Back in September last year, Sicilian multi-instrumentalist JuJu – the pseudonym of Gioele Valenti (Lay Llamas, Herself) released second LP Our Mother Was A Plant on Fuzz Club Records. After a run of festival appearances towards the end of last year, JuJu has now announced a full European tour in support of the new record.
To coincide with the announcement, he shares a new video for the incredible ‘In A Ghetto’, which features guest percussion from Capra Informis, the djembe player of Swedish psych-rock aficionados Goat. The video was made by Rickard Daun of Flowers Must Die.
On Our Mother Was A Plant, JuJu sought to explore humanities increasingly strained relationship with Mother Earth, and when talking about his influences on the album he explains: “Our Mother Was A Plant is inspired by the great psychedelic researchers and plant explorers, including Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, Jim Morrison, Terence McKenna, Jeremy Narby and many others. People who managed to reveal the secret mechanism of the unconscious tied to the natural world that surrounds us, and from which we are indefinitely separated. Every separation, every neurosis, sexism, racism, speciesism and act of violence comes from this division. As a result of this, I believe true freedom lies in abandoning the ego and private property. Being a true symbol of freedom, autonomy and integration I also decided to dedicate the album to A Chosen Few, the first black American motorcycle club and its founding members (Lionel, Lil Frank, Roger, Hawk, Slim, Shirly Bates and Champ)”
Catch JuJu live in the UK:
13th, @Hy Brasil Club, Bristol
15th, @The Soundhouse, Leiceste
16th, @Shacklewell Arms, London
17th, @The Peer Hat, Manchester
