Short but sweet, Jupiter is the second album from the shockingly prolific Starfucker. In a world inundated with harsh and distorted dance music, inspired by the success of Daft Punk and, more recently, Justice, Starfucker’s music is sweet and agreeable, with bouncy disco rhythms that gently flow between sampled voices and cymbal crashes like a ball in a pinball machine. These songs rarely stray from fast drum machines and squeaky synthesizers, but for such a comparatively simple record, there’s enough weirdness and interesting detail to make it an adventurous and completely engaging album of music.
Starfucker’s major-key ballads are cheerful and unashamed, evocative of an early Madonna record sliced up by Run-DMC. It’s percussive, but it also includes plenty of unexpected soft moments, like the inclusion of a wonderful Casio rhythm at the beginning of “Boy Toy,” a joyful slice of nonsensical pop that’s the perfect jam for the end of the summer. Their music may be fun, but their talent for production and sampling is all business—the skill with which they cut and slice oddball voices and sounds is staggering.
Undoubtedly, the album’s high point is the incalculably bizarre cover of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” which reinterprets this sugary pop hit as a slinky funk jam-fest. It’s a great example of Starfucker’s talent for creating surprises from the most unlikely places. Without doing anything particularly new or original, they’ve made a record that’s witty, twisted, and strangely, entirely unique.
In A Word: un-Brain
