Jazmine Mary on vulnerability, guitar shredding and their Flying Nun debut

Asked about signing with Flying Nun Records for their latest album, Jazmine Mary jokes that it brings a “loss of control”.

The indie-folk artist is used to going it alone, saying, “I’m used to literally packaging every single record that goes out. Even letting go of the things I don’t want to do is quite interesting.”

They quickly clarify that “it’s nice to feel like I’m being invited into that world, and I’m curious to see what that’ll look like”

I Want to Rock and Roll is Jazmine Mary’s third album, after their first The Licking of a Tangerine (which won Best Independent Debut at the Taite Prize), and its follow-up Dog.

The new collection is a more refined offering, with evident care in its composition and arrangement.

It’s also quite soothing, with less moments of abrasion than its predecessors.

“That’s the journey that I’ve been on, maybe needing to use the music to soothe myself, so I think that’s why it comes through. There was maybe more of a lights-off intimacy to the vocal recordings. Maybe it’s a bit more of a generous way to sing, or to express music.”

The approach also begs the question: is the album title ironic? As with a lot of Jazmine Mary’s output, the intent isn’t that straightforward.

“If I think about rock and roll as a… I hate that I’m about to say this, but as an idea, or a philosophy, or notion, rather than musical style, maybe that’s more the thing.

“But of course there’s an element of tongue in cheek, and maybe a bit of enjoyment, when you’re making music that’s so vulnerable, and you’re writing these things that are so personal, there’s also a part of me that's like, [listeners] don’t get to have everything.

“That’s the joy in creating those things that make people go ‘but what’s that really about?’ And I go ‘you can decide that, but I’m going to keep a little bit for myself’”

The album’s eight tracks each inhabit their own sonic space.

According to Jazmine Mary, who says they primarily act on impulse, this is a byproduct of the process rather than forethought.

“They all sit in their own emotional space” they say, “which means they then have a bit of their own sonic space as well.”

Results include the spidery arrangements on ‘Narcotics Anonymous Meeting’ which involved Louisa Nicklin on saxophone and Jazmine Mary on electric guitar, improvising “a kind of argument”.

The notably cheerful guitar part on ‘Back of the Bar’ they say came from considering “how you’re expressing your melancholy, and being a little bit more kind about it. You have this uplifting thing so that people can really lean into hearing the other parts”.

Another standout moment is a guitar solo on the otherwise placid ‘June’.

“I just really wanted to have a guitar shred on the album, and that happened to be the song I was writing at the time”, they say. “I like that it doesn’t make sense: there’s all those flurries of orchestral movement and then that gross, gnarly, painful sound.”

The songs on I Want to Rock and Roll emerged from a period of sadness, with writing happening during “moments of relief”.

Asked what they learned during its creation, they say, “I learned to be more compassionate and forgiving with myself, and to be proud of myself. I’m really grateful that I have an opportunity to turn some of the things I find the hardest about the world into something that, for me, is quite beautiful.”

“Without love, you're just making a fool of yourself”, sings Jarvis Cocker.

It’s the kind of pithy line he excels at, balancing sweet sincerity with a bit of mockery.

Brit Pop’s redheaded stepchild has regrouped in their 60s, and fired off a well-received salvo, succeeding because, in a similar way to recent efforts by Blur and The Cure, it acknowledges that the band has aged along with its fans.

In ‘Grown Ups’, Cocker admits “you stress about wrinkles instead of acne”, but says “it’s so hard to act like a grown up”.

Even the album’s title manages to be sardonic with a single word.

Meanwhile, the band are still great at drama, often pairing grand gestures with mundane locations, as in ‘Farmers Market’, in which Cocker is besotted with a woman from afar over airy Parisian balladry.

So far, so Pulp, but early in the song, he sings, “We thought that we were just joking, trying dreams on for size. We never realised we'd be stuck with them for the rest of our natural lives.”

It’s no small feat for a band to retain their zest while entering a new stage of life.

In a NY Times profile Cocker mentioned someone calling More “age appropriate”. He took it as a compliment.

Speaking with BBC Radio One’s Jack Saunders, Little Simz said, “lotuses are one of the only plants that thrive in muddy waters. That could be a metaphor for anything, no matter where you come from or what you’ve been through, you can do something extraordinary”.

It’s a beautiful sentiment, but more specifically, this album targets the muddy waters left in the wake of Simz’s rift with Inflo, who produced her last three albums, and ushered her into SAULT, the collective led by him and his partner Cleo Sol.

The two fell out over a financial disagreement, Simz eventually suing Inflo for £1.7 million she alleged that he owed her.

Calling the first song here ‘Thief’ is just the start, with lyrics in it like “You talk about God when you have a God complex”.

Later songs refer to him as a “leech”, “fake”, a “smooth talker”, and on and on.

The falling out seems to have fired her up creatively, and it’s an undeniable thrill to hear this kind of verbal assault, if not a little voyeuristic.

Musically, it’s of a piece with recent releases, despite the change of producer (Lotus was helmed by Miles Clinton James), with nimble live drums and bass, and occasionally string orchestrations, fueling a fiery, (and occasionally tranquil) collection.