Jason and Julie Martin want to terrify you. And they will on Lies.
Not that this frontwoman/wife/mother-of-two for veteran superduo Bon Voyage is anything frightening at first glance. And not that this latest, genius concoction by herself and her producer/songwriter/husband Jason is inherently macabre, morose, or pummeling, at least on the surface. In fact, at first glance, Julie (and Jason) are the sweetest, gentlest, kindest people you would ever want to meet, and their latest LP, at first listen, is just a hopelessly catchy collection of indie pop/dance tracks.
Which it makes it all the more chilling when, on the opening song of the new album , Julie sings, I wish I was a monster. I would hide under the stairs. I wish I was a nightmare. I'd give you a scare. It is as if Bon Voyage are hiding something a bit more than just solid songs underneath the surface...
Like a Hitchcock film the Martins give ample fodder for your imagination to run wild. Backed by moving dance beats, samples, and layers of subtly creepy, yet catchy keys they will scare you with their cleverness and their subtlety. And they might just make you want dance in the process. Picture strobe lights and haze, moving shadows, bodies swaying to the soothing, hypnotizing sound of Julie's voice.
To converse with Jason, you would, again, assume that his matter-of-factness would represent sonic two dimensionality. He explains, "I will just write a batch of songs, and Julie will sing on them, and we will pick the ones we like the best. The best part of the dynamic is that their isn't one...she trusts me to do what I think is best for the songs and we just do it." Then, you turn on the music and it grips you like a sonic vice, forcing you to sway your hips and point your finger in the air.
This is the third installment for the duo, as Lies is the follow-up to 2001's The Right Amount. Taking nothing away from their previous material--which is great in its own right--this is Bon Voyage at their most vibrant and most immediate. Perhaps the addition of programmer Mike Perez is the element that drives this material to the next level. Or perhaps it is Jason's production prowess, which has grown leaps and bounds over the last several years after working with everyone from The Cold War Kids to Project 86 to several of his own projects, including Starflyer 59.
"In recent years I have tried to go about any music that I am involved in from the production side of things. I don't want to be married to any particular song, or part of a song, I just want what is best for the song. It is a process that I am learning a bit more as I get older...The more objectively you can look at music whether you have written the songs or not usually makes for the best results in the end."
"It is a difficult thing to approach your own writing from this perspective, and it is one that requires both maturity and experience--two qualities that come through on every single song on Lies. But don?t be fooled by the fact that Martins have been around the block a couple of times; There is a youthful exuberance that cannot be denied here.
Whether you speak of the vampire-eque sway of tracks like "Monster" or the undeniable fashionability of cuts like "Birthday", the album plays like forty minutes of commercial alternative programming. One of the album's finer moments comes at track two, the theme track "Don't lie" . The mystique of Julie's vocals will bring to your knees in repentance, as you get the feeling she means what she says (as only a mother can convey) when she swoons, Don't you lie when you look me in the eyes. Scary...
Truly, Bon Voyage have mixed their bubbling cauldron of cuts to perfection this time around in this, their finest hour. Just don't ask the Martins to give you more than barely enough to arouse a frenzied fascination with their third installment. It's almost as if they planed it this way...to leave us all with nothing but a desire for more.
"I have always liked Julie's voice, so I try to write music that is centered on the way I think her voice will sound. In the end, our goals are pretty simple: to one day have a single that people will remember and have a small place in pop history."
