To hear it from Jiminy, the artist, “Apocalypse Dance Party,” the just-released single by Jiminy, the band, and Apocalypse Dance Party, the soon-to-be-released EP, were conceived — sort of, the story winds back and forth between Brooklyn, Philadelphia and New Jersey and has several moving parts and is told in one more or less continuous sentence — after Jiminy, the songwriter, spent a month listening to the Philly soul of his youth.

This listening was in Brooklyn, where he now lives.

“And after a month, I just sat on the piano and I was banging out this baseline on the Fender Rhodes,” and here he interrupts the story to sing “bump, bump, bump, bump, bumpety bump, bump, bump” to a melody impossible to render in either print or pixels.

“And I was playing these kind of dark jazz chords, and there was something dark and kind of foreboding about it, like something bad is gonna happen. And in that moment, as I was working it out, the producer that I work with texts me and he’s like, ‘Yo, let’s get this party started,’ meaning, really, get to the studio and start recording stuff, because I’m the writer, right? So, when I read that, ‘let’s get this party started,’ it just hit me – ‘Apocalypse Dance Party.’”

This ain’t foreplay, this is doomsday
…
Surf’s up, tsunami
Pouring down, calamari
Hurricanes, with Bacardi
Armageddon, Dance Part
Apocalypse, Dance Party

And on like that, through disasters alcoholic, biblical and historical, all to a funk, rock, island, EDM, jazzy, banging mix of acoustic and electronic music.

It’s totally ridiculous and fun and awesomely gorgeous.

“I kept seeing people, like the end of the world is happening, and they’re dancing, like in a rave, and I just had this idea to conflate that with death and destruction.”

Paradise, is such a bore,
We deserve a little more
Let’s watch it all burn, it’ll be our turn
To rule the world, feel the heat

“I call it nihilistic bacchanalia,” he said, a beautifully nonsensical phrase, and one he admits stealing from somewhere.

Satire may also be involved, he says. There’s a line in there about feeling the burn, a reference to a famous series of fitness videos, and then this.

“I don’t want to be heavy handed, and I don’t want to be negative about anybody, but I was thinking of, during the pandemic, when there were people hanging out in that big Lake in the Ozarks, and they were all getting onto these giant float boats and drinking beer in the middle of the pandemic, and I was thinking, ‘Okay, that’s kind of stupid.’ But I don’t want to be judgmental.”

He has assembled a huge pool of talent for this project.

Aaron Nevezie is the producer. Jacqueline Ryal, from the band RYAL, does the background vocals. Frank LoCrasto is keyboard and synths and Al Street is on guitar. Drums and bass come from two members of Brazilian Girls, Aaron Johnston and Jesse Murphy, and percussionist Samuel Torres. Jiminy, the artist, also known as Jimmy Harris, does vocals, guitars and piano.

“Those guys just took it to another level,” he said. “Honestly, I’m very lucky to be able to pull together such awesome people for the project. That’s what made it so good.”

New Jersey also figures into the music. Another part of the inspiration was the Jersey Shore dance clubs back in the 2000s, where he listened to people like the Black Eyed Peas and Ludacris.

“I always thought of that music as Jell-O-shots-at-the-Jersey Shore type music, and I wanted the opening song to be fun, like a party song. I wanted to make a Jersey Shore type song.”

Apocalypse Dance Party, the EP, will have six songs in total. Four of them are in “Apocalypse Dance Party” mode, with a darker tone and subject matter.”

Once the EP comes out in a couple of weeks, Jiminy will release a single a week off the EP.

The second song, he said, is “like a new wave dance song, but it’s about cannibalism.”

“The third song is like a Lodger era David Bowie track. It’s about AI but from the perspective of the AI.”

“And then alien invasion.The fourth song is just bonkers. It’s like an EDM industrial whack. I programmed Google Voice to sing all the lyrics.”

He said the inspiration for the music is Gorillaz, Daft Punk, “bands that seamlessly blend electronic and synthesizer music with real drums and stuff.”

Jiminy, the band, built the music by first recording to tape the acoustic instruments, put the electronic rhythm section on tape, and then blended them with “all the modular synthesis stuff that we did in the studio.”

“It was a really, really fun project,” he says.

The fun really, really shows up in the listening.

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