Henrik José is the producer from Malmö, whose musical curse, cognition, and development is obviously reminiscent of another (and more known) Scandinavian musician Esa Juhani Ruoho aka Lackluster from Finland. Between 1997-2004, the Swedish musician had been known under alias as Bliss. He started as the part of demoscene/bitpop/chiptune/8-bit, specifically contrasting by making psychedelic tracker sound. His later developments had stood on the shifts toward downtempo and electronic pop direction. His musical lexicon includes such headwords like nu-jazz, jazz funk, funk soul, deep house, disco (house), roomy orchestrated music. Regarding the intensity of sound and diversity of genres he is thereby close to samplecore/plunderphonics-movement. All those acid keyboards and autotuned vocals were very up to scratch. For instance, take a listen of the track Making Bomb (1998) which is...mhhh... the bomb, indeed. His music has been issued under Kahvi, Monotonik, and Fairlight Music (once again, having an overlap with Lackluster). His musical subtlety is probably related to his main influences, including the likes of The Smiths, Sigur Ros, Murcof, Pink Floyd, Cocteau Twins, Boards Of Canada, Radiohead, Björk, Aphex Twin. It`s partly seems like an old school indie thug rustling around behind electronic devices.
The recent album is a follow-up to Henrik Jose 2007 in which guitar music was infiltrated into sometimes tricksy electronics, whilst it liked to take a view into inner space, being even a bit narcissistic in its own. The Little Things EP rejects the introspectiveness and seems musically to be much more upbeat and explicit. Also all those guitars are abandoned now. This album is full of electronic tunes. However, Jòse`s 15 years-period of permanently involving in music business does afford a kind of confidence. In the first place, this album is a solid example of his professional musical experience. My favorite tracks are Pinpointing The Problem, and the title song as well, with its tache-throwing harmonies similar to Azeda Booth-esque futurecore pop. However, the ending track We Own This Thing sounds like a tame M83, though.
In the next time I`d like to listen to an album with a bit more longitude.
Download it from here
8.5
