Sweet Baboo has enjoyed a sustained fallow period – it’s five years since the ‘Wild Imagination’ album, after all – but now Steve Black is back with a fresh crop of stories, his unique take on the world taking root and blooming into songs. New single ‘Horticulture‘ from forthcoming album ‘The Wreckage’ is out today and we are so delighted to host the premiere of the video for it.
We’ve already heard ‘Hopeless’ and ‘Good Luck’ from the new record, due in January, and now in ‘Horticulture‘ we are delivered of an ode to the skill – or lack of – caring for houseplants, whilst gently praising the everyday, observing the value of patience and attention on ourselves and those around us. ‘Feed, watch and I wait, water, watch and I wait, watching my plants come alive…’ he sings as we imagine Steve relax into the nourishing rhythms of digging and tending. The low and level vocal on top of lo-fi synth beats coloured by sweeping, cinematic strings highlight how the often humdrum of our lives can be predictable but offers reliability and a sense of safety, security.
‘I’m a stickler for routine,’ he admits. ‘I’m not very good at being off the cuff, you see.’
Steve wanted to write something positive about the day to day. A self help guide, if you will. He had ‘Horticulture’ on the backburner for a good while he explains, but it was when recording on a song by his friend Georgia Ruth about plants overgrowing and taking over the world (‘that’s what i took it to being about anyway’) – it could happen, folks – that made him think further.
‘My wife and me, we spend a lot of care and attention on the houseplants,’ he says. ‘We try our hardest and sometimes we do a good job and sometimes, they like to die don’t they. My whole family are keen gardeners ,my great granddad was a gardener, my gran had an amazing garden and my parents spent all their time in the garden. And I thought you’ve got to write about something don’t you, might as well write about that.’
Steve’s been on tour a lot with Cate Le Bon, Gruff Rhys as well as dates with his own Group Listening and happily, there’s been a recent Sweet Baboo show as well. How, it has to be asked, does he ensure his plants are ok when he’s away globetrotting?
‘My wife’s better at keeping the plants alive than me, I’m an over-waterer. She keeps the plants alive and when I come home I water them some more. And we see what happens then.‘
The video for Horticulture, made by Pete Ingo, shows lovers and friends being kind to themselves. There’s a mature lady in it with a very impressive collection of neck massagers, another contentedly tending her garden. Ultimate selfcare.
“Horticulture, for me, is a song about love, tenderness and a perseverance,’ explains Pete. ‘I wanted to make a visual that reflected this. Sweet Baboo’s music has always had that “Domestique magique” running through to its core and I wanted the characters in the video to be the embodiment of this….but turned up to 11…….slowly…….. and a cat.”
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The Wreckage is released on Amazing Tapes From Canton on 27 January.
Tour dates:
Wed 15 Feb – Birkenhead, Future Yard
Thu 16 Feb – Glasgow, Hug & Pint
Fri 17 Feb – Sunderland, Pop Records
Tue 21 Feb – Hastings, Marine Fountain
Wed 22 Feb – London, The Victoria
Thu 23 Feb – Ramsgate, Ramsgate Music Hall
Fri 24 Feb – Brighton, Komedia Studio
Sat 25 Feb – Oxford, Florence Park Community Centre
March 2023
Wed 1 Mar – Manchester, Deaf Institute
Thu 2 Mar – Halifax, The Grayston Unity
Fri 3 Mar – Leeds, Hyde Park Book Club
Sat 4 Mar – Aldershot, West End Centre
Fri 10 Mar – Totnes, New Lion Brewery
Sat 11 Mar – Falmouth, Cornish Bank
Sun 12 Mar – Stroud, Prince Albert
Fri 17 Mar – Rhayader, The Lost Arc
Wed 22 Mar – Leicester, The Firebug
Fri 24 Mar – Birmingham, Sunflower Lounge
Sat 25 Mar – Nottingham, JT Soars
Photo credit: Emma Damon Thomas
