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Slip into a rustic bottle of something Scottish, Russian or French: bejewel with ice if you pick the Scottish or Russian options-then pour over some 'Jag Harps'.
Sit back and...well, the music says it all!
In a culture where everyone and everything, including your toaster, is telling you how you should live your life, who am I to order you to relax?
Other serving suggestions:
Consume in liberal quantities,when all the bars have closed. Listen to them on your head phones, as you're ambling home - not with the one you love, today-but dreaming of a warmer, brighter tomorrow!
Alternately, save for the wee small hours of the morning, following a big night out, when your vision is blurred through tiredness and intoxication, and you're lounging around talking random rubbish with mates.
Or when you've scaled the assault course of a long, hard day at work and your mind and body feel like they've been shunted between rock and hard place.
Sit back, close your eyes, and let this soul food for the ears, embrace your brain like a comfort blanket, and transport you to a place where your thoughts can feast, rather than vegging out in front of the variety of reality TV dross that we pay our license fees for these days.
Recently, I put on some of their music, when I was at my desk at work. I had listened to 'Jag Harps' before, sparingly, but at that moment, I had an epiphany!
It was one of those mornings when returning to bed would have been lovely. I felt cold, ill, uninspired-and sick of heart. Within seconds of putting it on, the first track I listened to gave me a warm hug, like an old friend, or lover, and I started to feel a little better inside.
'Jag Harps' currently specialise in instrumental music that could be described, most notably, as jazz inspired with gentle hints of dance, electronica and light splashes of glitch techno. Many of their tracks are fecund with flourishes of flamenco guitar, and squiggles of restrained electric axe noodling, burly, smooth bass, and a gentle teasing of horns (mainly trumpet and sax), which would probably have some jazz traditionalists and purists quivering, angrily, with the sheer nerve of it!
But not being a purist, by any stretch of the imagination - or too much of a fascist from this quarter, I don't care. I love stuff like this!
I suppose one direct comparison could be Ninja tune's 'The Cinematic Orchestra', a band I was obsessed with a few years back, but with a vibe that is a lot sunnier and clear headed. There are also hints of 'Amon Tobin' and 'Vertigo'/ 'Goodbye Country-Hello Nightclub'-era 'Groove Armada', in the sound.
Conceived initially as a bedroom project, when producer Graham Rutherford (production, guitars, bass and synths), an experienced live musician, started fiddling about with some musical ideas at home, 'Jag Harps' began to take shape as a band when Rutherford joined forces with drummer Garry Kroll, and the pair spent a number of months jamming, and coming up with new ideas-as well as building upon those that Rutherford had been beavering away at.
These eventually resulted in recordings being made, over a three day period in a studio in Bristol, with session musicians from Bristol and London joining the party (including Frederico Parodi on keys, Daniel Hillman on sax, Simon Dobson on trumpet-and Portishead live bassist Jim Barr) which Graham then took home to tinker with, infusing with extra electronic bells and whistles, before committing to 'wax'.
(Since the recording, there have been slight changes in line up, with the following musicians filling roles: Nguyen Green taking over on keys, Graham Dalzell playing double bass, and Adam Campbell triggering samples from Ableton Live ).
Each track, on their 'Theta Waves EP' (which they released in November 2011) is, for want of a better word, delicious; a delight to behold with the ears and the mind, and a lovely panacea for when you're feeling a bit wrong. So imagine what the effect is when you're feeling a bit right, or a bit normal!
Jumping up and down, and flexing your unmentionables on the dance floor is a lot of fun, I know - but this isn't an arena that you would find 'Jag Harps' frequenting.
They're really more suited, I would argue, to an intimate venue, because this is a band who deserve your full attention, maybe with the aid of a few civilised drinks and in the company of good friends, rather than as a soundtrack to your drunken wild side.
After all, I honestly don't think that 'Jag Harps', in their current incarnation would ever stir up a mosh pit! But then again, why would they want to?
Watch this space for more from 'Jag Harps' who, as well as having an EP and a few live shows under their belt, are set to take 2013 by storm, with more gigging, another EP and possibly an album in the pipeline!
Review by Sam Slattery
Jag Harps!
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