Having followed Kells’s releases pretty closely for the last few years, it’s interesting to watch as her music develops. As the above descriptions suggests, Spartan Jet-Plex has never been afraid to experiment, and has utilised all manner of layering and atmospherics to evoke feelings impossible through words alone. However, her latest release, Godless Goddess, sees that reigned in a little, proving to be perhaps the most focused and minimalistic Spartan Jet-Plex album to date.

In demonstration of this, first track ‘Stop’ is patient and beguiling, a hit pop song slowed just slightly, giving it a before unheard dreamy majesty. The themes are well worn and universal, that age old struggle between dark and light, of pushing against past pain and trying to be okay.

I’ve got to stop, turning me around
don’t know what’s in my mind
sometimes I’m doing fine

Kells is joined by Berko Lover for the gauzy quirk of ‘Chronostasis Interlude’, before ‘Fear’ puts down roots with its subtle guitar and richly emotive vocals. The song is prime example of the willingness to dial back on the experimentation in favour of slightly more conventional songwriting. The individuality that makes Spartan Jet-Plex is still present, but bestowed with a new lucidity.

Which is not to suggest that the inventive weirdness of previous releases is excised entirely. ‘Baubo’ burbles with electronics and great tidal washes of white noise, like some future robot’s attempt to reimagine a past organic world. Then things get unsettling, as disembodied laughter fills the air and the song fades out, and the effect is as recognisable as it is hellish—the subcutaneous itch of dread that will arise when one is surrounded by laughter but not in on the joke.

Stripping things right back to the bare bones, ‘Everything’ is basically an acoustic folk song built of strummed guitar and subtle church-like keys. ‘Entrance’ begins by following a similar pattern, a stark and richly felt love song made ethereal with susurrant backing vocals. That threatens to change around the halfway mark, although the electronic breakdown proves little more than an interlude. The decision to include this little break, aside from again showing how Kells is uninterested in following conventional song structures, has the effect of making the rest of the song seem brighter, like a painter placing complementary colours side by side to make them both stand out.

An instrumental interlude, ‘Trust and Believe (Survivors)’ sounds like the soundtrack to some ominously mind-bending sci-fi scene, although, as the title suggests, its message lands a lot closer to home. Then finale ‘Light’ leaves us with crystalline atmospherics and wittering birdsong, eventually morphing into acoustic guitar and Kells’s vocals. It might be the closest thing to a warming ballad Spartan Jet-Plex has ever made, and sees a return to the dichotomy of the first song—the search for light and good in what can be a very dark and troubled world.

What can you or I give life
be what it may there’s always light in this life

Godless Goddess is out now via Grimalkin Records on vinyl and cassette and you can get it from the Spartan Jet-Plex Bandcamp page.  Grimalkin has launched a new Patreon campaign too, so do consider subscribing to that.

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As ever, Kells has been busy. Not content with her work with Grimalkin Records (the queer, trans, nb/gender nonconforming, poc & women focused record label which releases the wonderful Friends For Equality benefit albums), she has also been working on new music, and has a brand new full-length album, titled STFU, due for release on 18th May. Kells says these songs are “mainly about growing older and the current state of our world/country,” and they promise to be every bit as unique and incomparable as previous Spartan Jet-Plex releases.

The album is at least partly inspired by Kells’s relationship with her older brother, with whom she has reconnected and become close, an experience that has shone a light on getting older and the strange ways life often works. “It makes you feel less alone in this world to have someone in it that came from the same place you did and shared many of the same experiences and witnessed many of the same things that you have as a child,” Kells says. “It is difficult in this world to truly know or understand someone no matter how close you are to them, but I feel fortunate, and it is comfort to have a friendship with my brother.”

As an initial taster for the album, Kells has made a video trailer, including a snippet of the title track which features vocals from Berko Lover, aka Baltimore’s Tiaira Harris. The pair are also working on a collaborative album under the moniker Merge, which will be released later this year.

Excitingly, Kells is also putting out a 7″ lathe cut single a week ahead of release. The record presents two of the album’s tracks, and today we have the pleasure of unveiling both. ‘Time’s Up’ is an intense and atmospheric song, layered vocals delivering opaque lyrics about watching time slip by. “Our time has come,” Kells sings, “Our time has gone, there’s nothing left but time.” The B-side ‘40 Something’ is similarly evocative, unfurling snake-like in a gothic haze, gentle guitar acting as an anchor to the soaring atmospherics and ethereal vocals.

If those two songs weren’t enough, here’s one that only appears on the full-length. ‘Alright’ rises from gentle guitar as Kells’s vocals come winding out of the void, the only percussion a series of sharp staccato breaths. The atmosphere is at once melancholy and otherworldly, capturing perfectly a strange dream-like sense of struggle and loss. This sensation thins and disperses, rising to the ceiling like smoke, though never quite dissipating entirely, hanging above the scene, watching.

“The moon glows, the night air
it’s alright, we roam
no-one knows, true love”

The 1989 7” will be released on 11th May, and STFU is out on cassette tape, with artwork from Michael Christy, on 18th May. You can pre-order both now via the Spartan Jet-Plex Bandcamp page (1989 & STFU). There are lots of extras and goodies that come with the physical releases (including zines, stickers and pins), so grab those if you can!

P.S. Nancy is playing a live show TONIGHT in Richmond as part of the improv noise collective Womajich Dialyseiz. Head along if you’re in the area!

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