It's Jessie Ware Season
On her sixth album Superbloom, the English disco revivalist hits a lush new peak.
By Samuel Albert
- Published on
“I wanted the album to embody that optimism and hope of springtime,” Ware tells RANGE when explaining the central ethos of her latest project, “I wanted to try and capture that change from survival to enjoyment and pleasure that Spring brings.”
Ware is confident, glamorous, and optimistic in conversation, evoking an assuredness that’s refreshing to hear during a year as existentially onerous as this one. “After feeling such love from the last two records, I feel like I’ve found my lane and my people. I was really just pushing it on this one, seeing how far I could expand my vocals, instrumentation, and the storytelling,” says Ware while elucidating what makes this album such a notable achievement in her already impressive body of work.
Citing Minnie Riperton, Barbara Streisand, and Chaka Khan as artistic inspirations across the album, Ware is consciously etching a pedestal for herself in the hall of great vocalists whose careers she’s modelled her own after: “These soulful divas that I’m so inspired by, they tell a story beautifully and get into the groove; they have a gentleness and a strength about them that I’m striving to channel.”
For those familiar with Ware, such an artistic ambition should come as no surprise. Ware has steadily been reinventing a Studio-54-reminiscent disco-pop sound for the past decade, breaking most into the mainstream with her critically acclaimed 2020 album, What’s Your Pleasure?, a major touchstone during many people’s lockdown rotation. Building a catalogue of rich albums that shimmer with a signature synthy sound that has rightfully positioned her as the queen bee of a certain nostalgic sub-genre of alternative dance music, Ware feels at the peak of her creative power and world-building acumen on Superbloom, an album as evocative as it is exalting.
Those aforementioned adjectives could describe Ware just as easily. She is an artist who is candid about her creative intentions and confidently assured in the majesty of the work she produces. For instance, when asked how she imagined the “secret garden” which opens the lead single “I Could Get Used to This” and functions as an atmospheric thesis for the jubilant landscape of the album, Ware immediately replied with an Edenic fantasy of earthly delights: “It’s fresh and got the most beautiful aromas of mimosa and freshly cut grass and dew. It’s full of fruit and fecundity and beautiful people who are sensual and confident.”
Sensuality and confidence are in no short supply for Ware. “I want the flowers out, I want the sun to touch you, I want you to have a stride, to have a purpose; you’re going somewhere and you are transported into this world,” she says when describing the ideal circumstances to experience Superbloom for the first time.
Illustrative as ever, Ware’s intention feels most distilled across Superbloom, her visual vocabulary at its most vibrant. The songs range from seductive anthems to sincere meditations on motherhood, creating a tapestry of diverse lyrics united by their decadence and dance-ready rhythm. “I also want you to go and make love to it as well. Listen with your friends. Sing it to each other.” If it wasn’t clear, Jessie Ware is still asking you to find your pleasure, only this time, she’s also giving your imagination a shortcut in the form of Superbloom, an album arriving just in time for spring flowers, and everything else the season stimulates.
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