From:       Brussels, BE

Marty McCool Music Reviews
Category: Music

The music of Jean Jovenet (Jay Jay) and Extraballe constitutes something of a musical purification in these times of rampant egomania and celebrity. For Jean Jovenet is a man who is interested in getting back to the essence of what music is about and the heart of the creative process.

‘The Most Secret Man’ is an album that simultaneously reveals and conceals the man that is Jean Jovenet. A mystique has surrounded this artist and this album plays out with the ephemerality of an Autumn day, one you wished didn’t have to end, yet there is a timeless quality to Jovenet’s musical brushstrokes. This album is the mystery of time itself; it is infused with the sadness of time passing and suffused with the memory and tempo of musical eras before the pollution of the art.

Is Jean Jovenet a time traveller? This album firmly begs the question. To me it’s as if Jovenet had a musical time machine to transport and immerse himself in musical eras past and seemingly buried, only to return to us and bring them gloriously back to life. There remains an enlightened few who continue to carry the torch from those great eras of the past and Jean Jovenet is one of its custodians today.
 

This is music of such force and purity that it hoses away the pollution of other so-called rock acts and renews our hope in the genre. Jovenet’s purist approach shines through in the integrity of his music and his writing has gained him justified comparisons to some of the greats such as David Bowie and Jim Morrison. ‘The Most Secret Man’ brings back something of the spirit of Jim Morrison but Jean Jovenet lights his own fire in a time when unique artists are exceedingly hard to come by.

In interviews, Jean Jovenet has expressed his fascination with the creative process and he a man who works at the very coalface of music. ‘The Most Secret Man’ is a complex tapestry of musical influences and colourings but the inescapable impression is of a singular and revolutionary artist who stands uniquely on his own in the postmodern music arena and strips off many of the trappings laid upon it.

I am always intrigued by how some artists seem to be born out of time and it could be said that Jean Jovenet would belong more in the 70s or the 80s, in the eras or Jim Morrison or David Bowie. But then, isn’t it great to have him in the postmodern era to challenge and uplift a music world that is often in desperate needs of transformation?
 

Jovenet writes with a Joycean pen and plays with the panache of a Rolling Stone. The riffs here are infectious, the melodies are insistent. There is just no shaking the experience of listening to this album. A remix by top Producer/Engineer, Dave Pemberton, at famed London studio Strongroom, has resulted in a crisp and finely honed production of Jovenet’s masterful tunes. When Jean Jovenet gets inside your head, he is there to stay. There is now a musical bounty upon Jovenet’s head. As the song suggests “The most secret man” could very soon be “the most wanted man in the world”.
 

Rock may have to rewrite its definitions after this one. (Marty McCool Music Reviews, March 2010)

Marty McCool (journalist/author) is based in the northwest of Ireland and writes for the Finn Valley Voice in County Donegal. He specializes in music and film reviews and has conducted many notable interviews. McCool’s views and writings have appeared in a range of publications from Hot Press (Ireland) to Mass Histeria Music Magazine (USA). He is the founder of Jackson’s Friday Night Music Club for singer/songwriters in Ballybofey, Co. Donegal, Ireland on which he has showcased a range of notable artists from Maria Doyle Kennedy to Sean Keane to Steve Wickham of The Waterboys to Liam O’Flynn of Planxty and Chicagoan singer Michael McDermott. Marty McCool has published two film books – ‘The power of The Passion of The Christ’ and ‘Remembering Private Ryan in Ireland’ and is currently researching a book on the history of music.