Dog. Jazmine Mary

As if a blanket is thrown over everything, subduing the mood, the sound, the light, the day. That is the primary response I have listening to Jazmine Mary's second album, Dog. This is darkness and Ms. Mary seems like a fish in water and let that animal be pictured on the album's artwork. No dog in sight there.

Listening to opening song 'Dope', I notice immediately that I could copy my review of her debut album here one on one, including the already copied in review of single 'Dancer' that was my introduction to Jazmine Mary. Read on here:http://wonomagazine.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-licking-of-tangerine-jazmine-mary.html. No progression?, you might ask me. 'Dope' is so impressively made that the answer is no. Jazmine Mary dives in much deeper into what she is good at and presents a richness in arrangements that are exhilarating and humbling at the same time. She manages to enrich her bare, elementary songs in such a way that they rise up far above themselves, with the singer's dark voice going from (too) deep to anywhere. It's the kind of song that works on multiple levels.

Jazmine Mary is from Australia but lives in New Zealand and I cannot escape mentioning two of the better know singer-songwriters from there, Aldous Harding and Reb Fountain, as they simply are active in the same line of music. The first two have managed to tour wider, the former at a higher level than the latter but it ought to be a matter of time before ms. Mary follows. An ideally perfect evening could be a package tour; just a suggestion. I am going to add two names, from France. Half-sisters Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon may have been influences as well on Dog. One thing though, ms. Mary is no French sigh-girl.

The basis of most songs is the extremely slowly played acoustic guitar. The alternative is a slow played piano. Played as if the guitarist is too lazy to get out of bed in the first place. The singing matches that laidback feeling. That basis could be called folk or singer-songwriter but not in the traditional Sandy Denny or Townes van Zandt way. It is only from this basis the adventure starts and things start to happen.

Take a slow, slow, song called 'Rodeo', five and a half minutes long. Soft drums play along with the acoustic guitar. Skins are brushed. A slow note on a violin comes in, a harmony vocal. In a bridge like sequence, there's some atmospheric sounds and a clear trumpet, while a floor tom is beaten twice and tough sounding background vocals emerge for just a few words only. Back to the start of the song, the verse, we go. 'Rodeo' is not even two and a half minutes underway and so much has happened. It sounds like a lot but everything is so sparse, a note here, a small riff there, to immediately disappear again, that it remains sparse, magical and mysterious. The approach described here is sort of exemplary for the music on Dogs.

I can't tell you who plays what at this moment. What I do know that Peter Ruddell is on board again, as producer and mixer of circa half of the songs. Another familiar name, on this blog at least, is Elisabeth Stokes of The Beths. Jazmine Mary produced the other half herself. They both did a great job. To make songs so elementary sound so fluent and exciting is no mean feat. I'm drawn into the album each and every time I've listen to it in the past days.

With Dog Jazmine Mary has set a giant step in her career. Should there have been any worries about that "difficult second album", she's not showing it in any way. Dog is top notch, ehh, dog.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and order Dog here:

https://jazminemary.bandcamp.com/album/dog