One of the many great bands from legendary New Zealand indie label Flying Nun, the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience put out three albums between 1986 and 1993. Idiosyncratic yet fitting in snugly with the burgeoning indie rock in America and the UK at the time, the band’s unique work has been collected, remastered, and repackaged in a terrific set called I Like Rain: The Story of the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, which features not only all three albums but a bevy of bonus tracks as well.
Taken from 1989’s The Size of Food, “Elemental” is a fascinating little sonic experiment, plaintive and dissonant at the same time, and the remastered track can be heard below.
“[It’s] one of our first experiments with a looped drumbeat and a strummed bass guitar,” bassist/singer David Yetton says. “It’s one of those ‘pure’ love gets trashed and trodden on by reality (and retarded New Age workshops) type of songs. With a vague nod to Brian Eno’s line about needles in camel’s eyes slipped in for good measure.”
I Like Rain: The Story of the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience will be released 7 August on Fire Music.