The Jessica Stuart Few
Kid Dream

Sometimes I wonder how many musicians are secretly marketing executives in disguise. This is probably just due to my irrational fear of executives, marketing or otherwise, but nevertheless, the Jessica Stewart Few are one such example.

Their website advertises them as a blend of jazz and indie pop, which as I am trying to imply, is a brilliant, brilliant idea for making money off of dirty, twenty-something hipsters.
Both jazz and indie music are supposedly pretentious and artsy and there are no two qualities that hipsters like more. So reading about a fusion of the two made me excited in ways that I’m not allowed to talk about in a public forum.

However, what quickly became clear is that jazz and indie pop work well together in the same way that broken shards of glass and my eyeballs work well together. Call me a depressive, but the whole of Kid Dream is way too upbeat and cheerful. It is, in fact chirpy and annoying.

Oddly enough, the one song that is actually quite excellent is not at all a fusion of jazz and pop. “Climb the Mountain” comes along halfway through the album and left me wondering if I’d accidentally set my iTunes to shuffle and come across a long- forgotten track that was actually good.

This, unfortunately, turned out not to be the case.

While every other song is the same retread of the first track on the album, “Climb the Mountain” displays Jessica Stuart’s ability to play the koto, a thirteen-stringed traditional Japanese harp. This is flouted on the band’s website with complete impunity so I really wonder what made them feel that it was only really worth showcasing on one song.

If I had to pick another song that shows that Kid Dream isn’t a total flop, “Epic” is probably the one I’d choose. It’s not quite so happy and Stuart actually sounds like she is trying to sing jazz. The rest of the album is pretty much one giant upbeat mess. “White Rice, Brown Sugar” really takes the prize for being utterly cliché.

Overall the “jazz influence” really comes across as just that—an influence. The band doesn’t have the technical skill of a classic jazz artist and the pop elements are basically just irritating. I’m sure that the Jessica Stuart Few are just the sort of thing that yuppie CBC3 lovers will fight over like the last Starbucks latte on the block, but fortunately for us all, I don’t have Ugg boots and I hate coffee.

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