There’s been a several gap in the Fables discography, which the title of her 2026 album ‘Change is a Slow Moving Beast’ perhaps goes some way to explain. Rich with confessional storytelling the album shifts effortlessly from dreamy folk songs across to alt-country and on towards uplifting pop, an unhurried and artful reflection of a period in which life’s complexities meant that making music wasn’t an available escape. As Jess Bailey tells Michaela Tempany, it was that very process that brought her back.
Congratulating Jess Bailey on her new Fables record I admit that by the end of my first listen I was floored, brought to tears. I wondered at the depth of it, and wanted to know what was sitting at the heart of the album.
“One of the things that I find beautiful about songwriting,” Jess replies, “is I’m able to articulate things that I otherwise find difficult. You’ve heard of Venn diagrams, right?”
I know that Venn diagrams are used to compare data sets but have never heard of someone using one to describe their music before. I’m intrigued.
Holding out her hands she begins to demonstrate, her fingers creating a virtual Venn diagram. “We’ve got Grieving, Yearning, and Pining,” she explains. “And there, in the middle, is my best work.”
In her Substack she describes it in fuller detail, writing: ‘I’ve been thinking about language a lot. Not just the words that make it into songs, but the words that sit underneath them. The ones that haunt, that catch, that don’t let go. This album grew out of a kind of private glossary I was keeping, a collection of feelings I couldn’t quite name. Eventually, I realised they formed their own diagram; three circles, overlapping.”
Yearning, as she explains it is the forward pull, a kind of future tense desire. Pining is the backward pull, or an aching for what has already slipped away.
“Grieving… well, grieving moves in both directions. You can grieve for what you’ve lost, but also for what you never had, or for what you fear you’ll never reach.”
It’s a liminal middle space of these three emotions in which she stands, attempting to chart the terrain of her music, to see if the songs she writes can hold what language can’t. With songs written over 10 years ‘Change is a Slow Moving Beast’ spans a universe of “departed folk music.”
The 12 songs are expansive yet intimate with change as the anchoring theme. In the closing track, she sings, ‘Everytime I find the meaning of life / When I reach it again it moves / I can’t explain all the ways that you’ve changed / But I’ve been changing too.’
“Change is something that I’ve done actively within myself,” Jess explains, “within my body, chemically. And that’s the kind of lens that I’m approaching things through.”
She is cryptic in her songs but candid in our interview. She talks about her journey into parenthood and battle with postnatal depression. She tells me about the breakdown of a major relationship and the aftermath. It was only when a friend gifted her a day of recording at Parachute Studios that music again became a reality for her.
“I was just weeping, like, I was just this big snotty mess. And I was like, ‘I’m going to waste it. I don’t even brush my teeth twice a day. I’ve got a dag in my hair. I’m not looking after myself. I can’t even sing. I don’t even know where my diaphragm is.’”
In time, when ready, she booked the studio day and called in some favours. Since the genesis of Fables she has worked with an impressive array of musicians.
“Fables was a revolving cast of people that knew the songs for a really long time. I was the frontwoman and songwriter but it was very jammy, and whoever was available for the next gig. The purpose was for me to be able to sing the songs in public, and feel supported by these other people. It wasn’t crafted in the way that I feel it is now.”
One day of recording turned into two, which turned into ten. She was accompanied by bassist Cass Basil (Tiny Ruins, King Sweeties), multi-instrumentalist Dave Khan (Marlon Williams et al), and drummer Arahi (Te Tokotoru, Pony Baby). Reb Fountain shared the production with her.
“We built a band pretty much around these songs. We didn’t have a defined sound or reference point. I knew what I didn’t want to do, but I didn’t know how that would manifest. And so there are many, many iterations of some songs. And it wasn’t really until we had done Sensitive that we kind of sonically found the world that we were building, and we were able to find the edges of that through the other songs, and that’s where it all kind of sits.”
Written while the others were on a lunch time pie break, Sensitive was the last song she wrote for the album.
“We recorded it then and there, and have pretty much left a lot of that unchanged.”
Following the initial recording, production continued across various different Auckland locations, including The Beths’ studio, where they accidentally blew up an amp. It involved Jess getting a concussion (“That’s a long side story!”), and an entire day tracking a Bontempi organ (kind of like a melodica), which didn’t end up getting included in the album.
“I felt so held in the making of this record… Dave and Reb did amazing things in letting me have space to figure out what it was. And there was so much trial and error… but this feels like the landing point of whatever comes next. It doesn’t feel like the conclusion. It actually feels like the prelude in a way.
“I really wanted it to feel very up-close and intimate,” Jess explains. “But then also widescreen and expansive.”
There’s intimacy in her vocals which are close and warm, and measured, and although you can hear hints of frailty in places, there’s also an overwhelming sense of strength that can be attributed to a reconstruction of self.
“You know,” Jess muses, “I used to make music because I love to play it. And I never really considered how it would be to listen to. Like, it was just an action. And so this feels like a sound where I see myself reflected in it.”
‘Change is a Slow Moving Beast’ was mixed by Australian audio engineer and musician, Dan Luscombe.
“He mixed all but the last song. I’m not an engineer in a traditional sense, or even a non-traditional sense. I would literally send him pictures and haikus and weird little anecdotes as mixing notes and he’d say, ‘Yes, absolutely,’ and then do amazing things!”
Having studied Visual Arts and Design at tertiary level Jess is an artist in the truest sense. She currently works at the NZ Music Commission, where she has a hand in the education sector.
“I really enjoy it because the whole reason I got into education is that I found for myself, as a learner, that I can use art as a way into maths, and literacy and science. Just finding a touch point of something I can understand and relate to… I am a real nerd about that.”
Suddenly, her Venn diagram takes on more meaning. Jess has constructed her own bridge between disciplines, connecting her emotional landscape to her art. The album artwork (a headshot realised on copper) further reflects this.
“Ebony Lamb took the photo and then Lucy Ellington painted it, and I asked her to paint it on copper because I’m really interested in how that degrades over time. You can see where her involvement in that process is because that has aged differently to the places that are untouched. And I kind of love the poetry of that.”
Her new Fables’ album is full of poetry and meaning. It’s also a testament to the community of artists that she has built around her.
“I’m so proud of what we did here. Like, I can’t even tell you how grateful I am. I’ve never been this resourced to pursue an art form or something that makes me feel like I can be good. I’ve been this mediocre student across the board my whole life. I’m a well-meaning but flaky friend. I’m a very type B parent. But I feel like I’m good at writing songs and so I’ve got to do this, to see myself do something that I’m good at.
“And it totally filled up that big space inside me that I felt had got so small… I had this big seed of grief inside me and it was very well watered and it kind of overgrew the edges of everywhere, and now it’s this big beautiful thing that we can all hold and look at and enjoy.”
There is nothing small about her record. It documents a breakdown, a reconstruction, and the birth of something essential.
