Artist: Jessica's Brother
Title: Finding Snowdrop
Format: Digital single
Cat#: Fika088SG3
Release date: 22nd October 2021
Bandcamp | Spotify
‘Finding Snowdrop’ is the final track to be previewed from the new album Just Rain, from London three-piece Jessica’s Brother, comprising songwriter Tom Charleston, The Wave Pictures’ Jonny Helm on drums and Charlie Higgs on bass.
This was the most enjoyable one to record and a track that I'm particularly happy with. I am yet to feel comfortable in the recording studio. The vocals sounded rubbish when we first did them so I retreated to my bedroom where I felt more relaxed and could capture the mood a bit better.
Finding Snowdrop’ is a spiritual rebirth gone wrong, influenced by the rambling poetry and hooks found in Yoni Wolf’s Why? and Bill Callahan. In spite of failure, the potential for growth remains. This budding, on an ageing tree, is celebrated in the joyous rhythms, off-kilter harmonies and a fizzing guitar solo
Stitching together a variety of influences, from crunching indie-rock, to gothic country and contemplative psych folk, Jessica’s Brother create the sound of a band coming together and getting caught up in the rush of starting afresh.
The disintegration of a long-term relationship, coinciding with a global fracturing, provided a catalyst for ‘Just Rain’. The songs explore a relentless collision of melancholy and resilience alongside themes of comedy, agency, and hope.
Jessica’s Brother formed in October 2016. Jonny and Charlie worked together in a framing business and had often talked about collaborating in a band together. Fate intervened when Jonny’s girlfriend Jessica introduced him to her brother Tom, and they found a songwriter in waiting. Their debut, eponymous, album released in 2018 was warmly received.
‘Just Rain’ was produced and engineered by Shuta Shinoda (Hot Chip, Ghost Poet, Anna Meredith) at Hackney Road Studios during the summer of 2020. The album features Dan Mayfield’s elegant touch on violin (he has performed with artists from Daniel Johnston to Allo Darlin’), and new female voices from Polimana (a jazz vocalist from the SoCal suburbia) and Shantha Roberts (whose voice has graced Glasgow’s reggae sound system Argonaut Sounds).
The eponymous Jessica Jane Charleston, a painter and printmaker, provides the meteorological juxtaposition to the album in the visuals, the warmth of a giant sun looming over the contorted figure, rising up to fight another day. Tom was drawn to the hotter colours this time round as opposed to the moodier blue palette of the debut. The colours and figures convey a sense of revival after a period of hibernation. It fits well alongside the band’s hiatus throughout the pandemic and their much awaited return.
With an at times folkloric narrative, ‘Just Rain’ is both poetic and playful retaining throughout a thread of darkness.
The record takes a step forward in terms of production while maintaining the band’s rough around the edges charm. It is an intimate affair punctuated with louder and more unwieldy moments. A true story revolving around a relationship and a world falling apart.
“has this tendency to let the notes meander, going on a nice little musical walkabout, so to speak. It allows for the band, and their backing vocalists, to kind of create this sort of campfire seance, the sort of passionate performance where everyone, listener and musician, sinks into the fabric of the tune” Austin Town Hall