Friday, August 20th, 2010

Joemca – Big Dreams

Here’s a line you don’t hear very often: “The puppet world blows my mind.”

We’re not talking about the next generation of Jim Hensons here, either. We’re referring to Joemca’s ongoing relationship with Inkfish, an experimental puppetry troupe that explores the human condition like John Cusack’s string-pulling character in Being John Malkovich. And by exploring the human condition, we mean everything from a “fantasy of Einstein taking back the [atom] bomb” (The Brain) to a moody meditation on war-torn wives (Three Good Wives), with Joemca’s rich, tightly-woven soundscapes scampering across every last scene.

Kind of like how the LA native/New York transplant spent the last year coloring outside the lines of his long-awaited debut LP, 16 Devils. Despite having roots that reach as far back as 2006, the album feels like one seamless collection of love songs that are a little off, a little more real than one verse/chorus, verse/chorus exercise after another. Which makes sense when you think about it. After all, Joemca’s self-titled EP was co-produced by Yoko Ono’s longtime collaborator, Rob Stevens, earning a stack of press clippings.

“My puppet show stuff is a lot more abstract and atmospheric,” explains Joemca, “but my solo songs are more like Sam Cooke — deceptively simple.”