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Just Rain

from Just Rain by Jessica's Brother

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    140g black vinyl, with printed inner sleeve, in a reverse board outer sleeve. Shrinkwrapped with a download code inside.
    NB: this should ship before the album release date (26th November), but we're at the mercy of vinyl pressing schedules currently. We're scheduled to receive stock early November, but hearing of more frequent delays, so bear with us...

    Includes unlimited streaming of Just Rain via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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    edition of 300 
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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    A copy of Just Rain on black vinyl, plus a copy of the debut, self titled album from Jessica's Brother on black vinyl.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Just Rain via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £25 GBP or more 

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Glass mastered CD in a reverse board 4 panel digifile CD sleeve.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Just Rain via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
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      £10 GBP or more 

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    A copy of the new album Just Rain, plus a copy of the debut self titled album from Jessica's Brother.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Just Rain via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £15 GBP or more 

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  • Digital Track
    Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

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about

‘Just Rain’ is the opening track from the second album from London three piece Jessica’s Brother, comprising songwriter Tom Charleston, The Wave Pictures’ Jonny Helm on drums and Charlie Higgs on bass.

Stitching together a variety of influences, from crunching indie-rock, to gothic country and contemplative psych folk, Jessica’s Brother create the sound of a band coming together and getting caught up in the rush of starting afresh.

The disintegration of a long-term relationship, coinciding with a global fracturing, provided a catalyst for ‘Just Rain’. The songs explore a relentless collision of melancholy and resilience alongside themes of comedy, agency, and hope.

The title track lays this out with an opening burst of slacker rock as Tom reflects back over a passage of time that feels like persistent unrelenting rain. Vacillating between despair and defiance, we uncover the strength to shrug it off as “just rain”; after all, as the track draws to its conclusion “losing sight can be relieving”.
Interestingly, the lyric, “open up your heart, it can help to wear a mask”, was written before the pandemic had properly struck in the UK.

Jessica’s Brother formed in October 2016. Jonny and Charlie worked together in a framing business and had often talked about collaborating in a band together. Fate intervened when Jonny’s girlfriend Jessica introduced him to her brother Tom, and they found a songwriter in waiting. Their debut, eponymous, album released in 2018 was warmly received.

‘Just Rain’ was produced and engineered by Shuta Shinoda (Hot Chip, Ghost Poet, Anna Meredith) at Hackney Road Studios during the summer of 2020. The album features Dan Mayfield’s elegant touch on violin (he has performed with artists from Daniel Johnston to Allo Darlin’), and new female voices from Polimana (a jazz vocalist from the SoCal suburbia) and Shantha Roberts (whose voice has graced Glasgow’s reggae sound system Argonaut Sounds).

The eponymous Jessica Jane Charleston, a painter and printmaker, provides the meteorological juxtaposition to the album in the visuals, the warmth of a giant sun looming over the contorted figure, rising up to fight another day. Tom was drawn to the hotter colours this time round as opposed to the moodier blue palette of the debut. The colours and figures convey a sense of revival after a period of hibernation. It fits well alongside the band’s hiatus throughout the pandemic and their much awaited return.

With an at times folkloric narrative, ‘Just Rain’ is both poetic and playful retaining throughout a thread of darkness.

The record takes a step forward in terms of production while maintaining the band’s rough around the edges charm. It is an intimate affair punctuated with louder and more unwieldy moments. A true story revolving around a relationship and a world falling apart.

lyrics

I’m waking up
Got a fire in my cup
It’s not just tea
It’s a lot
I’m just waiting for a signal from above
And in your sleep
When you’re free
You turn monsters into trees
One by one up to the seas
Turning darkness evergreen

You’ve been trying (I’ve been trying)
Our heads are holy in silence
It’s all the same, all the same
Woopsie-daisy
Just rain

So open up your heart
It can help to wear a mask
I tried a pendent made of glass
When it broke I found it hard to laugh
And it can be revolting
Especially when you’re dreaming
Could be death, could be just teething
Losing sight can be relieving

credits

from Just Rain, released November 16, 2021

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Fika Recordings UK

Welcome to Fika Recordings! We're a London based DIY record label, releasing glorious indiepop, folk and more...

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