Journey's end?

Jamiroquai travel without moving

by Richard C. Walls

The last three-fourths of the British neo-soul space-cadet group Jamiroquai's name indicates, according to the band's lead vocalist and catalyst, Jason Kay, his "affinity for the Iroquois nation." Fair warning. Young musicians who so boldly assert their Rousseaunian bent can be counted on to be philosophical dribblers. No surprise, then, that the combo's latest, Traveling Without Moving (Work), fairly shimmers from its huge deposits of Day-Glo cosmic cool.

Actually, Jamiroquai's first two albums, Emergency on Planet Earth and The Return of the Space Cowboy, were big hits in Britain, and this third one has already shot up the Brit charts and faded. Stateside they've been only a blip, though some kind of breakthrough looms, since their latest video, "Virtual Insanity," sits (as I write) at the #5 position on the MTV chart and the album has climbed to #51 on the Billboard 200. Possibly you've seen the video -- it's the one with the guy wearing the Mad Hatter topper and dancing on a treadmill-like floor, traveling without moving and vice versa. It's a catchy song, and Jason Kay, who sounds like a young, somewhat buttery Stevie Wonder, has the kind of oddball persona that makes you think the lyrics, which you can't quite catch, may be worth a closer listen.

But they're not. Jamiroquai's lyrics are the kind of hippie, pseudo-tribal (apologies to the Iroquois) balderdash that have plagued rock ever since the Beatles dropped acid. You know: the world is an evil place but if we just love one another we can change it and technology is bad too because it has no heart and why don't we kick back and get high but not on crack because that's evil too, yada yada yada. Brits, it seems, are especially susceptible to this sort of thing, especially when it's served up as a pan-ethnic musical stew. Having produced little of homegrown musical originality since Robin Hood was a pup, they still lust after the aura of those exotic Others (Yanks included), happily groping the musical fruits of former colonies with a dicy combination of respect and arrogance. Relevant here is Amiri Baraka's observation circa 1964 and re the original British Invasion that at least the Rolling Stones actually looked like thieves. Or, as George Harrison never said, I've got a right to put Indian instruments on my little rock song because we used to own the fucking country.

But I digress. Obviously this disc has put me in a foul mood (though I feel much better after that last paragraph), and I'm in danger of being unfair. Jamiroquai really aren't all that bad -- smooth, goes down easy. As is so often the case with young seekers, the jazz influence, fortunately slight, comes from the '70s pop-fusion era -- a period, younger listeners may be surprised to hear, of excruciating atrophy in the genre. So nice to hear jazz's pitiable death throes being recycled as hip touchstones. Jesus wept.

Okay, let me try again. There is a space on the album where the group maneuver around my crankiness. It starts with the song "Drifting Away," a reggae number that probably was meant as a commentary on apathy but that, through a subtle blurring of reference and representation, becomes an example of that great empty state itself (sample lyric: "La la la la/La la la la/I don't know/Where I'm going/I don't know/Where I'm going)." This is followed by an instrumental called "Didjerama," on which a didjeridoo supplies a rather randy "om" sound while birdsongs, percussion, and assorted electronic twitters hover. Brazenly static, it's the aural equivalent of the previous song's lyrics. A pretty ballsy bit of avant-gardism. But then they go and ruin it with a follow-up instrumental, "Didjital Vibrations," that's a dinky muzak tossoff.

One final huff of indignation: I see this disc is #8 on the Rolling Stone alternative-music chart. I realize it's old news that the word "alternative" has become meaningless, but still . . . I mean, my mother could get down with this album and she's what? Seventy-three? That doesn't make any sense. I guess maybe it's just a mean old world after all.

Jamiroquai play Harborlights this Monday, June 2. Call 423-NEXT.