It must be a personal triumph for the nine musicians in The Jimmy Cake to have finally released their third album Spectre and Crown after such a long recording period. It certainly felt like a very personal album launch – a long overdue return. The album is an evocative, organic and rich affair with strong classical motifs and understated tones, largely abandoning the crunch of previous work. Fitting then, that the band added a string quartet and extra brass to last night’s album launch.
An apt dedication to a deceased uncle before ‘Red Tony’ lent personal weight to proceedings and was no doubt acknowledged by extended family, many who were seated in the balcony. The new songs sounded wonderfully precise – ‘Haunted Candle’ and ‘Jetta’s Palace’ were rapturous renditions. It’s hard to believe the band only practised with the string quartet for the first time a mere six hours or so before the gig. As Aoife said, Dip the bass player was a dominating presence but each member contribute equally to this band. The accordion player Jurgen and keyboardist Paul Smith were front and centre, backed by the two guitarist Vinnie and Mike. The drummer John does a fierce job keeping the band together rhythmically and the three brass band members – Lisa (clarinet), Parx (trumpet) and Alex (saxophone – his last gig for the band) are esssential to The Jimmy Cake sound.
A slew of older songs showed the transition between then and now, but were also no less than awesome, including the raucous ‘Limestone Cowboy’, ‘This Used to be the Future’ and set-closer ‘The Opposite of Addiction’. If any band deserve an accolade for achievement this year, it’s the Jimmy Cake. Godspeed.
The Jimmies were interviewed on The Indie Hour this week. Listen.
More photos below and on my Flickr.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
The video is crackling on my computer. Could it be this !@*!^@(!)&@&^! version of Firefox 3. whatever Beta?
Could sound good. Leap of faith, dude.
The Opposite of Addiction – that’s right. I had forgotten the name of the track.
Was an awesome gig all right. Thanks for the link!
A tiny complaint about the Jimmy Cake and Irish bands in general: why are they so anti promo tracks? You piece above was great Niall but surely some downloadable audio would leave an even longer impression. Can’t understand it.
[quote post=”1168″]why are they so anti promo tracks?[/quote]
I doubt if it’s anti-promo tracks; releasing an album is a labour-intensive affair – I’d imagine even more so with a mammoth line-up and sound like the Jimmy Cake. After recording, mixing, mastering, duplication, distribution, bookings etc very often distributing free mp3’s among blogs is forgotten. So I reckon maybe in this case (and many others) the group didn’t make a conscious effort to not put up free tunes on blogs, they might have just forgotten instead. In anycase, there are 3 tunes for download on their myspace – http://www.myspace.com/thejimmycake – and a couple more on their main site – http://www.thejimmycake.org/main.html.
Fuckin whopper album, well done the Jimmy Cake:)
It probably has more to do with technical incompetence or lack of awareness than anything else. The opposite of Addiction is available on their myspace and I already included Jetta’s Palace on a recent Podcast.
Good point hugger – I think a lot of bands are still very wary about THE INTERNET and it’s definitely down to lack of awareness as nialler said. I think it will change soon enough though, as more people are seeing the benefits of promo tracks and whatnot.
Thanks Niall and Aoife for your lovely words. And great photos too. Very glad you could make it.
Tiny response to tiny complaint: You can listen to 3 full tracks from the album on our MySpace page, and download “Jetta’s Palace” from thumped(dot)com. I think that’s fair enough, don’t you?
Tiny thanks Paul.
Tiny high five.
re: tiny debate above. Its good to see the ‘cake have a promo MP3. But I agree with hugger and Aoife Mc. Its very difficult to put up an MP3 of an Irish band without them getting extremely pissed off. I tried. Now I email bands ahead of saying anything about them, and ask them can I put an MP3 of their choice, like even for a week. The answer is inavariably ‘no’ and is the main reason I put so little Irish music on my blog, which I want to be above all else an MP3 blog.
[quote post=”1168″]The answer is inavariably ‘no’ and is the main reason I put so little Irish music on my blog, which I want to be above all else an MP3 blog.[/quote]
that sucks man, I had no idea! too bad…
Hah! Tiny high five. I want one too.
Another tiny point! You mention ‘three brass band members’ but list a clarinet and saxophone amongst them. I have to take you to task on this because as a former euphonium player myself I can tell you that the saxophone and clarinet are members of the woodwind family. Lumping them in with the brass section is nothing short of scandalous. I will be picketing the offices of Nialler9 with other former members of the Blanchardstown Brass Band until this wrong is righted.
Yours in upset,
Matt Vinyl
Matt, My sincerest apologies.
I always get the families confused.
A public flogging in lieu perhaps?
Alright so. I’ll call off the trombonists.