I really had one of the most amazing days of my life recording with Sefo, my near namesake (I’ve always been called Sefa for short). He is really an incredible musician, it was like a masterclass. Ben aka Jon Johanna who is helping produce the album, created a perfect deepest Norfolk woods ‘shed’ environment for us to record.

Two blurry happy maestros after a great recording session in my studio. Sefo Kanuteh is a Mandé music master and I'm privileged to be helping him put an album together. Serafina Steer, whose current project is the supreme @basjanband , was kind enough to stop by with an electric harp and play on one of his songs. The kora and the European harp are cousins I guess, but these two made them sound like brother and sister.

A post shared by John Johanna (@jon_johanna) on Aug 16, 2018 at 7:44am PDT

I’m playing in JARV which is Jarvis Cocker’s new project and there are four of us including Jarvis in JARV. Fellow BAS JANner Emma Smith (violin/guitar), Adam Betts (Drums), Andrew Mckinney (Bass/minotour) and myself on electric harp(!) and keyboards. We had our first UK show last night in Brighton and I think it was a HIT. These venues are really small, which is nice for us to try out new things but not many people could get tickets. There will be more in the future-fingers crossed.
Extext (the improvised mini dramas project) with Catherine Carter heads on a pace. We had our best ever gig at Linear Obsessions in the Lewisham Arts Cafe on Sunday. Unfortunately my zoom recorder didn’t work. Thanks to Sonic Imperfections for having us play at their Telegraph Hill Music Festival last Thursday as well.
Bas Jan are recording an EP this week at Kluster Rooms.
The latest Synergie Split Single Series is our most successful yet- Rhodri Davies and Dane Law’s AUR is going to get played on BBC Late Junction in April.

Firstly, my new years resolution is to get organised. It is impossible but the good people at lost map are helping.

I’ve some how got locked out of the basjan.co.uk website so I can’t update it. lol

The album Yes I Jan is coming out digitally on Feb 9th. It will be available for pre-order at some point TBC. The physical release date is hopefully Feb 23rd

If you would like to be notified of when presales go up then best follow me or lost map on twitter (@serafinasteer) or the bas jan band page on face book.

There will be an amazing infinite megamix tape that will be for the first 100 pre-orders of the album. I will post a list of contributors soon.

We have a gig in Bristol on 14th Feb (yes THAT DAY) and Edinburgh 24th Feb. We’ll be doing a live session on Marc Riley on Feb 7th

LONG LIVE THE JAN

IN WHATEVER WAY IS MOST MEANINGFUL TO YOU

X

Very belated news! I won a Paul Hamlyn award (as well as these other 9 artists)

This coincided with my old laptop finally expiring so I haven’t been able to update my website. So that was one of the first things I spent some money on and now I am able to write about all the things that have already happened.

I did an interview about the Paul Hamlyn award on the FreakZone with Stuart Maconie. Listen here . They also play ‘Argument’ from the forthcoming Bas Jan album. That’s the first airplay I believe!

You can buy this single for £1 as part of the Lost Map Postcard series and with that you get an exclusive remix of No Sign by JP Buckle (All Seeing I/ Relaxed Muscle)Bas Jan are performing at the Union Chapel AND Dalston Boys Club on Saturday 9th December

I’ve been performing solo a bit. Mainly in Scotland for some reason. Most recently at Tae Sup Wi’ A Fifer alongside Alasdair Roberts, Scott H(Frightened Rabbit) and James Yorkston (who programmes the concert series)

Also myself and Catherine Carter (vocalist) have formed an experimental voice and harp duo called Extext. We made our debut at Sonic Imperfections in New Cross earlier this month.

And I performed alongside lots of very interesting and clever speakers for Sally O’Reilly’s ‘The Doubting Colloquy’ at The Whitechapel Art Gallery. I wrote a new song with some words by Sally. The event was about DOUBT, a in Sally’s novel ‘Crude’. Again I will upload a recording if one transpires.

For those of you that have read this far! I will be a couple of tunes with Patrick Wolf at his Bush Hall gig 18.12/17

Sonic Imperfections is an experimental music night at The Montague Arms in New Cross.

Catherine Carter and myself are performing under the name EXTEXT at Sonic Imperfections, Montegue Arms in New Cross, on Tuesday 14th November.
It’ll be so NEW and REAL you won’t believe what it is.
We can’t believe what it is.
But there it will be.
It will begin happening on Tuesday 13th November right there and then.