The 'Your Body' EP by Barnabas

Lord knows the general problem I have trying to pass on anything useful to you about The Caroline Bomb is that they are entirely an embodiment of sui generis & maybe the English language wasn't designed to cope. It's a good job that I find challenges keep me using my cognitive facilities.

When, therefore, lead singer & guitar player Phoebe Court drops her new solo EP ‘Your Body' as she has, I wondered just how up to the task I could be.

Fortunately for you & me, I should have realised that such a solo outing would likely consist of songs not considered quite right for the band or ones which were sufficiently personal to merit specific rather than communal expression.

It's still pretty unconventional though with norms cheerfully ignored, if the overall delivery is definitely dialled down from the full on Caroline Bomb assault.

Interestingly, she has gone for the artist name of Barnabas, her legal birth name which is how you need to look it up on Bandcamp (unless I give you the link now: https://barnabas1.bandcamp.com/album/your-body-ep). I suppose this decision emphasises that human lives are complex & interesting with numerous points of diversity and nuance which we ought to embrace if we really want to value each other.

Phoebe tells me she deliberately went for diversity within the EP and if I give you the track titles at this point, you'll get some hints of this: "Losers of the Winning Side of the War", "Fell Well", "My Body", "Snake Angel", "Don't Do. Be" and "A Sharp Prick!".

Let's start with track number three. Why? Because Phoebe considers it to be her most personal & vulnerable song ever (though it terms of personal favouritism, it's a case of parity of esteem.

It's actually a funky number (not what I was expecting before playing it) and is wholly unambiguous in lyrical content: "hands off my body" is the message and I'm afraid to say that all the evidence is that it describes with a lot of precise detail an autobiographical experience of assault. Or rather multiple ones since antagonists of various genders are cited. This is answered with admirable clarity of feelings and emotions. I hope letting it all out was cathartic but really the honesty & precise articulation could speak for a great many people. As a keynote song it's works well.

Some broader thoughts and information next: "My Body" works so well because it's accessible. Phoebe's songs here are much more sonically open than the dense fabric of The Caroline Bomb and so understanding them is frankly easier from the start.

She sings, plays guitar, percussion, Roland digital synth, beer bottle and tin whistle so the arrangements are relatively simple, with each track (ranging in compositional age from a couple of years ago to last week) a bedroom production taking roughly a day each with no processing or click tracks involved.

Genres are avoided here with Phoebe feeling that she's essentially passing on messages and therefore using the most suitable medium for each.

Thus the wholly infectious "A Sharp Prick!" which is I suppose mainly an instrumental bedecked with laughing played mostly on synths and with exotic melodies from around the world: it's simply a great fun track, totally unlike "My Body" in every way and if you don't at least smile while playing it, then I feel sorry.

 She describes the EP as "a journey of self-discovery, trauma healing and channelled wisdom from the future!" and I guess that final ("bonus") track helps heal.

Nipping back to the other tracks (sorry for taking them out of sequence but I felt this was told the story best as far as my response was concerned) the opening "Losers of the Winning Side of the War" is back towards The Caroline Bomb type songs such as "Rent Strike!" in addressing broader political themes and has a more complex freaky sound. If the casual listener thought that was setting them up for the whole EP then the succeeding "Fell Well" will dismantle that assumption (which is always desirable) with its sure footed stream of thought.

"Snake Angel" is something else altogether, brooding rather than skipping and adopting a blues rock approach to a magnificently intense song while "Don't Do. Be" is outright ambient which captures its title to perfection: skeletal piano & occasional luminous vocals offering a song to immerse yourself in and soak away your pain.

The ‘Your Body' EP played in sequence is a bit like driving along a corniche, requiring regular negotiation of hair pin bends & following a route almost opposite to the direction one had been travelling in mere moments before. This I'm sure represents the playful side of the artist and one to banish expectations & complacency: which I applaud. However that must not distract from the quality of the six songs taken individually.

I see Phoebe is involved in ‘Freircle' (‘freedom circle') at the Priory Visitor Centre on Wednesday 1^st October at 2000: "communal singing that isn't a choir" which is a free event aimed at everyone regardless of musical experience or talent. That context reminds us that artists tend to have broader interests than single outlets, however powerful, can process. One might say that ‘Your Body' complements Phoebe's work with The Caroline Bomb and presumably fans of that band will understandably check it out on that basis. Ultimately, as comparisons can be odious, I'm not sure that matters so much: it's a fine collection which stands entirely on its own merits (though the sincerity & originality are comparable) & says things I feel are well worth saying in a manner people can relate to. I know that I certainly did.