Jane Weaver
Modern Kosmology
Release Date: May 19, 2017
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Fire Records
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Album Review: Modern Kosmology by Jane Weaver
Excellent, Based on 7 Critics
Based on rating 4.5
"I've been trying to find another map," Jane Weaver sings on the second track of her seventh LP, Modern Kosmology. "And now I'm changing my world," she declares on the following title track, triggering a change and opening out in her environment - guitars crunching, machinery whirring into action. Infectiously enthusiastic and fiercely independent-spirited, Weaver has been in a constant state of searching, transforming, becoming since playing in Kill Laura under the management of Factory Records' Rob Gretton in the mid-’90s.
Based on rating 4/5
T here is something both odd and immensely cheering about the arc of Jane Weaver's career. For whatever reason, you don't get many artists hitting their stride after 22 years and eight albums, particularly with something inspired in equal part by Yoko Ono and Polish film director Andrzej Żuławski. But that's precisely what happened with Weaver's 2014 release The Silver Globe.
Based on rating 8/10
On her 2014 album, The Silver Globe, Jane Weaver took a step away from the gentle psych-folk she had been making into something more German and droning. Abetted by a wide array of synthesizers, she wrapped her dreamlike songs in cushy waves of sound for a large part of the album. On 2017's Modern Kosmology, Weaver dives headlong into dream pop that's filtered through vintage synthesizers, motorik beats, and jangling guitars.
Based on rating 4
JANE WEAVER’S BACK STORY LIES in her native north-west and early-'90s, Peel-favoured indie rockers Kill Laura, but her watershed moment belatedly arrived with 2014's The Silver Globe - a slow-burn cult success enthused about in record shops' 'Staff picks' sections and on social media. Since 2002, its author had released a stream of folkish stuff that revealed real songwriting talent. Now, her more pastoral aspects were combined with such touchstones as Hawkwind, Neu! and the early Human League, which couched everything in the kind of retro-futurism captured by the title, taken from a mid-'70s Polish sci-fi movie that was banned by the Communist authorities.
Based on rating 4/5
To say 2014's The Silver Globe was a eureka moment for Jane Weaver is an understatement. 2012's Fallen By Watchbird kick-started her transmutation from wyrd-beard folkstress to intergalactic prog-pop empress but it was her sixth full-length LP that scaled new heights of accessibility. An unsurprising pop epiphany given Weaver's track record (Weaver fronted britpoppers Kill Laura and has collaborated with Elbow and Doves) but a genuine one without any sacrifice of quality control.
Opinion: Excellent
One suspects that no one was more surprised at the success of The Silver Globe than Jane Weaver herself. It's fair to assume that she held the album in high regard and pride - of course she would; what artist wouldn't beam like a proud parent at the work that's been gestated over a period of time and creativity, and birthed for willing ears - but that album's justifiably fevered and enthusiastic word-of-mouth garnered the audience, praise and career boost that she'd clearly been aiming for over a period of some considerable time. This, then, was her moment.
Opinion: Very Good
Jane Weaver – Modern Kosmology 2014's The Silver Globe became rather a word-of-mouth sleeper-hit for Manchester music scene veteran Jane Weaver. With its strung-out yet well-structured blend of krautrock and retro-space-age soul, the LP crept up on art-pop lovers with its translocating sonic earworms. Consequently, the anticipation surrounding this sequel set – released via a new label home at Fire Records – is set far higher, possibly based on the embarrassment that some critics hold for not falling into the orbit of The Silver Globe on its original release.
'Modern Kosmology'
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