Jabu are founding members of Bristol’s Young Echo, a collective that also includes artists such as Ama, Bogues, Kahn, Manonmars, Neek, Ossia, O$VMV$M, Rider Shafique, Safe Planet, Sunun, and Ishan Sound. The trio, of Alex Rendall, Jasmine Butt and Amos Childs, have released music on the revered label, Blackest Ever Black, and their own imprint, do you have peace? Their latest outing, though, has now been pressed to vinyl by Six Of Swords. Boiling Wells is a selection of demos laid down between the band’s “proper” albums, Sleep Heavy and Sweet Company. A suite of sketches recorded on a minimal set up of guitar, two drum machines, and a 6-channel desk, temporarily cobbled together in Amos’ mum’s front room. 

Most definitely born of Bristol’s rich musical heritage, the work of bass-driven pioneers like The Wild Bunch / Massive Attack, Smith & Mighty, Portishead, and local landmarks such as Tricky’s Aftermath, Jabu’s sound is a very modern, very British blues. However, rather than build on these musical milestones, Jabu’s deconstructions pull them apart. Delivering disintegrations that surely have their roots in dub. On the opening Without You ringing loops spin backwards and forwards to a forceful, but muffled, shuffling beat, while an unidentified instrument resonants all “avant” like a free-jazz viola or reed. The air, heavy, psychedelic, stoned, as reverb weaves a duet from Al and Jas’ sweet soulful voices, overlapping and blurring their lyrical lines. Ribbons is a beatless ballad, backed by only birdsong and harp. Don’t Turn Me Away is another radically restructured, strange, seductive slice of R&B. A love song demolished – its rhythm a series of slo-mo detonations – that recalls the “Alt. Pop” experiments of A.R. Kane. The title track is even more strung out, wasted, woozy. The instrumentation a hazy, hallucinatory hum. Its vocals seriously delayed, and disorientating. The results as rule breaking / ignoring as the righteous Royal Trux. Reference points for Skin might be a mix of Yves Tumor, Teen Inc., Inga Copeland, and Dean Blunt. 

The 12 tracks are sequenced, seamlessly segued, and the record’s second side drops into a dream-like drift. Otherworldly, slightly uneasy, its atmospheres generated from ghostly chimes, and rattling snares. Disembodied drum & bass spectres. Melodies are wrought from what sounds like shaken steel sheets. On Silhouette this computerised clattering combines with choir-like harmonies. Ur Love is like a groovier Grouper. Its emotions wrapped, trapped, and then lost to the echo and ether. 

Jabu’s Boiling Wells is out now on Six Of Swords – a new label run by FatCat family members Dave Howell and Marcus Thorne.