A dream job that is unfortunately already taken: doing the styling for the amazing Gen Z jazz duo Domi & JD Beck. Their debut album “Pussy With Balls” (that’s what they wanted to call it) is now titled NOT TIGHT (which is also great, especially for jazz…) and all concerns have vanished: it does the fast-paced, in confusingly convoluted meter played and highly complex syncopated drumset-keyboard dialogues of the two quite good, if a few stars join in here and there.
The album features Thundercat, Anderson.Paak, Mac DeMarco, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes and Herbie Hancock, no problem. But since we’re in the style column, I want to celebrate how Domitille Degalle, 22, and JD Beck, 19, style — or get styled with professional help? I couldn’t find out. He’s wearing flared jeans that are far too wide for his center-parted, permed fringe, a kind of denim cape and these ingenious skate sneakers by Mihara Yasuhiro. Their rubber soles look like they’ve gotten too hot and gone out of shape.
Jazz kids who are quirky and love high fashion, what more could you ask for!
Domi cultivates her idiosyncratic Barbie-Chanel cosplay look, or wears an Age of Aquarius Versace ensemble of mini-skirt and gold-button suit jacket. With the oversized Harley Quinn ponytails left and right, it looks crazy good. Jazz kids who are quirky and love high fashion, what more could you ask for! He wore a pink and red denim ensemble from Maison Margiela’s women’s collection, with a cropped jacket, to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. For the live session at Vevo Studio, also available on YouTube, she wore a V-neck cardigan and pant combo from JW Anderson’s brilliant strawberry collection. I can’t get enough of it!
Don’t hear either. Which brings me to the question, which is often not that easy to answer in pop music: do the looks support the sounds, or, conversely, do they perhaps even deafen you a bit for the fact that the music isn’t all that spectacular? If I haven’t looked around the web in the completely wrong corners, at least there don’t seem to be any long-established jazz daddies who complain and claim that the hype surrounding the duo has more to do with fashion than with musical genius. No, even the jazz daddies are convinced. And happy to see something a little more interesting than Zildjian and Nord Keyboards merch t-shirts.
This column first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 10/2022.