Review by Lav:
Jelly Diver is an electronic music project that debuted last year and fuses the frenetic pacing of genres like breakcore and jungle with the cloudy nostalgia of retro video game soundtracks. The debut album from Jelly Diver cybercrystals arrived back in April but in line with a rapid-fire series of new releases dating back to last year, more music arrived in a hurry. To quote the Instagram post announcing this new EP, it began as an attempt to "simplify the formula," but ended up "devolving into madness," a promise that the project more than makes good on.
That isn't to say that the music here is ever necessarily simple. Opener dotonbori dreams is somewhat chaotic right out of the gate. It kicks the record off with stuttering breakcore drums contrasted by distant dreamy synths. It bounces between moments seeped in the contrast of hazy and precise, though they're intercut with stranger passages where the backing chorus of synths fade out only for the song to be dusted with far louder and more jittery synth phrases in its place.
That actually pairs nicely with the songs that close the project out. FOnewearl gets right back into a world of cascading breakcore with its rapid-fire unfolding of new sounds and textures right out of the gate. It's the point on the EP where the aforementioned "madness" starts to kick in. While the track does check itself by occasionally dialing things back, by the EPs finale it's fully submerged in that madness. One of the things I can't shake from my head while listening to this record is nostalgia for video games. The fact that it was inspired by OSTs comes through loud and clear even with a retro video game portfolio as lacking as mine.
The synths on 1337 YEEz are the most potent feeling of nostalgia for video games I've never even played. The song's fluttering synths take me back so much even though I can't even precisely pin down what they remind me of. It's that imprecisely vintage demeanor that drew out comparisons to acts like Duster, whose music has nothing in common with Jelly Diver but can sometimes leave me feeling the same way. That is at least until the final minute of 1337 when the pitched-down vocals and infectious drum lines give way to the shit completely hitting the fan in the last 30 seconds with a dizzyingly chaotic degradation of sounds to close the EP off.
While Jelly Diver is compelling at their most jittery, it's some of the most reserved and hazy moments that I kept coming back to over and over. Starting with bunny64 which also features a TON of retro video game soundtrack influence. A minute into the track it builds to this infectious, planky, almost xylophone-like synth line that's cuter than it has ANY right to be. It's one of the brightest and most lucid songs on the record that blends together all the stylistic influences on the EP perfectly.
That leads right into incubator the most reserved song on the album. It features a bed of what I can only describe as "water level" synths over top of which is a surprisingly persistent beeping. It reminds me much more of the sounds of physical hardware rater than the highly digital demeanor of nearly every other sound on the record. The track also features some murky and frigid Burial-esque vocal samples that add both character and texture to the song.
Console is a brief EP but it hits on a deeply compelling connection. The contrast between the unsettled breakcore elements and crackling nostalgia creates an incredibly distinct effect. With an eye for thumping drums that blast you in the foreground and murky textures that occupy the background the songs here are both thoughtfully layered and well-composed. It's a dynamic that's often tried, but rarely pulled off so well and it helps tremendously to separate Jelly Diver from a sea of breakcore contemporaries. 8/10
For more electronic (ish) EPs, read my recent EP recap
