Bas Jan Instant Nostalgia

Following widespread critical acclaim for their debut album Yes I Jan upon its release in February and subsequent appearances at festivals this summer including Green Man and End of the Road, London experimental post-punk trio Bas Jan return with the Instant Nostalgia EP. Set for release on November 23, 2018 on 10” vinyl and digital download, it’s another smart, refreshing, surprising and laugh-out-loud funny set of joyously unvarnished songs in the extraordinary and distinctive idiom of multi-instrumentalist and composer Serafina Steer.

Who is Serafina Steer? She's a vocalist, harpist, bassist and keyboard player who has released three critically-acclaimed solo albums under her own name – the latest of which, 2013’s The Moths Are Real was produced by Jarvis Cocker – as well as appeared both live and on record with musicians including Lone Taxidermist, Jon Hopkins, Rozi Plain, John T. Gast, Patrick Wolf, Tunng and John Foxx.  She sees her practice as much as a social activity as an expressive, technical art and takes an experimental, punk approach to music making - seeking to create work that has a free quality and resists categorisation, often arising through the juxtaposition of musical disciplines and genres. 

Instant Nostalgia captures the evolution of Bas Jan since Yes I Jan. The lyrics are again by Steer with songwriting contributions from nexus of the new Jan; Emma Smith (Meilyr Jones, Seamus Fogarty and founder member of the Elysian Quartet) on violin and electronics and Rachel Horwood (Trash Kit, Bamboo) on drums. Call it Bas Jan 2.0, if you will. Currently, Charlie Stock deputises for Emma Smith when the band play live, while Emma is on maternity leave.

Where Yes I Jan was co-written and performed by Steer and Bas Jan co-founder members Sarah Anderson and Jenny Moore (with Emma Smith appearing on two songs), and chronicled the first two years of the band, Instant Nostalgia captures the live energy and personality of the performers and Bas Jan’s unconventional and thrilling improvisatory pop sound. Steer’s lyrics delight once more in hidden humour, resonance and beauty in the everyday. Be it the title track’s tuneful rumination on the transient nature of cherished places and spaces inspired by an artist’s studios closing party, or ‘Profile Picture’s caricature of the peculiarly modern angst social media can provoke, or ‘I Am Animal’s eutrophic call to follow your more bestial instincts for survival and lust over cerebral human reflection and wallowing.