Jan Steele, Janet Sherbourne – Distant Saxophones
Jan Steele, Janet Sherbourne – Distant Saxophones
Jan Steele, Janet Sherbourne – Distant Saxophones

Jan Steele, Janet Sherbourne – Distant Saxophones

Regular price £20.00 Sale

Label: Community Library – CL26
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 22 Apr 2022
Genre: Jazz, Pop
Style: Modern, Contemporary

Finally, Janet Sherbourne and Jan Steele get the reissue treatment, freeing their gorgeous avant jazz pop from the record dealer deadstock doldrums to be properly appreciated by people for whom the acronym DNAP means nothing.

I have said it before and will most likely say it again the music of Janet Sherbourne and Jan Steele, should be better known. I don’t mean in the background on Hollyoaks better known, or trending as a sound on Tik Tok better known, just better known. Like the music of Arthur Russell, Sybille Baier or Donnie and Joe has been, it should be made available for the casual listener. You know, people who don’t have a complex about owning original vinyl, people for whom improv is a type of comedy, people who like Sufjan Stevens, people without an NTS show, just people. This compilation on Portland label Community Library is a good start. Functioning as a primer for their music it collects some of the most pleasing bits of their catalogue, sequences and packages them effectively and makes an excellent case for them as hugely important figures in British underground music. Its all here, the Norma Winston meets Berkley Gamelan ballads, the slow-burn minimalism, the art-school ambient jazz. Even if you have all the original lps and tapes this compilation is still the perfect way to enjoy this stuff. Music from across their long careers, some of it re-recorded, is gathered together into a frankly lovely, time-dilating LP, that any one with ears should be able to get lost in. 

Tracklist
A1 All Day... (I Hear The Noise Of Waters)
A2 Distant Saxophones
A3 Slowly
B1 Rhapsody Spaniel
B2 Deathward / Burnt Time
B3 Ivory