Demsky - Jugaad

A Closer Listen

A Toronto beatmaker now livng in Tokyo, Demsky once released a trip-hop track titled Cold Coffee and recently played a set in a donut shoppe.  If that’s not enough to become enamored with the performer, just check out the brilliant artwork from Hagen Schönfeld, who beautifully illustrates the concept.  Jugaad is a Hindi word that refers to solving problems in a creative, resourceful fashion, while using limited resources, like MacGyver.  In this case, it means an offbeat, freeform approach to music.

While listening to the EP’s first single, “Patterns That Shimmer,” one first notices the drum machine, the synthetic chimes, the ebullient timbre.  But then the music shifts, wrapping back around to its early, more acoustic moments.  There’s more than one thing going on here at once, and sometimes it’s hiding beneath the surface.  The most timely track (due to the summer release of “The Fantastic Four: First Steps”) is “Silver Surfer,” whose futuristic, space-like sheen glimmers like the stars in the reflection of the board and its rider as they travel through the stars.  Two-thirds of the way in, one realizes that the journey is not a straight line.  “Reminisce” briefly breaks into an electro segment before adding violin, which washes over the listener like revelation, personifying Jugaad.  Counterintuitively for a beat-driven release, the most euphoric segment arrives when the beats disappear.

In the closing track, a narrator speaks of “patterns that shimmer and happen again and again.” Realizing that these words hearken back to the instrumental single, one realizes that Demsky is introducing a secondary theme of global connection that may – if embraced – lead to a feeling of unity.  Warm music such as this has a calming effect, producing a shimmer of good will.  As “Earth” slows down, the implication is simple yet clear: it’s time for us to slow down as well, to wonder at the patterns, the synchronicities, the commonalities woven through our lives.  (Richard Allen)