Jabu Vinyl, CD & Tape 3 Items

Sweet Company Is The Second Album By Jabu. Where Their First Lp, Sleep Heavy, Was An Unflinching Exploration Of Grief, Dark And Disembodied, Sweet Company's Deep, Sedative Soul Feels Like More Of A Lovers' Outing: Optimistic, Becalmed, Looking Outwards As Well As Inwards, And Longing For The Kind Of Human Connections Where Ego And Self-Consciousness Might Dissolve. It Is Perhaps Also An Exhortation To Love And Accept Yourself, To Recover A Lost Innocence And Peace - That Paradise Which Has Always Been Lost. Released Via Their Own Do You Have Peace? Label, Sweet Company Is On The One Hand A Very Intimate And Private-Sounding Work - The Sound Of Life Played Out In A Room, A Bubble, A Home, A Head. The Rhythms Of Everyday Domesticity: Listening To The Plants, Cars In The Street, Voices Through The Wall_. Going To Work, Not Going To Work, Sleeping Heavy Or Not Sleeping At All. Wavering On The Brink Of A Revelation, Of Something Just Beyond The Material World, While You Wait For The Kettle To Boil. The Core Jabu Trio Of Producer Amos Childs And Vocalists Jasmine Butt And Alex Rendall Is Present And Correct. Sweet Company Has The Exhilarating Sweep And Confidence Of A Collaboration Between People Who Trust And Understand Each Other Implicitly, And, Secure In That Knowledge, Are Able To Give The Absolute Best Of Themselves To Us. As Before, Jasmine's Voice Is A Textural, Painterly Instrument, Layered And Blurred Into Abstraction, Resisting The Limits Of Language; The Songs She Sings On Are Portals Into Vast Internal Landscapes Where The Normal Rules Of Gravity Are Suspended, Every Sound Is Smothered In A Cathedral-Like Resonance, And You're Both Fearful And Hopeful That You Might Never Find Your Way Back Out Again. Alex Takes A More Narrative, Confessional And No Less Engaging Pop Tack: As On The Gauzy, Decelerated 2-Step Of 'Lately', With His Masochistic, Self-Mocking Entreaties To "Be Cruel To Me [_] I Like It When You Make A Fool Of Me". Childs Has A True Hip-Hop Fiend's Ear For A Striking Sample, And How...

Young Echo members 'Jabu' return with this milestone – a slowly turning piece about love-sickness and longing... Distilled soul music in it's purest form. From the first beat right through to the final chorus, the brooding tension and almost unbearable tranquility of chester giles' words control time until Alex Rendall - the voice of Jabu - sets in with the chorus, echoing chester's sentiments, elevating this feeling into higher heights.

Single-sided, printed sleeve edition of 500 - hand-numbered.

‘Demos/sketches/interludes from the hinterland between records. Drum machines and single take vocal sketches tied together with downtime synth experiments and recordings of local disappearing areas.’ True as it is, Jabu’s strap-line is a somewhat understated take on what also proved to be a transformative experience for them. The follow-up record to their 2020 sophomore LP ‘Sweet Company’ (and the ensuing ‘Versions’), ‘Boiling Wells’ weaves a smudged, group -mind spell. Originally released earlier this year without fanfare as a digital-only release, it now receives the proper release attention it deserves, issued in a neatly packaged vinyl edition of 300 copies. Dreamlike, woozy, raw and in dub, the album documents a blossoming process, and encapsulates a fragment in time - holed up in the country, soaking up the atmosphere in collective isolation, creatively embracing the limitations of a small recording set-up, and finding a new way to work as a band. “My mum had gone away so we’d decided to take the mixing desk and a couple of drum machines out to her house and set it up in the front room. We did it a couple of times to get the bulk of the tunes on 'Boiling Wells' done, one in summer and one boozy one around Christmas. I think we all immediately enjoyed working that way, sat around all together, more of an immediate thing. Jas started to play a lot more guitar, her and Al would write lyrics on the fly or be programming a drum beat in or something. We were all switching around and getting ideas down really quickly, not worrying too much if they were good or not. The music was limited by the stuff we had there, I didn’t bring a big desk so we only had six channels or so, and everything was basically just recorded in as a stereo take so we were more or less stuck with it after we’d laid it down - which was nice too. I don’t think we would’ve changed them anyway; it was the sound of the room and of us doing it together in the moment that was really important.” There has always been a collaborative heart to Jabu, though its nature has shifted and morphed over time. In their earliest incarnation, in after-school jams, Alex Rendall would rap over Amos Childs’ beats, but by the time they began releasing music in 2012, Al had found his singing voice – a sweet, soulful counterpoint to Amos’ increasingly dub-wise, experimental backing. Both are founder members of Bristol’s Young Echo, a collective of friends and musicians first operating loosely together on radio shows, artistic collaborations and events, and later on, running a record label. As expansive as their original remit was, Young Echo has steadily evolved since featuring in The Wire’s 2013 cover feature on Bristol’s new school of post-dubstep bass music. Of late, Seb (aka Vessel) has been working with violinist Rakhi Singh on string arrangements for Jabu, and the upcoming residency at Bermondsey’s MOT will showcase relative newcomers Birthmark and Intel Mercenary alongside the regular crew. Jabu’s debut album proper, ‘Sleep Heavy’, arrived in 2017 courtesy of Blackest Ever Black. A sublime, focused meditation on grief and loss written largely by Amos and Al, it marked the debut of Jasmine Butt (aka Guest), adding a further layer of vocal texture to their palette. ‘Sweet Company’, their first album written as a trio (released via their own do you have peace? label), drifted into lighter, more ethereal introspection. Featuring guest appearances by Sunun and Daniela Dyson, remixes by Equiknoxx’s Time Cow and Young Echo ‘s Ossia teased out the inherent pop and dub sensibilities respectively. Recent times have also seen remixes by kindred spirits Seekers International and Jay Glass Dubs, and a collaboration with the renowned T.S. Eliot Prize-winning dub Poet and musician Roger Robinson on a pair of plaintive, aching 7” singles. Jabu’s broad raft of inspirations can be experienced first -hand on their monthly NTS Radio show ‘Music 4 Lovers’, co -hosted by long-time friend and soul afficionado Andy Payback. A celebration of the endless tapestry of interrelated musical connections, it runs parallel to Jabu’s own reinterpretation of their influences. For ‘Boiling Wells’, Amos remembers a diet of “A.R. Kane, Cocteau Twins, DJ Screw, Southern/Memphis rap mixtapes, early 90’s jungle, Karen Dalton, Sybille Baier, Vashti Bunyan, Svitlana Nianio, a lot of soul, Armand Hammer & Alchemist, Grouper, Bobby Caldwell. Jazz was a constant, Japanese, Polish, Latin, American…”. And from those diverse strands, something new and singular has formed, to line up alongside them. ‘Boiling Wells (Demos ‘19-’22)’ is released by UK newcomer Six of Swords in a limited vinyl edition of 300 copies, pressed on black vinyl housed in full colour 270 gsm matt varnish sleeve and black paper inner, with full download coupon