"... a sunny escape, an oasis of happiness, a celebration of music so joyful that it is impossible to resist its infectious melodies" (Popnews, France).
Jack And The’ is a pop project led by Julien Lonchamp, a Frenchman in exile in Edinburgh. On the 22th February 2016 Jack And The’ will release their second album Melody Cycle on Folkwit Records (UK), Hot Puma Records (Belgium) and WeWant2Wecord (France). The ambition behind Melody Cycle is to combine catchy melodies influenced by 60s’ pop with rich orchestrations and cascading harmonies, in the tradition of the great orchestral pop records. The story behind Melody Cycle is one of patience, with the album taking four years of painstaking work to produce.
Written and recorded in Edinburgh, Dublin and Nancy (France) over two years, Melody Cycle features no less than 18 musicians, including a brass quintet and the 7-piece Apostrophe Ensemble. Clarinet, trombone, vibraphone, cello but also banjo or sitar populate the 18 tracks of the album, with the band going full circle between pop, chamber music and jazz. Julien then took a full year to assemble the different elements for each song into a coherent body of work, and the final mix was eventually mastered at Castlesound Studios in Edinburgh. The album was preceded by the release of the two EPs Saharian Sands (Dec 2014) and Dinner at the Andersons’ (March 2015).
In contrast Jack And The’s debut album Vacation (a pop manifesto) was written during Julien’s unfortunate PhD in food science in Dublin. Swapping research on lettuce aromas for home recording, Julien then entrusted his songs to the crème de la crème of French pop producers (Orwell, Variety-Lab and Cascadeur). Originally available in Thailand via Smallroom Records, Vacation was released on Folkwit Records (UK) in 2012.
The band has performed as a five-piece in the UK, France and Ireland and set up their own series of gigs in Edinburgh and Glasgow named Pop Exchange. Jack And The’ will be touring Melody Cycle in the UK, France and Belgium in Spring 2016, and word on the street is that they might well be trying to pack the Apostrophe Ensemble in their luggage for a few gigs…
