Without Zero: JOI

Without Zero, JOI's third album, is not overdue despite being in the works for the past 6 years - since their first release, JOI has captured that rare feature of some music to truly be timeless.  Sure, you can say that a particular break-beat was hot up on 122nd street in '86 but that doesn't been it can be used to still rock a fresh track that you can't recognize as being either new or old - 'We Are Three' and 'One and One is One' haven't tired over the past 6 years and are in now way less listen able now that this new release is on shelves.

Without Zero sees Farook Shamsher collaborate with production outfit Spring Heeled Jack as well as a host of instrumentalists and vocalists including Apeshka Dandekar (whose sister might spring to mind as an MTV India VJ), Bombay's Asian Hendrix, Yazid and Keefe West.

The effect of a multi-talented crew on this album is high degrees of aural texturing through 9 tracks; pieces like The Blessing and Forget Me Not take on a deliciously dreamy flow, washing between the slow-tempo yet driving 4/4 kwaito-style rhythm of What You Are and undeniably funky electriic guitar-supported groove that is Cha Cha Cha.  Titillating dabs and flourishes of tabla and sitar throughout the album seamlessly help construct Without Zero as a perfectly balanced aural landscape - naturally appealing to mind, feet and heart.

Something that many producers creating Indian Electronica are ignoring is that vocals don't have to be used to construct 2 minute songs geared for commercial radio airplay; and by this, they don't need to be avoided when composing music for listening rather than consumption.  JOI have exhibited this truth on three songs: Come Back to Me, What You Are and Show Me Love - they are all perfectly memorable and will have you wistfully peering out of the nearest window full of the best kind of ambiguous nostalgia.

Without Zero is available online on iTunes and at the WOMAD shop. I highly recommend you pick it up today!