Jane Weaver
Modern Kosmology

THE REVIEW

I must sadly admit that in recent years I've been experiencing a gradual waning of curiosity towards music. Or rather, I find it increasingly difficult to get excited about albums, and when it happens, I question myself 50 times to determine whether my enthusiasm is fleeting or genuine. Since music is the most intrinsically linked to a personal taste that cannot be disputed, an ordinary person wouldn't worry about these things: if I like it, I like it, end of story. Will it last for years or just for the summer? Who cares would be the right answer. Yet for me, the answer validates my listening experience and a review.

With such Hamlet-like doubts, I write these few lines about the lady in question, Jane Weaver, for over twenty years now a hidden figure in the British alternative circuits, in bands ranging from shoegaze to post-punk like Misty Dixon and Kill Laura, whose existence I was and remain oblivious to (without this having any impact on my life).

The fact is that Jane has released this “Modern Kosmology”, and, aided by listening to it continuously during my runs around the city, it has literally won me over. Particularly for the details, for the all-Albion taste in blending electronic songwriting, motorik rhythms, and references to analogue trinkets dear to Stereolab and Broadcast (from whose late singer Jane inherits an identical tone). All features well-presented in the synth loop running under the title track, in the supple and retrofuturistic indie rock of “Did You See The Butterflies”, which reminds me a lot of a psych group like Midnight Movies, active over ten years ago. Krautrock influences on full display in many instances, such as the initial “H>A>K”, which shifts to Stereolab in “The Lightning Back” or takes unusual space psychedelics detours as in “Ravenspoint” or in the acid guitars of “Loops In The Secret Society”. Glimmers of Carpenter-style soundtracks (“The Architect”) and a folk song suspended between space journeys and the English countryside of the '70s (“Valley”).

I'm taking the risk, among the best of the past year...