"A Soft and Gatherable Star touches on themes close to the heart—loneliness and longing, love and quiet drama. Its beauty is immense, especially in the shared intimacy of listening."
Five weeks on the road, I’ve just walked through the door of my Berlin apartment. Run out of social energy, I retreat like a fungus to the corners of my bedroom and put on ‘A Soft and Gatherable Star‘ by Jabu, slowly settling into the cold stillness of a winter home turned blue in my absence.
The album plays, seeping into the 60sqm, low-lit, high-ceilinged space. The white, empty walls catch the floating sound, each note palpating and caressing everything in its path. It enriches the room in the afterglow of the otherworld—a reminder of something truly celestial, as the title suggests: A Soft and Gatherable Star.
Burnt embers of hazy dream-pop in Jabu’s third album, the rhythm moves around amorphously as the Bristol Trio of Amos Childs, Alex Rendall, and Jasmine Butt work their way into the allure of the darkness around them, ghosts of memories past tucked into a taped cassette concealed by a case, a picture of a cigarette that has tasted a lip under the moonlight frames the cover.
‘Oceanside Spider House‘ is a sweet-scented opener with Jasmine Butt’s voice soaking into the atmosphere like a dripped-out lullaby, and words slit through, following into a course of another slow-mo dub on ‘Gently Fade‘. Borrowed strings from Rakhi Singh are illuminant on Košice Flower.
Halfway into the album, ‘Too Careful‘ slithers onto the surface, pure Jabu constructed romance further amplified by Josh Horsley’s Cello succeeding in ‘If I Ask You, You’d Tell Me‘. The 35-minute emotional trip departs with the final delicate cut of ‘Temporary‘, looming bass in the backdrop, and soft-pitched vocals linger long after the end of the journey.
A Soft and Gatherable Star touches on themes close to the heart—loneliness and longing, love and quiet drama. An enchanting night spent sleeping in a forest clearing, where the vast, blanketed sky reveals the cosmos for a fleeting eternity; its beauty is immense, especially in the shared intimacy of listening. Jabu stir something deep in the gut with their raw, tender renditions of a fragile, sensitive, and sincere reality.
‘A Soft and Gatherable Star’ is scheduled for release on 18th October via Do You Have Peace?. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Oceanside Spider House
2. Gently Fade ft. Birthmark
3. Košice Flower
4. Sea Mills ft. Birthmark & Lorenzo Prati
5. All Night ft. Rakhi Singh & Sebastian Gainsborough
6. Too Careful
7. If I Asked You, You’d Tell Me ft. Josh Horsley
8. Ashes Over Shute Shelve ft. Daniela Dyson & memotone
9. In The Way
10. Temporary