I’ve been writing about music now for 23 years, and when you’ve been doing something for that length of time you inevitably have periods when you find yourself in a slump. When nothing seems exciting or fresh. When you question the value of spending so much of your limited spare time trawling through review requests for releases that are, in the main, perfectly decent, but no more than that. The past couple of months have been such a period (a few established favourites aside).
In my experience the only way out of a slump is to be blasted by something so unexpectedly brilliant that you can’t help but be carried along by it, and my rescuer on this occasion was London based Irish-Puerto Rican musician Jæd (pronounced: jade) and her astonishing single ‘Bakkos’.
Starting with a glitchy guitar motif that sounds like a malfunctioning industrial printer (in a good way), soon joined by Jæd’s vocal, pure and clear and these deliciously crunchy drums, it builds up a head of steam, the drums becoming increasingly frantic, overlapping layers of vocal adding to the sense of disorientation, before erupting into a primal snarl like some beast from the nightmares that kept you awake as a child. Many more twists and turns follow in the second half of this sub four minute odyssey of excess and self-condemnation, but I’ll leave some surprises for you to discover for yourself.
‘Bakkos’ forms part of Jæd’s debut album I Loved The Gauntlet And There Was No Other Way, recently released via Delphi. A late gatecrasher to my end of year favourites list it not only ticks all of my boxes but goes on to create new boxes I never even knew existed and ticks those too. Informed by her love of Aphex Twin, Yves Tumor, Kate Bush, Death Grips, and Deerhoof but sounding unlike any of them, it’s an album that stands apart from any I’ve heard for some time.
It’s a wonderful, ambitious and deeply personal record, packed with drums that will make you move like your walking barefoot on gravel, guitars wrung to within an inch of their lives and Jæd’s vocal, packed with raw emotion – one moment an air raid siren, the next a coastal breeze, then an inner city traffic jam, a wounded animal, a summer rain shower, a bee sting.
Faith in new music restores, once I’d had time to draw breath and pick myself up from the floor, I sent Jæd 10 questions to find out a little more.
What inspires you to make music?
Pain, tragedy and survival, feelings and situations I don’t understand, mostly personal experiences but I’m also in the process of moving toward another mode that’s not survival based.
What is the best description of your music that you’ve read/heard in a review?
Like lemon put on a cut tongue.
What do you enjoy most and least about playing live?
I love feeling like there’s no separation between the people and the music, sometimes that only happens for a second, sometimes for a few minutes. When it feels like it’s not about you and the feeling of time bending. Sharing. Carrying heavy gear to venues is what I like least.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be and why?
I never had any ideas of what the industry was or any expectations or judgements. But I think it’s important to emphasise that a number does not mean quality and for us to ask ourselves ‘do you really want to create a world where we value art and people based on a number?’ I think it’s important to support art and music not from a mindset of business but for the sake of creating great work and putting that out in the world you want to create and for people to enjoy it and to enrich each other’s lives. It’s what life’s about.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and what would you work on together?
I’d love to learn and play flute with Pól Brennan from Clannad and to just see where it goes improvising into different worlds. That music is really sorting me out lately and I find it challenging to make warm and light music.
Who is your favourite new band/artist that we should be checking out and what do you like about them?
Isaiah Hull. I felt blown apart in an incredible way when I saw them perform at Ormside a while ago. Thank you Isaiah.
How has your approach to making music changed since you started out?
I want to work in a more collaborative social way for the next record. When I started out I had such stage fright and nerves I couldn’t tune my own guitar. I wrote most of my earlier stuff staying up late drinking whiskey and smoking. Real nice and still nice the odd time but I don’t want to live like that anymore. So it used to come out of a lot of loneliness, confusion and emotional overwhelm and the music helped to ground me. But it was a very gripping kind of way of writing, gripping for dear life in a way. Now I’m really taking care of myself and playing more with flow and I’m getting more and more comfortable not knowing where the music will go.
How important is the visual/aesthetic side of your music?
I think maybe because I enjoy dreaming and also appreciate my nightmares which are very visual that I got more and more into visual work. There’s been a bit of a performative aspect to the visuals and videos I’ve made and I think that’s been a way to move whatever’s left of the experiences out through the body. And I love using my body to move and explore and all the physicality of it. I’m also just so inspired by artists I come across and really want to work with them and learn and be a part of what they do and that feeds into a social and friendship aspect too which I also cherish. Like Uhuruheru and UhuruMatahari. Their work is stunning and they are also a family so their visuals have all sorts of layers that came through for me and that I wanted to share with others through making something together and we made the video for ‘Vessel List’. We all got to play in new ways thanks to my friend Matt Grimble at Garden studios who worked with big studio visuals there. And I got a chance to play with characters of Uhurumatahari’s Goddesses that I might not have dared to try a few years ago.
If you could give any aspiring musicians one piece of advice, what would it be?
Let music heal you.
Interview by Paul Maps
Photograph by Martine Skogstad & Daniel Jaroschik
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