Jockstrap Interview
An experimental pop duo, Jockstrap, comes out with their most moving confession, a debut album, I Love You Jennifer B.
Close your eyes. Plug the earphones in. Breathe. Sense the subtle electronic sounds creeping down your spine: the deconstructed neoclassical balm, the eclectic electronica bathed in grime and disco-pop, and the shapeshifting vocals. Things buried deep down, left to a lonely roam with no trigger, surface now. Jockstrap makes us feel how we haven’t in a while, unhinged in the emotional seas. We fall hard for their debut album, I Love You Jennifer B.
“We didn’t start off with any mission really. I don’t think we thought about it, it dissolved as we made it,” says Taylor. We meet Taylor Skye and Georgia Ellery backstage of the Boat stage at End of the Road Festival. Hiding from the masses, we embark through their debut LP and strange turns of the subconscious. Georgia and Taylor found each other in the famed Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, instantly attracted to their baby-stepping musical geniuses. Now, after releasing a bunch of critically acclaimed records like EPs Wicked City or Love Is the Key to the City and having survived three years’ worth of emotional and sonic exploration, they’ve arrived at a culmination: I Love You Jennifer B.
“We reduced some of the tracks towards the end of the process, so it was just 10 songs. We both instinctively felt that it was the right thing to do. Actually, it took me a few days to agree,” Taylor says, and Georgia quickly adds: “It was a few hours, I think. It’s quite a big thing to suggest”. They got rid of only two only instrumentals on the LP. “We’d had this initial idea that we wanted to make a banger album, so every song is a banger. We came back to that idea and suggested to Taylor: how about we just cut them off? No fluff. There’s no filler on the album,” Georgia continues. So, all killer?
For Jockstrap, every word and note counts. Complementing each other, sounds and lyrics clash with an uncanny magnetism. Georgia’s writing is of an unusual manner, putting together unfitting familiar things, she creates new electrifying landscapes. “They come from personal experiences or thoughts that I have, and I write them on my notes on my phone. I write when I have to pursue something or think about something. When I write a song, then I’ll come through these notes and choose something,” she explains, “It’s a way of making sense of a feeling. I think we make quite emotional music. That’s been our default. It’s a way to access deep emotion and document it”.
They submerged deeper than ever for ‘Concrete Over Water’, a moving single reminding of an unattainable nostalgia of the womb, longing for the warm eternity, ‘I wanna be there/Two sides of the moon/Black spots on the sun’. Disguised as pierrot-like characters in a video, Jockstrap serves visuals on another level. “We went from there really and just had an idea to make it quite rudimentary, like Age of Science. Not technical in the future, but like an old Star Wars movie,” Georgia reflects.
Even though their sound feels somehow influenced by the tech innovations of this decade, their music chambers don’t’ resonate fully with them. “Well, I think the way we make music is affected by that. The way we listen to music is making short selections of different people’s music,” Taylor says on the current ways of consumption, “With this style of sound, it isn’t something we’re concerned with. Making a project, we’re quite music-focused, we’re not that aware and interested in technology. We’re not tech people”. Georgia elaborates: “But I guess our music is digital sounding. It’s just natural that we’re inspired by just the things around us. Not all of it, but some of it has to be technology”. The way Jockstrap interprets and filters change around is beautifully organic and unforced.
Jockstrap was born out of a love for music, unlimited by industry requirements or formats. Therefore, they paint themselves as social media outsiders. “I don’t think people should get too excited about that. Because most of the time people depend on that, the less they’re going to make music,” Taylor comments. Though, they understand the need to adjust, even if for the sake of marketing. “We’re definitely not TikTok artists which are doing the social media and blowing up the music at the same time. That’s not how we work, we make music. Then, social media is a promotional thing that we do afterwards,” Georgia explains. They’re on Instagram. They’re on TikTok. Only the way they use it is more tailored. “TikTok music is inspiring. Everything’s inspired by everything. That is interesting,” Taylor comments, and Georgia adds: “We’re just at that age where TikTok is three years younger than us”.
Through the affectionate trials of wins and errors, Jockstrap is a truly fun duo. Their songs are as fitting to perform a teary ritual to as they can slay a dancefloor down. “We’re playfully serious. They’re both parts of us and our music. Our music has always been taken seriously. We’ve always been playful and trying things out. I guess that would be a good definition of playful, isn’t it? Just being experimental and a bit fun. Trying new things. We’re doing both at the same time,” Georgia elaborates.
Jockstrap makes emotionally explosive bangers for the neo- spiritual generation. Slutty, with hearts out, they invite you to join them as they pave the way for a new kind of artist – aware of the surroundings, pickpocketing the best bits and dropping out of the social rat race, knowing all along that the most exciting adventures are underground. We also love Jennifer B. Jockstrap, see you on the other side of the screen. Plug out. Open your eyes.