Considering how bad Top 40 music is, I never listen to the radio unless I’m subjected to such torture when I visit a mall or other public place of business. Because I was doing some late night work related to China, I figured I would take a look at a link which popped up for the BBC radio program hosted by a lady whose name doesn’t come to mind right now, but who is on my Twitter feed, and it led me to hearing this track.
JIM is the monicker of James Baron who was a member of an indie band out of England called Crazy P. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of the band before coming across them before, but once the track Phoenix came up, I realized this was the first impressive single I’ve heard on the radio, streaming or otherwise, since the early 90s.
The jewel of this EP is the aforementioned track called Phoenix. There’s a smoldering energy to it, tense, somewhat haunting, and it reminded me of some of the better post-punk acts of the early 1980s, but far more stripped down. It turns out my senses were right, as Phoenix was originally performed by The Cult, whose music was beginning to peak around 1985 or 1986. JIM preserved the energy and made it a bit rawer in sound. I’m thoroughly impressed.
The rest of the EP is rather folky in feeling, reminding me of a combination of Iron & Wine meeting The Doobie Brothers, with perhaps less funkiness and more fusion. This is solid all the way through.
