Jarju Binks Stripped Back the Swagger of Singlehood in the Subversively Psychedelic Masterstroke of Genre Fusion, Nobody’s Girl –

Following a swanky old-school jazz prelude, Nobody’s Girl finds a different semblance of swagger as a new-wave indie-pop earworm with a charged rhythm section, crunchy guitars and sustained vocal notes that resonate with the kind of psychedelia often heard ringing through The Stone Roses’ brand of 90s pop. Jarju Binks, the independent singer-songwriter from Hayes, West London, uses that stylistic looseness with proper purpose.

With a title like Nobody’s Girl, it is easy to brace for a potent dose of pensiveness, but Jarju Binks’ talent in subversion clearly is not contained within genre fusion. He brings empowerment to independence before the track shifts gear into jazzy acid-house electricity, bringing it all full circle through the velvety reverberations of a spoken-word sermon about the self-reclamation of singlehood.

Yet Nobody’s Girl refuses to stop at easy liberation. After a psychedelic-rock interlude, Binks paints the other side of independence, bringing another unexpected curveball and revealing the vulnerability behind self-sufficiency, the loneliness behind the façade. In his verses, two realities can exist at once without contradiction, and each new line has a cerebral way of recontextualising the last.

As he works towards his forthcoming album, Love Ain’t Easy, written from the perspective of a cynical romantic and produced by StudioBlak, Jarju Binks is the epitome of a firebrand of lyrical intellect who deserves to be upheld.

Nobody’s Girl is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast