Jennifer Evans has returned with new single ‘Vessel List’ under the new moniker Jæd with a debut album made in collaboration with producers Dilip Harris (King Krule, Mount Kimbie) and Andy Ramsay (Stereolab, Kero Kero Bonito, Nilüfer Yanya) set to follow in 2024 .

‘Vessel List’ sees Jæd experimenting with improvised vocal sounds “through feelings of deep isolation and shame and an urgent need for connection and belonging”.

The track was co-produced by Stereolab drummer Andy Ramsey and completed with percussion courtesy of Tobias Humble (Gang of Four, Tricky, Ghostpoet).

“I recorded these unintelligible wailing sounds while playing the very repetitive and staccato main guitar/bass riff over and over, that worked like a slow drill through my being helping to rupture something in me to let some truth come through, to release something. I’d listen back and allow any word association to arise freely from the vocal sounds and write them down. ‘I’m your darkness sister pirate with good squalor vulture in the fern / I come from dour dirt maggot season’ – the song is literally a shadow self coming through” adds Jæd.

‘Vessel List’ arrives with a video directed by Jæd and Matt Grimble in collaboration with costume and visual artists Uhuru Matahari and Uhur uheru. “I had loved their work for some time and wanted to be involved somehow with what they were doing. When my friend Matt Grimble wanted to make a video with me at the incredible Garden Studios in Harlesden, the two worlds came together” – Jæd said, continuing:

“I wanted the video to be a celebration of beauty and the body in movement. So much of our sensitivity shuts down with traumas, we become stuck. It’s courageous to share beauty and I find people have been (myself included) more terrified of beholding beauty than violence. It’s like we’ve forgotten how to co exist with beauty without having to trap it or own it, or in some cases hate it. I also wanted to celebrate and thank the ego for how it has protected me and brought me to my current place. There are behaviours I’d like to move on from but first, gratitude and celebration.”

Check out the video for ‘Vessel List’ below. Jæd plays Ireland Music Week, this Thursday.

5th October – Ireland Music Week, Dublin (Ireland)
18th October – Cyprus Avenue, Cork (Ireland)