NOTES: G Jones’ songs tow the line between a serene state of flow and sensory overload. They’ve got ambient chords that melt into one another, rhythms that pull the club floor out from beneath you. Whenever I figure out which beat to bang my head to, something screeches in and up-ends the track.
He’s great at conjuring strange moods through sound design. Time and Immortal Light’s rumbling basses are sinister, Drift and Iridescent’s plucks are mysterious, A2C2I2D’s glitchy drums are playfully bouncy, and Remnant’s piercing melody is euphoric but melancholy. They borrow from genres as diverse as acid, drum & bass, techno, neo-trance, and IDM1.
It’s hard to show restraint in these genres when each chases different extremes of tone, speed, and sheer loudness. Once you’re familiar enough to tell jungle from drum & bass, they can feel stale. But G Jones re-uses classic sounds in bizarre ways2. He makes the rave-equivalent of sushi rolls out of the ingredients for a PB&J, and it always tastes better than the original thing.
I rarely listen to (non-shoegaze) albums the whole way through. I’ll leave almost anything by G Jones on for an afternoon though. He makes me excited about where electronic music might go next, as countless artists like him undo and remake the sounds I grew up to3. His album PATHS came out this October! It builds on a discography45 of bizarre songs I’ll keep coming back to.
I hope you find one you enjoy!
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>G Jones at Digital Mirage (TW: photosensitivity/flashing lights)
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For a great history of how G Jones interacts with the genres, I recommend Cult Figure Club’s video on him!
Links are to tracks I like in each, there’s way too much to listen to to say that these tracks are definitive and representative.
DRUM & BASS: prsm transformation, xxhardbit3s
TECHNO: Halycon, Deapmash
NEO-TRANCE: Ghost Voices, Virtual Self
IDM: On, Aphex Twin
NOTE: Strobing/flashing lights appear in almost every visual out of the links below.
This is also why I love Porter Robinson’s Virtual Self project! It re-introduced me to parts of 2000’s era trance and breakcore that I’d written off as outdated.
While I found G Jones through a friend’s recommendation, I was fully hooked after G Jones’ performance in Robinson’s SECRET SKY 2020 festival. I wish I got to see them finally performing together live, at Robinson’s SECOND SKY 2022 festival!
Remnant in particular reminds me of the feeling I had discovering Marshmello’s Summer on TrapCity in 2015— a cheesy, optimistic melody over relentless drums and shimmering background sounds. It’s also kind of like the muted lead melody in Skrillex’s Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites (from 2010!).
They’re linked throughout the piece, but I figure a list of the concerts/albums mentioned might help!
The Ineffable Truth (2018)
Tangential Zones (2019)
LIVE at SECRET SKY (2020)
LIVE at Digital Mirage (2020)
PATHS (2023)
I.. did not expect to see Ujico (aka Snail’s House) in the comments section of the LIVE at Digital Mirage Set. Ujico! Of Hot Milk and Grape Soda fame! Ujico dominated the Kawaii Future Bass genre in the mid-2010’s, sharing anime-aesthetics with lofi-hiphop. I’m a bit sad that lofi seems to have outlived Kawaii Future Bass, it was unhinged fun in an entirely different lane than G Jones’ grim bangers.
