I certainly don’t know the answer to the question from the title, but I’ m not even bound to try. Doesn’t sound too appetizing. But what I did try out is a/s/l? the first (will there be more?) album by Hamjam. And that one is quite tasty, thank you!
Hamjam actually does stand for something - nicknames of the two participants in this project - Hamish ‘Ham’ Rahn and James ‘Jam’ Ireland. Both guys hail from Perth, Australia, a place where some great music originated from, like the inimitable The Triffids, or modern psychedelia purveyors like Pond and Methyl Ethel.
Oh, wait for a second, both of these two guys in Hamjam are actually touring with both Pond (James currently plays drums for them) and Methyl Ethel (Hamish on guitar and keyboards), a relatively good indicator of what you can expect on a/s/l? (whatever that is supposed to mean). They themselves describe it as ‘blissed out sadness’ and the music does have all those psychedelic traces from the guys connected to Pond and Methyl Ethel.
What Ham and Jam add to good guitar licks and harmony vocals is an electronic undercurrent that gives the music an additional dimension not often found in what you would consider a psych sound.
That blissed out sadness the guys mention might have something to do with a strange illness called “Pilonidal Sinus” which kept him away from almost anything for a few months. Such events usually make you enjoy every moment when they eventually pass, particularly something like playing music.
And that is evident all over a/s/l?. The guys obviously enjoy playing the electronic psych pop they have come up with, and they should. Listening to it you notice that this, on the surface uncomplicated music has all these intricate details that give it a touch of the unknown, which is particularly refreshing when with other albums you are bound to keep guessing where certain ideas have come from.
Still, Hamjam plays a psych pop variant, but they make you forget to try and decipher their sources and let you enjoy the music they made just for what it is. So to get back one more time to the question - do ham and jam go well together? You can guess the answer.
