LONDON-BASED DUO JOCKSTRAP ACCEPT THEIR NAME IS A POLARISING ONE. “Some people have said the name’s perfect,” offers producer/keyboard-player Taylor Skye. “Some have said it’s horrendous. It was inspiring for us because it was quite rebellious to begin with.”
That rebellion involved a part-rejection of the academic musical values that were instilled in Skye and singer/violinist Georgia Ellery at the Guildhall School Of Music And Drama, where the pair met in 2016. The former was studying electronic composition, the latter jazz, and for some of their lecturers the stylistically restless music they began making as Jockstrap – which veers wildly between traditional singer-songwriting approaches and dubstep-inspired cut-ups – seemed like a joke.
My teachers turned their noses up at it.
GEORGIA ELLERY
“My teachers sort of turned their noses up at it,” laughs Ellery, who also plays in Black Country, New Road. “The idea is that you go to music school, and you dedicate all your time to the instrument that you’re studying. And that’s not what I was doing. So I think that’s where I might have pissed them off.”
The pair’s debut LP, I Love You Jennifer B (Number 36 in MOJO’s Best Albums Of 2022) is certainly filled with eccentric humour and purposely crunching gearshifts, but their formal training is at the same time evident in the meticulous string arrangements and classic songwriting tropes. Musical theory, for Ellery, remains “a tool to work out where you’re going to go next harmonically”.
Direct influences on Jockstrap’s sound are hard to pinpoint, but the fact that, growing up, Skye was equally in thrall to Stevie Wonder and Skrillex is one clue. Ellery, meanwhile, began studying violin at five, and by seven was playing alongside her midwife/music therapist mother in a band at “this pagan festival”, Golowan, in her native Penzance, and accompanying her mum to WOMAD. She also cites Elton John and Paul Simon as inspirations, along with Scott Walker (the album’s spectral ballad Lancaster Court has distinct echoes of Scott 3) and early Joni Mitchell (if she’d been produced by James Blake) on the atmospheric, six-minute-long Concrete Over Water.
The duo’s modus operandi involves Ellery writing and recording songs, before handing them over to Skye to augment, and sonically polish or mangle. For instance, the floaty, harp-strewn Angst suddenly snap-edits into the singer’s a cappella vocals erratically chopped in the style of the dubstep remixers (Nero; Flux Pavilion) that Skye loved as a teenager. “They just made me realise that you can make completely original, emotional music in the form of a remix,” he says.
Visually, Jockstrap are equally striking. Their videos (edited by Ellery) range from the strange harlequin antics of Concrete Over Water – which looks like a Kate Bush promo from the early ’80s – to the walking-and-running scenes of Glasgow, in which Skye appears wearing cartoon-ish facial hair and pointy ears. “It’s a nice release,” says Ellery. “After working really hard on the song and working very macro, it’s like stretching the other way. We’re not trained in video-making, so anything goes.” Much like Jockstrap’s music itself: an intriguing blend of style and mischief.
Fact Sheet:
- For Fans Of: Joni Mitchell, James Blake, Scott Walker
- Georgia Ellery chooses not to explain who the “Jennifer B” of the album’s title is, but insists she’s real. “I saw her last week for dinner,” she says, “and she’s pretty happy with how her name was sold.”
- Although busy with Jockstrap, Ellery hasn’t quit her other job, playing violin and singing with Black Country, New Road. Having been forced to reconfigure the band following the departure of singer/guitarist Isaac Wood, she says the group are “writing music”, though won’t commit to confirming whether or not a third album is planned.
Key Tracks:
Concrete Over Water
Glasgow
Lancaster Court
I Love You Jennifer B is out now, via Rough Trade.
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