Coffee 2022

On each of her albums, Jenny Hval thoroughly examines what it means to be an artist, but on Classic Objects, she explores what it means to be herself. Like so many other people, during the COVID-19 global pandemic and its ensuing lockdowns Hval's life shrank down to a simple day-to-day existence – a challenging situation for an artist and performer who shares their work with the outside world and, in turn, draws inspiration from it. For her 4AD debut, Hval used her simpler existence as a self-described "private person" as source material for a set of songs so intimate and expansive that they feel like shared memories. Rather than a simplification of her music, Classic Objects feels like a distillation of it.

It’s a special, but also a strange sensation to be releasing an album of one of your early musical heroes. I first discovered The Movers on my very first “record safari” in 1996. My destination was Bulawayo, in southern Zimbabwe, and to get there I had to travel via Jo’burg. While in town I stopped at a store called Kohinoor, in search of Mbaqanga – also known as Township Jive – and found a few tapes which I listened to non-stop on the bus that carried me to the land of Chimurenga Music. One of these cassettes included the songs “Hot Coffee” and “Phukeng Special” which instantly became part of my daily life. Twenty-five years later I’m still grooving to them.

Bert At the BBC is a comprehensive collection of Jansch’s appearances at the BBC, featuring over eight hours of rare and unreleased recordings, including live-on-air spots, studio sessions and full concerts straight from the BBC vaults, delving further into this legendary performer’s canon. Bert Jansch was the very essence of folk music, providing inspiration for everyone from Paul Simon and Neil Young to Led Zeppelin and countless folk revivalists.