Jesse Justice - Temporary (Vinyl LP) PRE-ORDER

Listening to Jesse Justice’s music or hearing the Los Angeles artist play live could mean something different on any given day. He might be shredding the keys with his group Human Error Club, playing a Rhodes alongside revered jazz talent or rocking boom-bap from his trusty sampler. But there’s another side to Jesse Justice — and that’s the one behind “Temporary.” Because “Temporary” is primarily electronic, Justice plays the dual roles of musician and producer. Yet these songs forgo limitless digital sound design for a carefully chosen palette of old-school synthesizers and drum machines. As a result, the dreamy atmospheres flow from the compositions themselves. Even at its most ambient, the artist’s sense of melody rises to the surface.

In nu-age LA, ambient is where jazz and electronic music tend to intersect. Justice’s music, however, incorporates everything from footwork to house to hip hop without conforming to any of the above. Even “Certain I’m Uncertain”, which recalls the broken beat and acid jazz sounds of late-90s London, remains firmly in Justice's sonic world. Over its eight tracks, “Temporary” drifts from one motif to the next in the seamless kind of way thoughts and memories trigger each other. Like the title suggests, no single mood sticks around for long, nor are the sentiments easy to describe. At the same time, it’s complex without being jazz, electronic without being dance music and atmospheric without being ambient. In other words, it’s music from inbetween.

While today’s ubiquitous MIDI packs, plug-ins and producer hacks promise to lend any producer a professional sheen, there’s no formula for something like this. Instead, it’s the singular experiences and sensibilities Jesse Justice brings to these songs that separate “Temporary” from the rest.