Jarred Up Presents:
Naima Bock
The roots of Naima Bock’s music are deep and far reaching. Born in Glastonbury to a Brazilian father and a Greek mother, Naima spent her early childhood in Brazil before eventually returning to England, bouncing around various homes in South-East London. This muddled heritage combines with more recent pursuits in Naima’s music; from the Brazilian standards (Baden Powell, Chico Buarque, Geraldo Vandre, Cartola, etc.) that the family used to listen to driving to the beach, to the European folk traditions she tapped into on her own, and the pursuits that interest her today – studies in archaeology, work as a gardener, and walking the world’s great trails – Naima’s music draws from family, the earth and the handing down of music through generations.
The creation of Naima’s debut album Giant Palm began in her move back to the UK, though the music is undoubtedly infused with the Brazilian music of her youth and regular family visits – she found inspiration in, “the percussion, the melodies, chords - and particularly the poetic juxtaposition of tragedy and beauty held within the lyrics”. By the age of 15 Naima was embedded in the music scene of South-East London, going to gigs at The Windmill in Brixton, slotting into a group of like-minded friends writing and playing music. This led to the creation of Goat Girl, the band she toured the world with playing bass and singing alongside her school friends. After six years, with a desire to try something new, Naima decided to leave Goat Girl. In the intervening years she set up a gardening company and started a degree at UCL in archaeology because, as she jokes, “I liked being near the ground”. During this time, she was still writing music, playing guitar, and learning violin. In this time, she was introduced to producer and arranger Joel Burton through Josh Cohen and his label, Memorials of Distinction. Joel was becoming frustrated with his band Viewfinder, and was keen to expand his musical limits. Over the time he and Naima worked together, Joel’s burgeoning interest in Western Classical music, global folk music, experience in large scale arrangement and orchestration informed the collaborative process that eventually culminated in Giant Palm.
Naima had been writing songs for a number of years without any strong idea of where to take them. However, over a gradual process of rehearsing and performing with Joel, the compositions began to settle into something more concrete. It wasn’t until restrictions began to ease post-lockdown that they were able to focus on getting the songs finished and recorded. Fortunately, Dan Carey of Speedy Wunderground offered his spare studio space in Streatham, free of charge. Informed by a desire to create music that was considered and intentional, they spent the month leading up to the recording expanding the arrangements, to be performed by a large and varied group of musicians - with Joel scoring parts and recording the synth and electronic elements in advance. Once they managed to schedule slots for the more-than 30 musicians on the record - the expansive yet delicate arrangements were brought to life and captured with the help of engineer Syd Kemp.
Within Naima, somewhere below the songs she’s created herself, sits an exhaustive bank of traditionals. The kinds of songs whose creator has been long lost and have evolved steadily in any number of directions. Be these Brazilian family favourites or those rooted in British folk tradition, Naima loves the collective voice of songs that belong to everyone. She often surprises even herself in the ease she’s able to call them to mind. She’s recently found a home for this passion in her role in the ever-shifting line-up of South-London folk collective Broadside Hacks, but it’s long been a way for her to explore her own artistry. She learned to play guitar and violin through these songs, but she also found her voice in them. “All the other representations that I’d had of singing felt so unattainable” she recalls, but in folk music she found that singing can take on so many forms without the need to exactly replicate something. Here qualities that make her voice unique were able to flourish: the impressive range, and ease with which she traverses scales and changes styles were able to roam more feely. This is present all through her music, as well as a feeling of community and the sharing of ideas. Though studio time restrictions meant things had to be planned down to the minute, once in the room all formality dissipated - none of the players on Giant Palm sound like they’ve been shipped in to play a role and this the key to the warm and welcoming nature of the music.
As for the songs themselves, each comes from a place of earnest and open-hearted vulnerability. Written over the space of years, each of Naima’s songs represents a snapshot of a specific feeling, of brief moments in Naima’s life that make up a larger whole. “I never change lyrics” she says, “even if I don’t relate to them anymore, I related to them once which means someone else could, somewhere”. Once written, the songs are left untouched in the hopes that the raw specificity of isolated feelings are easy for people to lock onto and recognise in their own lives. Whether that’s in the playful humour of ‘Campervan’, the peaceful exhale of ‘Giant Palm’ or in the darker moments like in the stark, self-critical honesty of ‘Every Morning’, whatever the form it’s always laid bare.
There’s also a feeling of clarity to the songs, which Naima largely credits to the fact that many of them were written while walking. She finds inspiration in the meditative and revealing nature of long walks with a fixed but far-off destination. Something she’s also found in the slow-reveal of archaeological digs and the methodical work of gardening. “There’s a stripping away that takes place”, she says, the clearing of the fog in the brain and slowing of thoughts by the rhythm of walking is often to thank for the sharp focus of her lyrics. Be that during a period of three years where she would return to Spanish pilgrimage network Camino de Santiago for weeks at a time, or simple hours spent in the English countryside. “The most beautiful part of it for me was walking through the city” she says of her time in Spain, “you get the industrial bit at the start and then the middle section and you have to just walk straight through it, through the suburbs. You see all this progression of humanity and then you get back into nature at the end of it”. Giant Palm
never rushes. It allows itself the time to enjoy the wide-open spaces, the claustrophobic streets, or the minute details along the way, safe in the knowledge that the destination is somewhere over the horizon.
£15 ADV
Doors- 7:30pm
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