Jazmine Mary – I Want To Rock And Roll (Flying Nun)
The first time I saw Jazmine Mary live was at Auckland’s Ministry of Folk, in February 2021. They shared the stage with BEING., and together they performed a set that included a haunting version of Jolene. Later that evening, phones buzzed with the news that New Zealand was heading back into Alert Level 3. Another lockdown. We all stayed for the rest of the night, but a quiet tension hung in the air, knowing it would be our last night out for some time.
A year later, I saw them again. This time, it was a seated, sparsely attended show at Whammy Bar, where they supported longtime mentor Julia Deans. The gig had been organised after the cancellation of The Others Way festival due to COVID. Barely two dozen of us were scattered through a space usually full of people, noise and energy. Again, Mary’s presence turned the room inward. There was a hush in the audience, and in the music itself. Like the Ministry of Folk performance, it held a disorientating intimacy.
Those two quietly uncanny, emotionally suspended performances feel like perfect framing for I Want To Rock And Roll, Mary’s third studio album. Like those nights, this is a liminal record that hovers in emotional twilight. It is intense, yet emotionally restrained. It draws the listener into a space where much is felt, but little is resolved.
With a cast of exceptional collaborators—Dave Khan (viola, piano), Louisa Nicklin (saxophone, bass), Arahi (drums), and De Stevens—Mary delivers an album that leans into ambient noir-folk, lyrical abstraction and imaginative vocal interpretation. Khan’s mournful viola, Nicklin’s smoky saxophone, and Arahi’s inventive percussion add shade and shadow to Mary’s intimate sound world. The production embraces imperfection and space. The result feels raw and alive.
Mary’s voice is central throughout. It is unguarded, tremulous and texturally rich. It never overpowers, but always commands attention. At times it is barely there: a murmur, a suggestion. Elsewhere it provides defiance or fragility. They sing like someone carefully and deliberately pulling a thread knowing it may unravel something.
The assertively titled opener, My Brilliance, sets the tone with strummed guitar and sparse percussion. It establishes a rhythmic ebb and flow. The track is poised and inward, unafraid of silence, and emotionally searching.
Many songs on I Want To Rock And Roll are rooted in specific settings: meetings, bars, cities. They act as locations the listener is invited to quietly sit within, unsure whether they are about to witness transformation or simply wait a while longer.
Memphis introduces one of the album’s few moments of rhythmic propulsion. Guitar, bass and drums click into motion. But Mary’s vocal remains downcast, almost at odds with the energy. The symbolic heartland of rock and roll is name checked, yet any sense of myth or romance is stripped away. False endings and sudden silences follow, and the track dissolves into a shimmering drone.
Back of the Bar is more claustrophobic. Rolling drums and a looping keyboard motif suggest a long night that refuses to end. The ticking rhythm becomes oppressive as it counts time already lost, rather than what remains.
Narcotics Anonymous Meeting draws us back inward. It has a confessional tone and eerie sonic drift. A jazz-inflected dissonance closes the song unresolved: like so much else here.
Other songs explore emotional disorientation. June opens outward with five minutes of atmospheric devastation, driven by sawing synths and increasingly urgent piano. It feels elemental, like weather building, breaking and passing. Felt Fantastic brings us uncomfortably close. Trembling vocals and scraped violin suggest intimacy at the edge of collapse. It’s All builds on repeated guitar strums and swelling drones, with a ghostly vocal presence that feels on the verge of vanishing.
The album closes with its title track, I Want To Rock And Roll, and this is perhaps the most ambiguous moment of all. The title and accompanying album art suggest swagger or rebellion. What we get is a hushed, steady guitar and a lyric delivered with crystalline clarity: “You say baby, I just want to rock and roll.” The phrase hangs between sincerity and irony. It may be a mockery of the myth, or a quiet affirmation of it on very different terms.
The album has a uniformity of tone. That restraint may feel weighty across a first listen. But for those who tune in and stay still with it, the effect is immersive and quietly unsettling. Like those strange, memorable nights watching Jazmine Mary perform live, I Want To Rock And Roll invites the listener to linger in a suspended space. One where strength, emotional stillness, and ambiguity sit together in quiet alignment.
John Bradbury
I Want To Rock And Roll is out June 13th on Flying Nun
PRE-ORDER ‘I WANT TO ROCK AND ROLL’ HERE
