Jumpel began life in 2005 when Jo Dürbeck, formerly of the German band Bones, began to write and record his own music. Prior to Bones, Jo’s formative musical experiences involved playing with empty detergent cans, boxes and a piano in his parents’ cellar. In 1986 he bought a Commodore C-64 computer and discovered electronic music.

Jo played keyboards, samples and loops in Bones, who over the course of eight years released three albums and seven singles with EMI Germany, and played over 400 gigs in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. Then, after splitting up the band, Jo and Rene (Bones’ singer) founded their own company and studio and started writing and producing music for films. They wrote scores for numerous films and documentaries, and won the award for Best Score at the Filmfestival Valencia in 2006.

Despite its obvious mastery of the dizzying possibilities afforded by technology, Jumpel’s debut album Samuel Jason Lies On The Beach (released August 2007 through Hidden Shoal Recordings) is a work of intense intimacy and humanity. The album serves as a testament to the power of careful distillation and minimalism, exuding an emotional complexity that belies its seemingly simple surface. Tracks were borne out of discrete nocturnal recording sessions where ideas sparked from a range of disparate sources: an old drum machine, a radio announcement, a forgotten guitar chord. Through a process of layering and weaving, the album began to take shape. Opaque electronic textures act like sinew, binding themselves to piano and string melodies. The result is an album that must be heard as a whole, yet seems to exist without a real beginning or end. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.