South London artist-to-watch Jasmine Jethwa creates a space of connection and catharsis on her achingly intimate sophomore EP ‘Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around,’ an emotionally charged outpouring of radiant passion and tender, soul-stirring sound.
Stream: “Money to Burn” – Jasmine Jethwa
If your eyes crash into mine tonight, find a forever that I’ll get lost in…
– “Golden,” Jasmine Jethwa
Achingly vulnerable and beautifully raw, Jasmine Jethwa’s sophomore EP is the product of a heart and soul exposed.
It’s a record that dwells in the smoldering depths of intimacy and memory; a record that burns with the pain, tension, and turmoil of heartache and change; a record that asks the age-old question, is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? – and gets a few different answers, depending on the mood of the moment. An emotionally charged outpouring of radiant passion and tender, soul-stirring sound, Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around finds 24-year-old Jethwa rising to meet her own moment, creating a space of connection and catharsis through five breathtaking, empowering, and honest songs.
If I had a penny every time you let me down,
I’d be rich as a King in a crown,
I’d be rolling around in diamonds & pearls, I know
If I had a penny every time you cared,
I’d be poor as a poet in a broken bed,
Cause I’ve waited too long on your promises, I know,
Oh my love, how long have you banked on me?
You say you’re lost, story’s getting old,
If your lies were money,
I’d still have money to burn,
But I believe,
You owe your love it all belongs to me,
If I could cash all the hurt,
I’d still have money to burn,
But I won’t leave,
You owe your love it all belongs to me
– “Money to Burn,” Jasmine Jethwa
Released April 7, 2023 via Akira Records, Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around is as enchanting as it is shiver-inducing. The follow-up to 2020’s Hurricane EP sees South London singer/songwriter Jasmine Jethwa honing her voice as she faces heartache and hardship head-on, coming into her own as a profoundly poetic lyricist as well as a vivid, evocative storyteller. An Atwood Magazine artist-to-watch and Editor’s Pick, Jethwa creates worlds of wonder and intimacy through her songs, pulling her audience in with her such that we can feel, or at least wholly understand, exactly what she’s going through at any given moment. Her approach is raw, yet polished; hearty, yet light – and it is through this expressive balance that she has proved herself an unparalleled artistic force in her hometown and beyond.
Sometimes it’s when we’re at our most vulnerable that we create our most seductive works of art. This certainly seems the case for Jethwa, who delved deep into herself for Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around‘s five tracks.
“Same Streets, But I Don’t See You Around is my reflection looking back on the phases of a relationship after it has ended,” Jethwa tells Atwood Magazine. “It goes through infatuation, confusion, anger and strength, ultimately finding resolution. It made me wonder if I would have been better off never meeting them at all, rather than dealing with the painful after effects. The fact that I learnt a lot, and that these songs wouldn’t exist without it all became my mantra as I saw the same faces and walked the same streets on my own.”
“The songs were seen as individual songs rather than tracks making up a record, but after piecing them all together it felt like they worked and the vision of what the EP was became clear quite quickly. It was originally four songs, and ‘Blue Stripes’ was a last minute decision, and I’m so happy that is on the record, so in that way the EP changed during the finishing process. I always had the artwork in my mind and felt like it represented the feeling of the record; moving and caught in a moment, looking at someone but also not.”
For Jethwa, this record and its songs represent not only a step up, but also a few steps forward in terms of her growth, her career, and her artistry. “I think my songwriting in this EP has grown a lot,” she reflects. “I’m proud of some of the poetry in there and also the simpler, vulnerable lines. I think since the last EP I’ve changed, as has life, and I’m finding a more clear and defiant way of expressing that in this EP.”
The EP’s title captures many of the sentiments at the heart of Jethwa’s songs; the push-and-pull between past and present, love and loss, connection and disconnect, togetherness and independence, all coalescing within us at once. “I chose this title as I was inspired by the last line in “Don’t See You Around,” having shared the same streets with someone but them no longer being in my life. But I think when you are used to a place, area, etc., you are left with memories that you had with that person, and you then have to rewrite things on your own. The streets, places and faces stayed the same but there’d been a big shift.”
I wish that I was a stranger in a crowd,
You say my name and yet I don’t hear any sound,
I wouldn’t call you on the phone,
And be someone you used to know,
We share the same streets but I don’t see you around
– “Don’t See You Around,” Jasmine Jethwa
Jethwa opens the EP with the all-consuming “Money to Burn,” a breathtakingly vulnerable, beautifully cinematic eruption of heartache, grief, and self-empowerment. Jethwa’s smoldering voice melts gracefully over hypnotic guitars and a lush orchestral bed, rising with radiant harmonies in a rich, captivating, and delicate chorus that simultaneously breaks us down and builds us back up again:
If your lies were money,
I’d still have money to burn,
But I believe,
You owe your love it, all belongs to me
If I could cash all the hurt,
I’d still have money to burn,
But I won’t leave,
You owe your love, it all belongs to me
She embraces a moment of fragility and solitude on “Have I Ever Been,” a poignant folk-pop ballad that struggles with feelings of discord and disconnection. “But you’ll never be my sweet melody,” she laments in the song’s gut-wrenching chorus. “Won’t be finding my way back to you.”
Meanwhile, the dreamy and lush “Golden” sees Jethwa Jethwa embracing her hauntingly beautiful voice while she steadily, carefully builds a cinematic soundscape around her. “It’s the kind of aural architecture that sends shivers down the spine, and at the center of this growing storm is a voice of pure gold, singing about the vulnerability, uncertainty, and hope of fresh, young love,” Atwood Magazine wrote last year.
In addition to above three tracks – all of which were singles for the EP – Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around introduces two new songs to the Jasmine Jethwa catalog. “Don’t See You Around” is a gentle giant of melodic tenderness and emotional turbulence, featuring some of Jethwa’s most direct and biting writing, with lines like, “The end that I’m chasing is still my heart breaking” stopping us dead in our tracks.
Same heart, different feeling,
I need space and you need a reason,
You never did live in the moment,
It just passed you by,
So tell me how’s the view?
The end that I’m chasing,
Is still my heart breaking
I wish that I was a stranger in a crowd,
You say my name and yet I don’t hear any sound,
I wouldn’t call you on the phone,
And be someone you used to know,
You look right at me but I don’t see you around
Jethwa cites the EP’s final track as her personal favorite. “‘Blue Stripes’ feels pretty open, simpler and honest compared to some of my other songs,” she explains. “I wrote it just after a sad goodbye, and the lyrics and melody poured out of me in the studio with Couros. It was similar when I wrote Money To Burn, it was my first ever session with my now close friend Jez Ashurst, and Rachel Furner and the song came so quickly – and the vocal used is from that same day, the first ever vocal we recorded.”
The EP’s brooding finale is also home to one of Jethwa’s three favorite lyrics from the EP:
“Funny how I never see, blue stripes in my dreams, carhartt denim jeans, I wasn’t me” from “Blue Stripes”
“If I had a penny every time you cared, I’d be poor as a poet in a broken bed, cos I’ve waited too long on your promises” – from “Money to Burn”
“You never did live in the moment, it just passed you by, so tell me, how’s the view” – from “Don’t See You Around”
Heartache inevitably hurts, but on Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around, Jasmine Jethwa channels her pain into sixteen minutes of unadulterated beauty.
The singer/songwriter shines bright on her second EP, delivering five fresh heart-on-sleeve tracks packed with feeling, each of which promises to inspire, light a fire inside, and maybe help us shed a few tears along the way.
“I hope people connect with Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around and find comfort in the subjects and emotions,” Jethwa shares. “These songs were what got me through a lot of difficult days, and I hope they can go on to do that for someone else.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Jasmine Jethwa’s Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around EP with Atwood Magazine as she goes track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her sophomore EP!
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Stream: ‘Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around’ – Jasmine Jethwa
:: Inside Same Streets But I Don’t See You Around ::
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Money to Burn
“Money To Burn” was a song that for me, felt like it wrote itself. I was in a situation where I didn’t completely trust that I was being told the whole truth, and at the time I felt pretty powerless. I wrote this song as a way to find my power again, with ultimately a vulnerable sentiment but sonics that are strong and defiant.
Have I Ever Been
“Have I Ever Been” is about you meaning more to someone than they do to you. They feel in love, while your heart is elsewhere. Then the sadness that is felt as they realise they are not that someone to you, followed by their painful question, have I ever been?
Golden
“Golden” is about the early stages of infatuation – the push and pull in a relationship. The song has a continuous feeling of instability and uncertainty, and feels young and hopeful, perhaps even naive, but I like the purity of feeling, before things are jaded with knowing someone more and love getting heavier.
Don’t See You Around
“Don’t See You Around” is me reflecting and wondering if I would have been better off never meeting someone at all, rather than dealing with the painful after effects of a heartbreak. Two people being invisible to each other, even though they share the same places and walk the same streets.
Blue Stripes
“Blue Stripes” was a stream of consciousness song. I had just met someone outside a train station, shared an emotional goodbye and I went straight to the studio and this poured out of me. I had noticed differences in the person, taking them in for the last time and wrote this song.
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