Montreal duo formed by Patrick Holland and Francis Latreille, Jump Source arrive with a background that sees them as authors of dozens of works under alias and disparate projects: Holland has long recorded as Project Pablo, one of the leading names in the lo-fi house of the 1910s, and Latreille as Priori, dispensing techno and house in a partnership between hypnosis and sound design manneristic. The name comes from Jump Source Studio, the space managed by the duo, a crossroads through which new electronic gurus such as James K and Maara have passed. “Fold” is their long-distance debut album, released on Naff, a label managed by Latreille together with his friend Adam Feingold (Ex-Terrestrial). The distinctive feature is the quantity of vocal guests, each on a different song, among which the Japanese downtempo legend Poison Girl Friend stands out for its undisputed popularity.
The work is a set of vocal tracks laid on solid tech house foundations; the intentions are to revive the period post-millennium bug and feed it to the almost pop freshness of contemporary productions. Far from the first techno EPs of ten years ago, the two shake off any nostalgic latency with a massive and seductive modernization: finding the right balance between the excesses of syncopation and the manipulations of minimalLatreille and Holland try to anticipate the next trends which, due to the twenty-year rule, will perhaps bring that microhouse energetic and playful at the end of the 20th decade. To define the direction, combining academic rigor and colours catchyit is however a collaborative process: as told in an interview with Stereogum, the duo drew up a sort of vocabulary of key words around the identity of “Fold”, then handed it over to the guests so that each could translate it into music in their own way.
In short, a record written more around a shared lexicon than actual lyrics. On the sonic level, the performance is deliberately heterogeneous: it ranges from bright to thoughtful, from faint dub reminiscences to more bouncy electro; Latreille connects this openness to the nature of the French Quebec scene, where in his opinion genres and environments are less separated than elsewhere (“whoever is in a band goes to raves, whoever goes to raves plays in bands”).
The themes are movement, disconnection and the urban environment: life on the roadthe identities that change from one city and time to another, the fleeting connections; the title itself, “Fold”, refers to the idea of intertwining layers and overlapping narratives. Blatantly cheesypandering to the limit of radio rotation but supported by an impeccable attention to sound, is by far the more accessible and catchy work of the two: perhaps too much so, yet never short of personality, and supported by a craft that never misses a beat.
04/07/2026
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
