Description
The Otherly Opus is the tenth full-length studio album by the American synthpop band Joy Electric, released on Tooth & Nail Records in March 2007, distributed by EMI CMG Distribution. The album was recorded at Ronnie Martin’s Electric Joy Toy Company Electronic Music Workshop with Andy Prickett of The Prayer Chain fame as tape and vocalisation engineer.
The Otherly Opus is the fifth and final volume in the Legacy Series, noted as “Moog Dynasty Years Volume 2”. The album includes some of the most intricate vocal work on a Joy Electric album to date. Thematically, the album is split in two-halves. The first half is known as “The Otherly Opus,” while the second half is “The Memory of Alpha,” a mini concept album about antediluvian times. The album’s companion EP, Their Variables, contains remixes of all songs on The Otherly Opus as well as two new songs.
The same year Ronnie Martin did also release The Brothers Martin, a collaborative album recorded together with his brother Jason Martin of Starflyer 59 fame.
A year and a half after the release of Joy Electric’s then most left-field and cryptic work to date, The Otherly Opus arrives as a clear progressive development of the warmer, fuller sounds of the menacing The Ministry of Archers. While resembling the song writing of its forerunner, Ronnie Martin has chosen to steer things in a fresh direction musically for his new release – The Otherly Opus is a “vocals” album, melodically rich and deeply layered, the synths reigned-in and controlled like never before, producing a sound that feels nearly symphonic in nature and approaches an epic whimsical scope similar to the fan and critical favorite The White Songbook, marking The Otherly Opus as one of Joy Electric’s most outstanding and distinctive albums yet.
As Ronnie himself inclines, Joy Electric has always remained in a relatively similar style throughout the decade and a half of the band’s career. A clear refinement in song writing can be sensed through each new album progressively, and in many ways, The Otherly Opus carries on this refinement. The new songs are all fantastically catchy and memorable, familiar to past Joy Electric staples of nostalgic ballads, fantastical pop-punk, and danceable bubbly pop. But while this feels whole and through like a new Joy Electric recording, The Otherly Opus feels musically unlike anything that the band has put out before.
A thick chorus of vocals dominate every song, both enriching lead melodies and dynamically stressing them with counter-melodies and starker underlying tones. The synths are still certainly there, but they now play a lesser – though not less important than – role in the music alongside the spectacular vocals. It’s an orchestra of sound that Ronnie has crafted, sheds the structured and mechanical nature of most of the rest of the Legacy series, while still remaining in the construct of Joy Electric’s signature quirky pop.
The duality of The Otherly Opus’s themes is apparent – the first half is classic Joy Electric, the latter a collection of songs dealing with Biblical antediluvian accounts – but not so much that the album in its entirety feels out of balance. There are elements of mythical whimsy in the first half (the title-track) and melancholic nostalgia in the second («Ponderance Need Not Know»), and most of the lyrics throughout remain uniformly cryptic. With a couple moments of extreme lyrical repetition, it is combined the most potentially difficult element of the new album, and may take some patience to get used to.
Though that initial period of patience and training on the part of the listener exists, this is still an amazing recording, possibly the most melodically rich and unique collection of pop songs ever released by Joy Electric, nullifies many of the criticisms laid against the band in the past – weak vocals, a lack of progressive style – and asserts unquestionably that Joy Electric is one of the most worthwhile bands in the Christian industry. It’s the result of a hard-working and unfortunately oft disregarded artist staying true to his love for his craft, and the result is something brilliant. It may not appeal to many, but The Otherly Opus deserves my highest recommendation possible and could end up being one of the best pop records of the year. [Jonathan Avants, The Phantom Tollbooth, 3/31/07]
Laziness is not a word that you would use to describe Ronnie Martin. This is his 21st release under the Joy Electric moniker since 1994 not including remixes, production credits and side projects The Foxglove Hunt and The Brothers Martin. With obvious influences of acts like The Human League and Ultravox, ‘The Otherly Opus’ continues Joy Electric’ distinctive brand of analogue-purist electro-pop. It’ also the fifth album of the ‘Legacy’ series, in which Joy Electric coaxes all manner of sounds from just a single synthesiser. What sets this release apart from his older world though, are the vocals. From the upbeat «Red Will Dye These Snows Of Silver» to the atmospheric «Ponderance Need Not Know» his voice play a much greater part than ever before, and in many ways a bigger role than the music. Layers of Martin’s vocals weave in an out of complex synthesiser lines in a choir-like fashion. . . sort of. Maybe a choir conducted by Gary Numan. If you can get past the irregular sounds that Joy Electric crafts it becomes apparent that each song is a pop gem, and the album an exciting listen. [Ben Hurrell, Cross Rhythms, January 2008]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-otherly-opus/715576142)
CD tracklist:
01. The Otherly Opus – 3:11
02. Frivolity And Its Necessities – 3:09
03. Colours In Dutch – 2:37
04. The Ushering In Of The Magical Era – 5:14
05. Write Your Last Paragraph – 3:29
06. The Memory Of Alpha – 3:26
07. Red Will Dye These Snows Of Silver – 2:26
08. (The Timbre Of) The Timber Colony – 3:06
09. Ponderance Need Not Know – 2:55
10. A Glass To Count All The Hours – 3:13
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