Jean-Paul Bondy--The Path of Most Resistors

Born and raised in Detroit, Jean-Paul Bondy was consumed in his early years with post-rock, new-wave, techno, and industrial music. Hopping between various bands and playing as a hip-hop DJ throughout the city, Bondy eventually decided to move west. He arrived in LA in the early ‘90s, where he further crafted his musical skill by turning his attention to slowed versions of electronica. He continued creating ambient and chillout mixes with various outfits – including Volsoc (as Volum) with Justin Maxwell – before moving to Berlin. Once in Germany, he began work on his first solo composure, The Path of Most Resistors.

The Path of Most Resistors is a relaxing and downtempo collection of well-conceived tunes that play with the ear, while always remaining in the quiet musical shadows. The length of the songs create a lull which disengage the listener from nit-picking the songs, leading them to hear and feel the overall emotion and composure in a track. Bondy mixes in elements of hip-hop as well, as the political call-back opener Something Is Not Right displays. Yet, even this influence is slowed and pulled-back as if Bondy is prescribing each musical piece their own brand of tranquilizer. His early industrial and new-wave experimentations are brought forth in Cold Reformer, a salute to Depeche Mode, and in Dry Humper.

Bondy offers up some dark instrumental magic in Prompted Some Observers—a haunting mixture of electronica pushing its way through his own brand of musical sludge. The entire album flows well from song to song, creating a cloud over when a track ends and when another begins. The most breath-taking track is saved for last. The 12-minute epic Bit By Bit/Ear Worms rounds out the album and overdoes everything that has come before it. Slowly beautiful, it pushes on with glittering effects and twinkles brightly popping and snapping around a morose chill-out beat. For 12 minutes Bondy keeps up the beat, complete with eerie vocals from Rochelle Vincente.

Altogether, The Path of Most Resistors is slow burning composure of beautiful background noise. While some songs, such as Something Is Not Right and Cold Reformer stand strong on their own, the true strength of Jean-Paul Bondy’s creation is as a whole: an hour-long of constant beats that stay in the shadows. Bondy does not make his music pop out and grab you in, rather he lets the groove slowly evolve, until without realizing it there is a solid wall of wonderful sound filling up all the space around you. A good chillout album that goes beyond its objective, The Path of Most Resistors is a highly recommended pick.

(Published at 365Mag.com)