Daryl Johns – ‘Daryl Johns’ album review: retro fusion weirdness

Posted On November 21, 2024November 21, 2024

THE SKINNY: Some artists are naturally able to paint a picture with their music, but New Jersey jazz-fusion bassist Daryl Johns instead chooses to play us a grainy Betamax tape of his visions. Everything on his eponymous debut album feels nostalgic for a time that the 29-year-old wasn’t alive to witness, evoking false memories of cultural phenomena from before his birth.

Johns has made an album to be played while sipping on an extra large milkshake at the local diner, to be listened to at your step aerobics class, and to be used in the title sequence to a public access broadcast. These are all things he has done with intention, but just how has he managed to conjure such a strong 1980s-aligned image having never witnessed the decade himself, and why do I, someone of the same age and different nationality, have such a vivid impression of the world he is creating?

His association with various other artists from the modern era that also deal in retro revival is almost certainly something that has rubbed off on him to an extent. As the former touring bassist with New York power pop brothers The Lemon Twigs, a collaborator of Drugdealer, and releasing the album via the record label of slacker goofball Mac DeMarco, Johns is in esteemed company when it comes to surrounding himself with people who fetishise the past in their music.

While there are more steps towards jazz-fusion on the record than there are on the works of his contemporaries, every song has a strong commercial whiff about it, in as much as it’s peppy, poppy and wouldn’t seem out of place being used in an advertising jingle. The warped feel of some of the songs makes it seem as though the cassette it was originally burned onto has decayed over time, giving it a woozy and hypnagogic aura as it’s listened back to now.

Of course, this is 2024, and it’s a lot harder to listen to this album in the desired locations or manner that feels the most appropriate. In the interest of mimicking the feel of putting a beaten-up tape in your Walkman and rollerblading down the high street to the nearest Wimpy, maybe just play it on your phone, snort a sizable bump of ketamine and go grocery shopping.

It’s a fascinating listen for the most part, but its refusal to try anything new save for being technically adventurous at times is where the album falls flat, and its incessant desire to hammer home the nostalgia can get irritating, no matter how many hooks there are trying to hold it in place.

For fans of: Dissociating in the local supermarket, playing records at the wrong speed, VHS dating tapes.

A concluding comment from the city of Brighton and Hove, collectively: “Oh, Mac DeMarco is involved? Yeah, I love jazz. Wanna come smoke with me at the Level sometime?”

Daryl Johns track by track:

Release Date: November 22nd | Producer: Daryl Johns & Chris Fishman | Label: Mac’s Record Label

‘Corner Store’: A gentle yet inviting opener to the record that shows off Johns’ love of retro sounds, strange pitch-bending and heavy amounts of chorus applied to the bass guitar. It doesn’t reveal too much of where the album will go, but it’s a solid start to proceedings. [3.5/5]

‘Happy’: While this instrumental has a guitar melody that sounds frighteningly like the vocal line from The Lemon Twigs’ ‘My Golden Years’ (almost as though he was present for the sessions), it’s a pretty little jazz pop number that gives nods to the likes of the Durutti Column and Pat Metheny. [4/5]

‘I’m So Serious’: Call it cheesy all you want, this one feels like it was a lost 1980s home recording that was dug up from the vaults and somehow surfaced online, and is a serious bop to boot. [4.5/5]

‘Crash’: The fusion is strong on this one, and while listening to every instrument noodling at once can seem a little chaotic and cluttered, it’s a fine example of the wonderful ear that Johns has for composing erratic jazz songs that stand up against the greats of the genre. [4/5]

‘Barbecue In The Sun’: Sure, the melody is great and really highlights how big an influence sunshine pop plays on the record, but the pitched-up chipmunk vocals aren’t just grating halfway through; they’re annoying from the start, and when removed it doesn’t leave the song with much else going for it. [2.5/5]

‘Let Her Go’: If you’re going to pay tribute to your label boss, at least cover one of his better songs. This jangly and high-energy rendition of a middling Mac DeMarco song neither improves nor worsens the original, instead opting to go down the ‘zany’ route. [2/5]

‘Golden Showers’: Clocking in at almost five minutes, the joint-longest song on the album is a fun instrumental journey through every influence that went into the album, managing to squeeze Steely Dan, Weather Report, and pre-Trump Ariel Pink weirdness into one song. [4/5]

‘The Deputy of East Carlock’: It’s another instrumental jazz-fusion track, but unlike previous ones, it lacks the same level of memorability and instead sounds like your lucid dream’s attempt at writing a family-friendly sitcom theme tune. [3.5/5]

‘Just Friends’: See above. What appeared to be a winning formula early on in the album sounds exhausted by this point in the album, and no matter how many attempts are made throughout to inject some life into it, what the record really needs is a breather. [3/5]

‘Casper’: A short but sweet interlude – the breather that was requested beforehand sounds like it could’ve come from the warped psychedelic mind of Connan Mockasin, which is to say, it’s trying something different. [3.5/5]

‘Palermo’: The sudden time signature changes on this one are pretty wild, and the return to fusion has all the necessary vim it needs here. There’s an eeriness to it in the way it clatters together various sections, and the non-verbal vocals feel like they’re scrambling to find the right thing to say, giving a feeling of being lost. [4/5]

‘Whoops’: We’re back to the slightly more conventional pop sound for the majority of this song, and while it isn’t the overall highlight of the record, the chorus does have the best and most intuitive key change on the album going for it. [3.5/5]

‘Friends Forever’: We’re back to high-pitched pop and jingle-core on this one, but my god, is it catchy. The reversed outro feels like nothing but a gimmick, but if we’re going to give pitch-bending a pass then this gets one too. [3.5/5]

‘Maggie and Me’: After what has been at times a thrill ride and at times an over-indulgent slog, the album ends on the most straightforward track, and it’s another refreshing retro cut. Where parts of the rest of the album feel like they’ve spent a little too long in the oven, this closer comes off as a rare, undercooked moment. [3/5]

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