Sweet Company is the second album by Bristol trio Jabu. Where their first LP, Sleep Heavy (Blackest Ever Black), was an unflinching exploration of grief, Sweet Company’s deep, sedative soul feels like more of a lovers’ outing. Released via their own do you have peace? label, Sweet Company is an intimate and private-sounding work – the sound of life played out in a room, a bubble, a home, a head.
The core Jabu trio of producer Amos Childs and vocalists Jasmine Butt and Alex Rendall is present and correct. As before, Jasmine’s voice is a textural, painterly instrument, while Alex takes a more narrative, confessional yet no less engaging pop tack. Childs has a true hip-hop fiend’s ear for a striking sample but here takes things to ever more powerfully uncanny and auteurish places, drawing inspiration from the voidal bliss-outs of shoegaze (AR Kane’s amniotic dream-pop epic 69 is one influence cited) and the space-time disturbances of dub.
Perhaps it’s Daniela Dyson, the British-Afro-Colombian artist who contributes her vivid, energising poetic mysticism to two tracks, who best sums up Sweet Company’s ambition and effect: “Me quiero perder en los momentos tan puros en su esencia que Las Horas mismas se detienen para ser testigo de nuestro amor” (I want to lose myself in the moments so pure in their essence / that The Hours themselves stop to bear witness to our love…).
Jabu – Sweet Company
Release Date:November 13th
Track List:
A1. Water Temple
A2. Slow Down ft. Daniela Dyson
A3. Lately ft. Sunun
A4. Pretend
B1. Selfish
B2. Paper Thin
B3. Blood Pink
B4. Us Alone
B5. Sweet Company ft. Daniela Dyson
https://www.facebook.com/jabubristol/
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