Orange JeLy – Working From Home (EP Review)

Working From Home is the new four-track extended play by South London musician Orange JeLy, real name Steve Jenkins. Orange JeLy is joined on vocals by his daughter, Lois.  

Steely drumming and percussion and a crunchy guitar kick us off on the EP’s first song, ‘We Never Saw Us Coming’. This instrumentation gives the song a rock music and upbeat feel to it. Orange JeLy doesn’t waste time in introducing the vocals, singing with a baritone male voice. 

His voice is pleasing, but he only sings about two lines, and Lois’s voice – singing rather faintly – comes along.

Here’s his singing before Lois joins in:

‘I never saw you coming…. when you blew me apart….’

I would have loved him to sing more than just these lines before accompaniment. It’s an unused opportunity, and I feel this takes away from the listener who prefers sustained singing.    

There are times where Lois is barely audible, but there are times when you can hear her alright like when she sings: ‘You made me fall in love with you’. Although Orange JeLy starts the song, I feel that Lois takes a much larger role.

On a technical issue, this is a pretty long track for two reasons. The first reason is that two songs on the album are just over two minutes. The second reason pertains to the lyrics. At four minutes, the story we’re being told here has not been developed fully to warrant such length.

Orange JeLy makes upbeat, or joyous, music. That’s what I tell myself when I start listening to the second song on the EP, ‘Hey Taylor (I Did Something Bad!)’. The song starts with a laugh, and you would probably be in too bad a mood not to be hooked by that laugh.

Steel drumming gives us one of the track’s sounds, but this time we get a soulful guitar rather than a crunchy one. The mixture of the drumming (kick actually) and the soulful guitar licks, to say nothing about Lois’s vocals, is a deadly combo. This is one of those songs you can just jam to and forget whatever the lyrics are trying to say. Speaking of this song, Orange JeLy says that the song references 16 of Taylor Swift song titles. Taylor Swift is everywhere, but she’s not on my radar that much. If you compare the instrumentals of this song and the previous one, I prefer this one. However, I again feel that the lyrics – or their vocalisation – are a problem.

The instrumentation on ‘I Got A Guitar – Part 1 (Dreaming)’ is almost similar to what we have on ‘Hey Taylor’, perhaps not as impressive. However, if my problem with the first song was that I didn’t get sustained singing, this song shuts me up.

‘When I was younger, music was everything’, we hear. The song references searching for music at record stores. We hear Orange JeLy saying that they were never happy to be part of the crowd, expending their efforts in making their own sound. They talk about joining a band, and then admitting that they never quite made it. Say what you will of the song, but thematically it speaks to the aspirations and challenges of being a musician. Artists, even those not musicians, can surely relate to ‘the struggle’, if you will.

We then close the EP with on ‘I Got A Guitar – Part 2 (Daydreaming)’. Starting the song just with the guitar gives the song a different feeling from all those that went before. The guitar and the vocals ,which are rather drawn and laidback, give the song a meditative quality it. The drums do come in, but I feel that they do take away from a song. Lyrically, the song talks to themes that some will relate to: we hear of it not being fun to be broke. ‘Broke’ is made to rhyme with the story of our character not being able to afford drinks and smokes. We also hear of them travelling in an ancient jalopy. A cynical song, if you will. But they don’t give up and hope for the best from their songs.

I think this is the best song off the EP. ‘I’m gonna get rich, bitch!’ we hear. The singer’s expressive and playful. And at the end of the song, you realize that they were in a dream.

SCORE/Outstanding: Three of the songs on the album are quite ordinary and probably poorly executed, so it’s kinda crazy that I’m giving it the score of ‘outstanding’. My score is perhaps based on the last song, which I think brilliant. Say what you will, but there’s something about a song that perhaps touches you on a deeper level you can’t even articulate. This is the kind of music you would want to hear. As for that last song, it reminds me of Nickelback’s ‘Rockstar’ – and you know what they say about ‘Rockstar’? Although it’s like the coolest song out there, it’s still got a bad reputation!   

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