Jabu - A Soft and Gatherable Star

Bristol-based three piece Jabu have been around for some time now, with a fairly extensive catalogue that goes back to a split cassette in 2012 for No Corner, though I'd argue that there's perhaps no time they've felt more relevant than now. A Soft and Gatherable Star, which is listed as their third album but by my judgment could qualify as something like their eighth if you take in their tapes and demo collections, seems to have really nailed the current zeitgeist of trip-hop channeling dreampop, a confluence of close-mic'd guitars, smoke plume electronics and pillow-talk vocals laser-focused to the lonesome after hours. Popular as this sound might be right now, Jabu are more obviously plugging into the wider historical lineage of their city, one that extends through street soul and dubby soundsystem culture (though recognise there is nothing club-ready present here), the ghostly atmospherics of Portishead and through the more recent activity of the Young Echo collective they were partly born from. Their catalogue clearly attests to a specific identity, and A Soft and Gatherable Star speaks to the belief that if you keep facing your own direction the world will turn to face you.