Description
And so, full of his life, came
not to the falls, the whirlpool or the cliff
but to the brim
and held a moment above it
seeing everything.
Bristol trio Jabu return with their third album ‘A Soft and Gatherable Star’.
The album takes its name from a poem written by Childs’ father, another of his poems, which forms the backbone of 'Ashes Over Shute Shelve' hangs on the wall in the studio.
‘It feels like there’s a lot of hope in it in a way, even though I always read it as a poem about death (and I think it was about his approaching death) there’s something beautiful in it, seeing it as a chance to see things from a new perspective rather than something to be afraid of.’
The album feels like a meshing into a kind of group think for the band, allowing influences to bleed together and allowing songs to exist as they appear - rather than trying to shape or mould them.
There are echos of early influences bleeding through too, Rendall remembers tapes of Luther Vandross in the car with his mum - you can hear the ghosts of those straight-to-the-heart vocals, but everything extraneous has been stripped away, leaving just voice, feedback and guitar.
‘We came to this album in a bit of a different way than the previous ones, it naturally came to a place where we were all playing instruments together, none of us are really proficient musicians or anything but we enjoyed working like that, bouncing ideas off each other in a more immediate way’
Recorded between Bristol and Childs’ Mum’s house just outside the city, the album feels like a dreamlike exploration of time and place, lost teenage memories pushing their way back, or a non descript landmark looming suddenly large.
‘…being alone in the dark in these patchwork areas of nature in the city, they feel like they transform into something else at night. Sometimes on long nights like these, the morning comes and it feels like something’s changed and can’t go back.’
Music & lyrics by Jasmine Butt, Alex Rendall & Amos Childs
Cover photography by Jennifer Lo
Illustrations / text by Matthias Pichl / Skkinz
Mastered by Amir Shoat
Gently Fade
keys / synth by Birthmark
Košice Flower
strings by Rakhi Singh, arranged by Sebastian Gainsborough
Sea Mills
keys / synth by Birthmark
saxophone by Lorenzo Prati
additional production by Intel Mercenary / Jeremy Wiles
All Night
strings by Rakhi Singh, arranged by Sebastian Gainsborough
If I Asked You, You'd Tell Me
cello by Josh Horsley
Ashes Over Shute Shelve
vocals by Daniela Dyson, words by David Childs
clarinet by memotone / Will Yates
