Tour Dates

18th April - Waiheke, Artworks Theatre

19th April - Kirikiriroa, House Concert

23rd April - Ōtepoti, Pearl Diver

24th April - Tāhuna, Sherwood

26th April - Ōhinehou, Wunderbar

Bio

For the past decade, Jessica Bailey’s Fables ensemble has been a familiar fixture in Tāmaki Makaurau’s independent music scene. Their sound elegantly marries the intimate, bed-sit qualities of folk revival music with the expansive, range-roving sensibilities of alt-country and Americana, drawing comparisons to Gillian Welch, Laura Marling, Adrianne Lenker, and their peers.

Fables’ songs split the difference between interiority and the external themes that pull us together or push us apart. In the process, they ripple with an intensity where the touch of a lover is certain ecstasy, and the cold flinch of rejection feels like existential death. Underpinned by elegant guitar figures, Bailey’s music riffs outwards from the conventions of the traditional singer-songwriter idiom, painting with a broad brush as she folds synthesisers and a sonic punch into a free-flowing confluence of open tunings and naturalistic instrumentation that mirrors the changing seasons. A songwriter who knows the devil is in the details: the ones you leave in and the ones you leave out, Bailey draws deeply from the highs, lows, and mundane middle of everyday reality. The result is economical but arresting narratives with a surreal slant. Call it folk obscura. Embracing the beauty in quiet moments and the riotous, life-affirming power of a song in full flight, Fables reaffirm Bailey’s commitment to harnessing the full range of human emotion in each musical experience. Every morning is a chance to be new.

Change is a Slow Moving Beast

Change Is a Slow Moving Beast welcomes us into the rich inner world of Tāmaki Makaurau singer-songwriter Jessica Bailey, aka Fables. Image by image, the music documents the moments that forced her to reevaluate her life, and the hard-won personal growth that followed. Over twelve moody, vividly realised chambers of song, she navigates indecision, vulnerability, and self-reflection, before realising that the pursuit of artistic clarity is the journey and the destination.

There’s a popular misconception out there that the human body completely replaces its cells every seven years. While it isn’t strictly true, the idea serves as an apt metaphor for the distance between Bailey’s first EP, 2018’s Portraits and Change Is a Slow-Moving Beast. From the eerie opening atmosphere of her paean to absolution, ‘Forgiving’, Bailey’s debut album emerges as a patiently paced exploration of how life inevitably transforms us.

Somewhere between diary entries, mood montages, and echoes of memory, songs like ‘Cacophony’, ‘Notebook’ and past singles ‘Sundown’ and ‘Eyes Closed’ delve into her relationships with grieving, yearning, and pining. These universal themes anchor the emotional landscape of the record. It’s been a long, slow rise, but for anyone who has ever made the mistake of not trusting their gut instincts, Bailey’s album offers catharsis, acceptance and release. By the time the album concludes as ‘Every time I find the Meaning of Life’ rings out, she’s come to terms with the relationship between the goal posts and mirages. The good, the bad, the ugly, none of it lasts forever, so best we live through all of it the best we can.

Recorded with a resplendent cast of session musicians—bassist Cass Basil (Tiny Ruins, King Sweeties), multi-instrumentalist Dave Kahn (Marlon Williams, Reb Fountain), and drummer Arahi (Te Tokotoru, Pony Baby)—Change Is a Slow-Moving Beast dresses Bailey’s confessional songwriting in the textures of alt-country, Americana, contemporary folk and sleek, minimal synth-pop. Mixed by Australian audio engineer and musician Dan Luscombe (of The Drones) and produced by Khan, the album is rendered in a vivid, cinematic style that complements the music’s unguarded emotional intensity.