Death nestles like a sweet creature in the heart of "Holy Waters", the eagerly awaited follow-up to "In Praise of Shadows" from 2021. It is less a morbid study of mortality than a chronicle of the cycle of life, death and rebirth. At the end of the album (release date: 01.09.2023), this culminates in a gentle plea to oneself to carry on, "don't let the darkness take you over". It is the hopeful gloom that grips you.
Darkness has accompanied Jacob Allen aka Puma Blue since his musical beginnings. The musician knows from his own experience how to turn insomnia into something positive. For ten years, he spent nights staring at the ceiling and waiting for dawn to slowly creep through the cracks in his curtains. He says: "During these sleepless nights, I often turned to music and wrote songs in silence to pass the time. That proved useful: You can find out quite a lot about yourself at four in the morning."
Puma Blue's dark, low-fi sound is characterised by a deeply intimate mood and the calming effect of nocturnal tranquillity. It sounds as if Puma Blue is evoking dreaming in a waking state, setting it to music and wrapping it in a sonic garment.
