Drawing from a wide array of influences extending from bucolic folk to melancholic indie, not to mention a rich dose of psychedelica, Nottingham’s Jiminil makes music indebted to the heavyweights of the genre yet never hemmed in to any one style. So while echoes of Bert Jansch, John Fahey, Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison are heard across his songs, these style are developed and subverted by inventive turns—both by recombining aspects of each into new forms, and leaning into jazz-like playfulness to move off on tangents.
Debut single ‘Spider’ serves as the perfect introduction to this aesthetic. Along with Cameron Worne (drums), Alice Robbins (cello), John Thompson (bass) and Henry Scott (electric guitar), Jiminil weaves lush, layered sound shot through with a folky rhythm, achieving an enviable balance between texture and forward motion. The resulting mood is hard to place, its undeniable warmth undercut by a certain ominousness, a contradiction which extends to the themes of the track.
“Spider is a song about discovering yourself in a social or political landscape that your ignorance or tolerance has been complicit in creating,” Jiminil explains, “and the disillusionment that follows which in turn finds you further alienated from where you find yourself. Sometimes your apathy can allow the cobwebs to take up all the corners, and through a blasé indifference the spiders can take over the house.”
But within the track’s perky motion lies a sense of hope too—that there are ways in which to acknowledge and confront these creatures, and in doing so reclaim spaces for those who chased out by the arachnid threat.
You take all the gold while the rambler’s in the garden
You won’t find them there hiding shy
Wear the jester crown while we bathe our heads in silver
But the blue gown is wearing another lieYou can run, run, you can run from me
You can run, you can run, you can runYou’re the spider
You’re the spider
You’re the spider
You’re the spider
In the right of my eye
Artwork by Faye Robinson, photography by Adrian Vitelleschi Cook