Saturday, October 13, 2007

Jupiter - Arum (1992)

From my perspective, it’s logical of me to deem that Jupiter were Sydney, Australia’s answer to dream-pop. Not only is the music a dead giveaway, but the timing of Arum’s 1992 release couldn’t have been more appropriate.

The enveloping melodic rush of “Leave the Ground,“ kicks things off, and although it’s Arum’s sheer, undeniable apex, the remainder of the album does a decent job of keeping pace with it. Jupiter weren’t exactly the essence of the shoegazer movement of their time, but came within spitting distance. Opting for ambiance over feedback and tremolo, Jupiter were actually more in league with British powerhouses Moose and Slowdive. The trio’s brief detours to chilly post-punk on “New,” and chiming guitar pop, a la early-Stone Roses on “Day 1,” collectively create a worthwhile dynamic here.

Jupiter released one single, both slices of which are here, and contributed two songs to the Slumberland Records Just a Taste compilation are also present and accounted for. Arum, released by Summershine Records, ostensibly contains the group’s entire recorded output. Now that’s what I call unsung.

01. Leave the Ground
02. T
03. Carefully
04. Lost
05. @
06. Sense
07. Glow
08. New
09. Day 1
10. @

11. Meltdown
 

15 comments:

skids said...

well another interesting post, you aren't called "Wilfully Obscure" for nothing, I've never heard of these guys, thanks.

Mark's Wild Web 2.0 Adventure said...

Well W.O.

Great post. I'm actually from Australia and have never heard of these guys - and I'm more than old enough to remember 1992... Though looking at the interweb I discovered they're labelmates of Blindside and Autohaze.

A long winded way of saying nice post!

Thanks,
MM.

qryss said...

Hey there,

I'm the guitarist from Jupiter and I thank you most sincerely for your kind (and pretty accurate) words and assessment of us!

FWIW our absolute heroes at the time were Ride and we got to support them once - I can tell you, it was the pinnacle of my musical career (I'm a web developer now).

:)

Chris Stephens (and still living in Sydney)

qryss said...

Oh, I forgot to say, my favourite tracks to listen to now by far are 't' and 'lost' but I loved playing all of them live - what a blast!

:)

Chris

cheshyr said...

do u have someone another releases of jupiter or song - "what a blast"

Steve said...

Hey Chris, its Stick, remember me, now living on the Central Coast of NSW, still writing and recording. It would be cool to catch up some time.
Cheers
Stick
email me
bookings@thelivebeetle.com

Anonymous said...

Finally a good one!, for hours I have been looking and reading other articles about Jupiter - Arum.
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But back to topic, yours by far has the most interesting, accurate and useful information.
Thanks for sharing and have a nice day.

Kolaboy said...

I got this back in 1992, and it remains a favorite...

qryss said...

If you want to see some live Jupiter action from 1992 you should check out:

http://elucid.org/jupiter

These pages has only been tested on Safari: sorry, but I haven't got around to frigging around with other non-HTML5 video tag / h.264 aware browsers.

:)

Chris Stephens

PS the occasional jumps in the videos are from bad bits of Hi8 tape. It's not our weird timing, honest!

spavid said...

The link has been updated. Thanks.

spavid said...

The link has been updated.

jupiterstef said...

hi, is it possible for this album to be reuploaded? thanks so much :)

NCB said...

Hi ! Could you please please please re-up (once again) ? Thanks in advance...

Anonymous said...

I am deeply humbled by your interest in the music I helped make way back in the 90s. It means a lot to me that you like our music!

You can still access all Jupiter tracks that were released at http://elucid.org/jupiter.

virginia said...

I have recently found this band and have been trying to find more information on it but unfortunately the elucid link does not work for me. If anyone can help me find out more about the band please reach out to sh0eg4zers@gmail.com as I am desperate for information about the lyrics