Jazmine Mary is the 2022 winner of the Auckland Live Best Independent Debut award. Recently they have opened in New Zealand for Kurt Vile, Billy Bragg, Gang Of Youths, and toured the country in support of Reb Fountain.
They make music not to earn a living, but to survive, and it’s through their song writing that Jazmine Mary feels tethered to something tangible, a constant. It’s the action of translating their experiences into poetic folk compositions that helps in “understanding parts of the beauty and ugliness of the world”, and which might help listeners do so too.
On their second album, Jazmine Mary has created an unlikely space for despair and joy to cohabit. Far more than gut-punch poetry and dark truths, Jazmine Mary flaunts their penchant for finding hopefulness in an oft cruel world.
Your new best friend. The neighbour’s kind-eyed bitzer. An adolescent pup that hasn’t yet learned not to bite. This album has nothing to do with dogs.
As with the rest of their sophomore collection Dog, first single ‘Seagull’ emerged in the months following Jazmine’s highly lauded 2021 debut The Licking of a Tangerine.
Despite, or perhaps in spite of, the grief and tragedy woven through their music, anyone who’s had the chance to see them live has likely been disarmed by their wry stage chatter and magnetic vulnerability, a virtue just as present in the likes of ‘Seagull’ and what’s to come.
Jazmine Mary won’t tell you what the album is about or why this album is called Dog. They could well be hiding something from us, but the more probable reason is that they are a responsible artist and know it’s not for them to tell you how to experience what they already have.
The Raglan show is on July 28th at The Yard and is set to be an amazing night with these two very talented musicians on stage! Tickets from Undertheradar.co.nz.
