JANE WEAVER (1972 - )
MUSIC ::: ALTERNATIVE :::

(7.27.2015) Finally. This is the first time this year that I made it through an album without skipping a song on first listen! Been spending endless hours in the age of alphabet illnesses doing what ?uestlove refers to as scanning. It is hard for something to stop you in your tracks. Jane Weaver. Never heard of her. This is a late 2014 British release made available this week in the US of A.

A little intro to prepare you for liftoff ala Floyd's Welcome To The Machine and it's 10-9-8... Argent. Archtypical planetary travel theme music. Think The B-52's Planet Claire and Shocking Blue's Love Buzz with an ethereal European female siren orbiting above the mix. I hear Loreena McKennitt and Vashti Bunyan and KatieJane Garside in her Ruby Throat phase but Weaver is none of them either. It's hypnotic and you don't even realize that eight minutes have gone by before we are no longer controlled by Earth's gravity. It's Electric Mountain time which is based off a Hawkwind sample. Never knew Hawkwind ventured into psych-synth. I moved on after Lemmy and the R Crumb dancer. A little Dave Brock research and now I'm loving me some Trish Keenan's Broadcast too.

I'm floating in my tin can.

Don't Take My Soul seems like it could wear thin over many listens. It reeks of Casio and borders on novelty but it is still smarter than the average fare.

When we reach Silver Globe's crown jewel everything begins to make sense. The new video single is recycled animation by Barbarella creator Jean-Claude Forest from the 1965 Serge Gainsbourg Sci-Fi series, Marie Mathmetique. Weaver was tapping on my France Gall and Jane Birkin vein and I didn't even realize it. The Silver Globe is inspired by Poland's subversive behind-the-Iron-Curtain filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski.

She came from the British underground fronting a John Peel favorite act called Kill Laura who was set to work with Manchester's Factory Records at the moment of Rob Gretton's untimely death and was poised once again to make some noise with the band Misty Dixon before their drummer disappeared while hiking in Corsica. Finally Weaver set course as a solo artist beginning with the 2002 Life An Aspen Leaf. Her discography is beautifully covered with blankets of melancholy like Sia's Colour The Small One with flashes of Portishead and stark arrangements like The Weepies.

I'm getting old and jaded and I never thought I would fall in love again.

Never say never.

Jane Weaver Discography

Like An Aspen Leaf (mini album) (2002)
Seven Day Smile (2006)
Cherlokalate (2007)
The Fallen By Watchbird (2010)
The Watchbird Alluminate (2011)
Intianni Kesa (2013)
The Silver Globe (2014)

Jane Weaver: The Silver Gobe: Full Album	Jane Weaver - Don't Take My Soul
Jane Weaver: Sixteen Again