Bas Jan

Fronted by Serafina Steer, London's Bas Jan merges refined, dark-toned post-punk textures with probing spoken reflections on the small details of ordinary life and collective behavior. What began as Steer's solo outlet yielded the 2018 debut Yes I Jan; by the time of the 2022 follow-up Baby U Know the lineup had grown to a quartet anchored by a specialist electric violinist, and the band enlisted external producers for the first time on the more refined 2023 album Back to the Swamp.

Steer, a songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, established the project in 2015 as an arty, post-punk-leaning concern that placed lyrics at its core. Issued by Lost Map Records in February 2018, Yes I Jan was largely a one-person recording that already featured the ruminative spoken-word segments later recognized as a signature of the group's style, set beside its sung passages. Drawing on her prior work as a harpist alongside Jarvis Cocker, Paolo Nutini, and Sean O'Hagan, Steer recruited Rachel Horwood of Trash Kit and Bamboo on drums plus Emma Smith of the Elysian Quartet on violin and bass for the Instant Nostalgia EP that appeared that November. Electric violinist Charlie Stock, previously of the Irrepressibles and Jarvis Cocker, joined the permanent roster for the second album Baby U Know, which was tracked at Café Oto in London and released on Lost Map in January 2022. The band subsequently moved to Fire Records, prompting an early-2023 reissue of Baby U Know.

For the next record, Bas Jan collaborated with outside producers Kristian Craig Robinson of Capitol K and Ibibio Sound Machine and Leo Abrahams, whose credits include Brian Eno, Katie Melua, and Sam Amidon. The resulting album, the more expansive and varied Back to the Swamp, emerged on Fire Records in November 2023.