Album Review: Adult Jazz, “Gist Is”

Debut albums are tricky things to assess. An artist’s first full-length is not a reliable litmus test for how their career will pan out, or in some cases, their artistic validity. But it’s the unique blend of hype and mystery that always makes debuts exciting to listen to. That lack of history combined with the concocted narrative provided by the blogs du jour makes for a first listen that’s brimming with anticipation and yet is a venture into uncharted territory. All of that makes it confusing when a band like Adult Jazz releases something like Gist Is, a debut album that’s refined and familiar but foreign in its precociousness.

Clocking in at nearly an hour with only nine tracks, Gist Is might initially appear to be an exercise to get through. With only one song shorter than four minutes, the band certainly takes the “long player” form to heart. Quite happily, the album hardly drags, as many songs have multiple movements within them, and each song itself plays nicely into the next. These elongated structures allow for the band to really explore and wring out the most from their instruments. There is a real freedom to the interplay between the four musicians, almost bordering on (as cliché as it is to say here) jazziness. Off-kilter rhythms, especially in songs like “Am Gone”, are given dipping accents with economical bass playing, while guitar and vocals dance over top, unafraid to clash with the rhythm section or each other. Guitars and vocals take a huge amount of cues from the David Longstreth School of art rock, dangling off the edge of song structure (though perhaps Mr. Longstreth himself would push these sounds further). This means a lot of skronky electric figures (see “Donne Tongue”) and singing versions of high-wire acts (“Pigeon Skulls”). It makes for highly expressive sounding music that tests the boundaries of its focus without ever really endangering it.

If the album has a lived-in quality to it, that may be due to the fact that it was recorded in The Black Byre, a 16^th century bastle house. The slight reverb of frontman Harry Burgess’ voice at times recalls someone shouting in an empty room, and gives a special feeling of captured reality. Adding to this great “living” sound is the juxtaposition of those performances against interesting studio tricks.  The pitch-shifted vocals on “Hum,” what sounds like the tail end of a chant on “Idiot Mantra”, and the various cut-and-paste, chopped off bits and phrases found throughout make Gist Is feel like both an artifact and alive at the same time.

There are a couple of things to grapple with on this album. There are some jams here that would surely rock the festival crowd. “Springful” has a wonderful palette of sounds and a killer chorus, and “Am Gone” has a lilting summery pace that anyone on Bonnaroo ‘shrooms would wave their hands to. But there’s a certain paint-by-numbers going on here. “Hum” basically could be a James Blake song; the rest of the album arguably sounds as though Grizzly Bear, The xx, and Dirty Projectors collaborated, and the similarities are easy to spot. But it usually makes for a damn good listen, and this is a debut album, so for now, who cares? Better to draw our concern to the lyrics, which are for the most part inscrutable without liner notes. Some lines do stick well, like the opening three from “Am Gone” or these from “Spook”: “and I do not have no will/and I write these songs to trick God/ and I do not take it lightly.” Burgess, who has a good, unique voice, is not afraid to stretch words with onomatopoetic license, or to repeat phrases, or to generally test the limits of the language he uses. But this can and does bloat some of the songs unnecessarily. Also, the fake patois he occasionally uses is an artistic decision that is hard to understand, and comes off as silly.

Gist Is is like IKEA furniture: a collection of modern influences that, when combined, creates something that isn’t earth-shattering but is certainly stylish, and ultimately something you want to live in. Adult Jazz demonstrates a sophistication and assuredness in its sound that is worthy of repeat plays and spending serious time with.