Brian Eno is supposed to have once called them »the most important band in the world« – before he had even heard them. Doesn’t help, today you have to google to find out more about Man Jumping. The British musicians, most of whom had studied and had previously been active in the not very long-lived avant-garde pop collective The Lost Jockey, had joined forces in 1983 to create a path towards pop by means of funk, rock and »world music«, as they said at the time. They called it »systems music«. Seen from a purely artistic point of view, they did it more than successfully: the now somewhat overused talk of genre transgression with which musicians are praised these days – which, strictly speaking, most of their colleagues have always done – is definitely true of »Jumpcut«, Man Jumping’s debut album. Strictly processual, they brought their record to the dance floor in 1985 without any rigid academic habitus. Which was highly praised by critics at the time. Now they can only renew it, signs of aging are hardly visible, and the digital synthesizers they used for it fit perfectly into the present anyway. By the way, some of the people involved back then, especially Schaun Tozer, John Lunn and Orlando Gough, have meanwhile become successful film music composers. »Downton Abbey«, anyone?
Jumpcut
