EP Review - Drip Dry

Drip Dry 

by JP Klipspringer (out now!) 

You know those times when something awesome comes along just when you need it, like life was looking at you and said “you’ve done alright today, you deserve this” and then a little present is dropped right into your hands? Like those times when you already know how much you like coffee, but then you stumble across a barista that brews those beans with so much passion that suddenly coffee on a midweek morning becomes a not-so-secret new love affair with caffeine? You know those little presents? I got one of those little life presents recently except it wasn’t in the form of caffeine, but I already know the addiction is just as intense.

 
I knew I liked JP Klipspringer a few months ago when I first heard the layered vocals and the beautiful keys on ‘Bury Me’, the first single from his new EP, Drip Dry, and I kind of had a feeling someone who could come up with those sounds was surely a talent to be recognised, someone who was bound to become one of my favourites with each new song I heard, but I didn’t really expect to become this addicted, this quickly to his magical sounds.


The first track and the first I heard, ‘Bury Me’, is still now, three months after first listen, everything I said it was then; “the keys, the beats, the voice, they all meld so beautifully into each other and become such a sense of comfort I don't know whether to dance or cry when it starts”. It's sense of loneliness is still so comforting and it's haunting keys are simultaneously calming and lonely which lead perfectly into ‘Anastasia’, with its childlike lullaby rhythm, the immediate sense of innocence is not all as it seems with Jack Poulson’s lyrics leading somewhere darker than the sweet melody suggests. What is it about Anastasia that can’t be loved might never be known, but that’s exactly what makes it so fabulous. I could listen to these three and a half minutes for weeks on end and wonder about what Anastasia has become…in fact, I’ve already done that and the answers are no clearer but the question has become more and more enjoyable with every listen.


By the time the beats and sounds of the third track 'Phat Controller' begin, the world of JP Klipspringer becomes more and more desperately attractive and the JPK mystery deepens, I'm not sure what it is that is making this all sound so good. Is it the gentle beats or the soft harmonies and layered vocals that make the world surrounding me disappear with each listen or is it the subtle yet all encompassing keys on each track that I can't get enough of? It could be any of these things or it could be the lyrics, the lyrics each time sung so sweetly and gently but hiding a character I know I would love to know and love to love as much as love to hate should they really be a person. None more so intriguing than those in the last track 'Bring You Home'...


As blind as night that finds us all 
I'll cut you to pieces and bring you home
Now the sun has come and gone
Oh, to be with you alone


...they describe exactly how I feel about these sounds, what I think of what is to become one of my favourite EP's this year. A little obsession, oh to be alone with four simple tracks that are more powerful in their subtlety than most artists take a lifetime to acheive and four tracks that have been the most fabulous little musical present exactly when I wanted them.


You know those times when something awesome comes along just when you need it, like life was looking at you and said “you’ve done alright today, you deserve this” and a then little present is dropped right into your hands? I already know how much I love music, even more than a good cup of coffee, but then something like JP Klipspringer comes along and the love becomes a little deeper, a little more addictive than I could ever imagine it could get. This little Drip Dry present wasn't caffeine, but the high is better than one cup of coffee could ever give a caffeine addict like me anyway, and if this is what Jack Poulosn, aka JP Klipspringer, is capable of so early in his career, then we have a long, lovely addictive relationship ahead of us. This is only the beginning.

Jo Michelmore gives Drip Dry four and a half Thom Yorke heads out of five...