and delightful transcendental weirdness, especially when they have a knack for melding it with more indie-centric melodies and ideals.


Error to Introspection is out September 21, 2018 via Subaquatic Records.

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