04-02-2025, 17:20
JIM WHITE & TREY BLAKE - Precious Bane
![[Image: a2402726892_16.jpg]](https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2402726892_16.jpg)
Jim White is an exceptionally articulate guy, and pretty humerous, a lot of the time, as well as serious, somewhat neurotic and shatteringly truthful – he tends to cut straight to the chase of the human condition in all its broken glory. His music is almost as diverse as his chequered career – the man has been a taxi driver in NYC, a model, a ditch digger and a surfer dude. Aside from music, some of which I thoroughly love (not having heard it all), he’s a natural scribe and a lot of his work, past and present is informed by his deeply Pentecostal upbringing.
On this release he teams up with Trey Blake who is a complete unknown. She is from the UK and as I understand it fairly well along on the autism spectrum. I’m copying and pasting that story below as it’s better said in those words.
What’s on the album? This is Americana/Folk with an alternative streak. The album covers screams Gothic (not nuts about it myself but I think it has to do with the book of the same title), so expect a smidge of that, dark in places, for sure – songs alternating between Jim and Trey – she with a most unusual vocal that is not at all pretty (mostly – that changes, and in any case, pretty is not aspirational, or inspirational, IMHO) but which is really compelling – reminds me a bit of Laura Pergolizzi, to a degree – Patti Smyth and Stevie are names that have been bandied about too. And as with all things Jim White, no rubbish lyrics – from either of them. For anyone yearning for something eminently listenable and unusual that is well produced and put together by a competent hand, this might fill the gap.
From Bandcamp - https://jimwhite.bandcamp.com/album/precious-bane
It started in London with a shy fan offering Americana outsider Jim White a gift—an obscure 19th Century novel called Precious Bane. Over the years they kept up a correspondence, with White becoming increasingly intrigued by this shy, impoverished woman who led a fairly desperate hand to mouth existence in the south of England.
That woman is Trey Blake, a neurodivergent artist living in obscurity in Brighton, UK. Growing up with undiagnosed autism, she managed her condition and the resultant inability to function in the mainstream world through various addictions. Along the way she sought to create art (songs, prose & photography) that encompassed both light and dark, drawing on her experiences of brokenness and loss on one hand and transcendent beauty and oneness on the other.
The two have paired up to deliver Precious Bane, a haunting effort that finds them trading songs from across the ocean---her parts being recorded by Joe Watson of Stereolab, whom Trey randomly met in a Brighton coffee shop. Like Jim, Joe was instantly struck by this exotic outsider. The resulting collaboration is an enigmatic sonic journey that transports the listener to a mythic, darkly lyrical soundscape.
Jim White and Joe Watson believe in Trey Blake. Hopefully you will too. She deserves an audience, a high-minded one in fact, one hungry for subtle revelation, one capable of appreciating the beauty of treasures unearthed in ragged, unlikely places; among the weeds, deep in the shadows of being, on the outermost fringes of existence. That’s Trey’s zone.
The opener - Jim White ... "Ghost Song"
And the second - Trey Blake's "Rushing in Waves" ...
Jim White is an exceptionally articulate guy, and pretty humerous, a lot of the time, as well as serious, somewhat neurotic and shatteringly truthful – he tends to cut straight to the chase of the human condition in all its broken glory. His music is almost as diverse as his chequered career – the man has been a taxi driver in NYC, a model, a ditch digger and a surfer dude. Aside from music, some of which I thoroughly love (not having heard it all), he’s a natural scribe and a lot of his work, past and present is informed by his deeply Pentecostal upbringing.
On this release he teams up with Trey Blake who is a complete unknown. She is from the UK and as I understand it fairly well along on the autism spectrum. I’m copying and pasting that story below as it’s better said in those words.
What’s on the album? This is Americana/Folk with an alternative streak. The album covers screams Gothic (not nuts about it myself but I think it has to do with the book of the same title), so expect a smidge of that, dark in places, for sure – songs alternating between Jim and Trey – she with a most unusual vocal that is not at all pretty (mostly – that changes, and in any case, pretty is not aspirational, or inspirational, IMHO) but which is really compelling – reminds me a bit of Laura Pergolizzi, to a degree – Patti Smyth and Stevie are names that have been bandied about too. And as with all things Jim White, no rubbish lyrics – from either of them. For anyone yearning for something eminently listenable and unusual that is well produced and put together by a competent hand, this might fill the gap.
From Bandcamp - https://jimwhite.bandcamp.com/album/precious-bane
It started in London with a shy fan offering Americana outsider Jim White a gift—an obscure 19th Century novel called Precious Bane. Over the years they kept up a correspondence, with White becoming increasingly intrigued by this shy, impoverished woman who led a fairly desperate hand to mouth existence in the south of England.
That woman is Trey Blake, a neurodivergent artist living in obscurity in Brighton, UK. Growing up with undiagnosed autism, she managed her condition and the resultant inability to function in the mainstream world through various addictions. Along the way she sought to create art (songs, prose & photography) that encompassed both light and dark, drawing on her experiences of brokenness and loss on one hand and transcendent beauty and oneness on the other.
The two have paired up to deliver Precious Bane, a haunting effort that finds them trading songs from across the ocean---her parts being recorded by Joe Watson of Stereolab, whom Trey randomly met in a Brighton coffee shop. Like Jim, Joe was instantly struck by this exotic outsider. The resulting collaboration is an enigmatic sonic journey that transports the listener to a mythic, darkly lyrical soundscape.
Jim White and Joe Watson believe in Trey Blake. Hopefully you will too. She deserves an audience, a high-minded one in fact, one hungry for subtle revelation, one capable of appreciating the beauty of treasures unearthed in ragged, unlikely places; among the weeds, deep in the shadows of being, on the outermost fringes of existence. That’s Trey’s zone.
The opener - Jim White ... "Ghost Song"
And the second - Trey Blake's "Rushing in Waves" ...
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson
