The year is two thousand and twelfth, it’s summer, the bright metropolis is slowly giving way to the first signs of the Sunday sun, and you’re not in bed yet. The freshness of the dawn after an unforgettable night does not manage to take away the warmth that you renew again and again by spinning “Midnight City” for an hour already from the headphones. It doesn’t even matter anymore that the first bus is just as far away, M83 rides on some unique frequencies. Twelve years later, it’s Friday, and who knows which morning bus you’re taking to work. Just a little more and the weekend is here. The notification on the phone says that a new album is out today St. Vincent. The fourth song really has a good rhythm. It’s on the drums Grohl, that’s all okay. Who is this peeling bass? Um. A colleague at work sends you a very good link Beck’s songs. Fretless the bass simply rushes to the track “Debra“, what is this? Who is this? That’s the biggest phantom behind the alternate legends, sir Justin Meldal-Johnsen.
Although naysayers (well, the editor too) will say “Bass player again… this one’s biased!”, the best instrument in the world is only part of a huge puzzle called Justin Meldal-Johnsen (hereafter WYD). This multi-instrumentalist from Los Angeles has been sweeping the music scene for almost thirty-five years. At the age of seventeen, he met Beck Hansen, with whom he began a decades-long friendship, during which he happened to be a member of his legendary friend’s band. But JMJ’s musical beginnings are not actually on Beck’s recordings, not in his beloved post-punk, but in an indie rock band This Great Religion. The short-lived and even shorter-range band was the threshold to bigger engagements, so in the mid-nineties, he also worked with a hip hop duo. Circle Of Power. With his friend, composer and conductor David Campbell, he worked on “Louder Than Hell” thing Manowar, but almost immediately returned to alternative waters. Appearing on the Dakota version of the song “Hey Jupitercode Tori Amos it will be a great start for another long-term cooperation. At the end of the nineties, he spent most of his time with Beck in the studio and on stage, and he was not absent from Amos releases either.
In various capacities, Justin Meldal-Johnsen’s name also appeared among French legends AIR and English-Bulgarian favorites Ladytron („Light & Magic“, 2002), ali i kod Macy Gray, which is a testament to his incredible musical range. This branching was probably also the reason for its popularity in music circles, and Justin very quickly played at everyone’s favorite Nelly Furtadoon the album “Folklore“, but also the far more famous one “Loose” from 2006. They also made sure that it didn’t slip completely into the pop water Garbagewith whom he played on megahits such as “Why do you love me?“ i „Sex is not the enemy“. Through a network of acquaintances, he even managed to play the double bass with his favorite alternative band from this period – The Mars Voltomno less than on “Televators” on the famous masterpiece, the album “De-Loused in The Comatorium“.
In just a few years at the beginning of the 2000s, JMJ managed to play with The Mars Volta, Garbage, Nelly Furtado, Macy Gray, P!nk, all the while staying true to Beck and Tori Amos. At the end of the first decade of this century, he briefly became a member Nine Inch Nailsawith which he released “Live from Rehearsals” for a free album “The Slipfrom 2008. In addition to this release, JMJ also joined the prestigious list of members of the NIN live band, as one of those who were given a little break by the always controlling Reznor. In the community of fans of this industrial collective, you can still hear regret for the grooves that this man brought to the stage. “God Given” from the album “Year Zero” will never sound as good as when Mr. Meldal-Johnsen is on bass.
He spends the following years playing for everyone in turn, from Kid Rock do Jason Mraz, so it is not surprising that at one point it was grabbed by the French M83. To this day, the famous French favorites have not recorded an album stronger than “Hurry up, we’re dreaming“, and the aforementioned “Midnight City” is engraved in both chambers of the heart of the generation of Millennials to this day. Although he collaborated with the French dream pop band on almost every subsequent release, the heights of 2011 were never reached again. After that he even worked on Drake’s album from 2013, “Nothing Was The Same“. In the same year, he started a nice collaboration with the legendary Paramoreom, on their self-titled fourth album. The collaboration lasted at least one more album, so Justin Meldal-Johnsen’s bass and keyboards can also be heard on the band’s fifth album, “After Laugher“.
He officially ended his collaboration with Beck in 2016 with, apparently, friendly emotions. The last Beck album on which we hear Justin is the extraordinary “Morning Phase” from 2014. Although the perception of Beck Hansen is such that we all mostly think that he is the only factor responsible for that nonchalant sound and light melodies, the fact is that Meldal-Johnsen left his deep mark on the music of this Californian singer-songwriter. First of all, on the mentioned song “Debra” with “Midnight Vultures” and on one of the best albums in the recent history of pop music – “Sea Change“Sea Change” critics call Beck’s equivalent of Dylan’s “Blood on The Tracks” (primarily because it is a response to the divorce he was going through at the time), while “Debra” is often considered Beck Hansen’s best song. Would it be without being incredibly sexy fretless bass lines? We wouldn’t say. After all, he wouldn’t Edgar Wright forever put in the movie “Baby Driver“, for God’s sake!
Of the recent releases, you can hear Meldal-Johnsen on the band’s last album Deafheavenbut also at Annie Clarke aka St. Vincent. This uncanny ability to blend into any genre probably came from a multitude of influences from British post-punk to new wave and from first collaborations with different artists. He is one of the younger people who earned a signature model of the instrument, so he is Fender in the meantime kicked out JMJ Mustang Bass. Since he is also a producer at the same time as playing, he made sure that the bass “cuts” through the mix properly, which, after all, has been a characteristic of his sound for more than thirty years.
There is no doubt that in the coming years we will listen to albums on which Justin either played bass, or wrote music, or arranged an orchestra or even produced. Of all the ten musicians covered in this column so far, Meldal-Johnsen has the most diverse repertoire (if we don’t count the drummers). In what direction life and music will take JMJ, it remains to be seen, and the chances that it will be on an album that will acquire cult status are higher.
Source: balkanrock.com
