Releases

JAB MICA OCH EL
ABC Hej I'm Cola CD/LP ACHE026

Track Listing
1. U.F.O. Tofu
2. Haircut From The Above
3. Elf Farm Raffle
4. Biohjelm Light Speed (MP3)
5. Jomahab Genskabt
6. Pull Up If I Pull Up (MP3)
7. Won't Lovers Revolt Now
8. Step On No Pets
9. Rhesus E.T.
10. Cecil Jomahab

Pressed (LP)
Press 1: 500

Modern electronic manipulation coalesces with robust and celebratory cartoon melodies on this, the debut full length release by the Danish duo, Jab Mica Och El.

After a 7” released on their own label, Champion Robot, and a beautifully crafted addition to Ache’s own Project Bicycle compilation, Jacob and Michael meticulously set forth on the construction of new expression, new ideas, and new instrumentation. Ten tracks where created with the help of many friends, including close friend to both Jab Mica and Ache, Sun Ok Papi K.O. (Sonig / Scratch Pet Land). It is evident when listening to this album the abundance of pleasure experienced during these collaborations and ultimately its creation. The finished product feels like a document of backyard gatherings of close friends armed with cold drinks, lighthearted grins, and their instruments of choice, executed with a naïve charm only the most eager of artists obtain.

Ultimately an organic outing, ABC Hej I’m Cola harvests such familiar and traditional sounds as banjo, flute and tuba, and manipulates them into a dense parade of slapstick caricatures. The digital element is subtle enough to keep things recognizable, yet biting enough to create an other-worldly effect.

The outcome is a thick, playful and joyous mess of elastic brass, stuttering woodwind, and squelch percussion, evoking a childhood innocence, which will leech the cynicism from every listener, inevitably conjuring smiles he or she had long forgotten.

Jab MIca Och El

"This Danish twosome last cropped up on Ache’s velocipede-themed Project Bicycle comp, exhibiting their playful naïveté and ear for sugary melody alongside a flair for dicing samples up into tiny cubes and stacking them like Lego bricks. They bring the same MO to their first full-length, the confusingly anagrammatic ABC Hej I’m Cola, showing all these pimply-faced shoe-staring guitar-strummers how to make a real pop album. Using a jumble of precise edits, melodies culled from conventional instruments and picked clean by digital vultures, with nary a vocal line in sight, Jab Mica Och El succeed where most pop acts fail: in making a joyous, ramshackle collection of three-minute music box miniatures that evoke summertime fun, an album that shimmers like heat rising from the tarmac, ripples like the surface of a crystal-clear swimming pool in the breeze. Beats bob up and down like beach ball volleyball rallies, while an assortment of guitars and wind instruments sip iced tea in plastic chairs, laughing and making a burble of chitchat while keeping an eye on the kids as they splash out into the surf. Jab Mica Och El have all the editing finesse and DSP chops of other electronic acts, but without the self-seriousness and rhythmic machismo their compatriots adhere to. The happiest album I've heard this summer and one of the finest to boot." - Beatroute

"Ever wonder what it sounds like in a cartoon character’s head, or contemplate what sort of music fills a puppet’s daydreams? Jab Mica Och El, a Danish duo, can provide the perfect insight. The ten tracks on their first full length release, ABC Hej I’m Cola, contain a strong dose of undiluted whimsy. Several colaborators, including Sun Ok Papi K.O., participated in this bright, chipper, party of a disc.

Most albums require several listens to comprehend the various moods and tones of the songs, and to obtain a fuller understanding of what the artist is trying to express. Not so with ABC Hej I’m Cola. You’ll either adore it with all your heart (most likely) or have no patience for it (meaning you don’t enjoy fun). Only epic grumpiness could cause this music not to bring a smile to one’s face. The tracks are distinct–there’s no confusing “Jomahab Genskabt” with “Won’t Lovers Revolt Now”–but they are united by the enthusiasm of the music.

The delight of these songs comes in the way everything loosely hangs together through simple repetitions of rhythmic elements while all manner of blips, bleeps, bloops, odd percussion and horns fill in. There’s a rich variety of instrumentation, as if every child in the classroom got his or her own choice of expression from a pile of French horns, marimbas, clarinets, flutes, guitars, and laptops. Yet the music avoids becoming cacophony. No individual note is sustained long, and the different elements come together with a happy serendipity.

The closest analog to this album would be some of the tracks off the soundtrack for the original Katamari Damacy video game. There’s also inspiration from early 8 bit videogames, but the resulting effect is acoustic with some digital doodles. It’s quietly, gleefully played, and simply addictive. Song titles like “U.F.O. Tofu”, “Elf Farm Raffle” and “Step on No Pets” seem to peg this as a children's album, and it does seem like it could appeal to children. All ages will be tempted to sit down with a bucket or rubber band guitar and join in.

This album is recommended for morning drives, where the glee and bump of ABC Hej I'm Cola will undoubtably cut down on road rage and promote happier commutes, and any time there are children around who may be inclined to get bored. Play it loud and make your neighbors think that you have an elf marching band. Most importantly, give it a listen for a quick smile." - Urban Polution

"This record is inexplicably amazing. I kept waiting for the music to kick in after the Tigerbeat6-style easy listening intro – and then I realized the intro was no intro at all… ABC Hej I’m Cola is a complex yet lightweight layering of very subtle splintered electronics and beats with traditional horns, banjos and percussion. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was playing Japanese videogames or taking a relaxing stroll in cloud heaven. If grindcore were yellow, this would be blue." - Slug

"From the same label that brought you Secret Mommy come the similarly playful Jab Mica Och El from Denmark. Unlike Secret Mommy, Jacob and Michael seem less interested in making playful songs out of non-musical sounds (with the exception of the bicycle project) and more intent on making playful songs out of familiar instruments such as the banjo, flute, and tuba. After some laptop manipulation and reorganization, the sounds that emerge feel surprising and spontaneous, warm and real — as if some Appalachian robots got drunk and started to jam until they haphazardly came across a tune. Perfect for your next barbecue (Appalachian, robot, or otherwise)." - 3hive.com

"This local experimental electronic label is becoming a fave. Why? Because CDs such as this Danish duo's latest position DJ music in the playground instead of the boutique. Buzzes and ticks join tubas, banjos and, perhaps, a puking Tickle Me Elmo in 10 zany mixes. A-" -The Province

"So next time you are looking for a CD to listen to while riding your Scooty Puff Junior over the sugary, multi-colored hills of Mars enjoying the playful dances of the little green Martians clad in bright orange spandex, racing the flying rainbowed seahorses to the third pineapple tree past kool-ade lake and basking among the giant tulips with a 64-ounce margarita as miniature orangutans cartwheel in complicated spirals all around you… I suggest the Danish duo Jab Mica Och El. The aptly titled ABC Hej I’m Cola is a microfractured joy of elastic instruments, bouncing blips and bobbing bloops meticulously programmed into structures that would make Frank Lloyd Wright proud. Like The Books on a mammoth sugar rush or the pop side of Mouse on Mars, Jab Mich Och El tweak and bend their instrumentation to its brink before letting it snap back to familiarity evoking infinite grins from the listener. ABC Hej I’m Cola is a fun, light-hearted listen whose musical complication is masked by its caffeinated playfulness." - Music-versity