Storm

I Can Count On You

Capricorn

Tou les jours, je balaye mon cœur,(5)

Presenting songs and beats recorded, written, and arranged by Jessiēque. A few more songs to end an era.

BLUSH

Closed by Renovation

Foals-  Moon

A 2-hour non-stop mix of the songs that has inspired me the most / Jay-Jay Johanson

Mixtape No1

Taken from the album Enter 4. Buy here: http://hjaltalin.spinshop.com/
www.hjaltalinmusic.com

Hjaltalín - Myself

24 марта в «Гоголь-центре» — Бликса Баргельд!

Blixa Bargeld — Küss Mich Wach

After appearing alongside Clint Mansell and Philip Glass on the soundtrack for Park Chan-Wook's recent psychological thriller Stoker, Emily Wells prepares to release her latest album and single.

Album ‘Mama’ (out June 3rd via Partisan) combines subtle hip-hop inflections and wide-ranging sounds with Emily’s distinctive feline vocals, creating a record that is simultaneously light & delicate with a bold punch of personality.

Contrasting with the heavy layering and electronics of the original, the European version of ‘Mama’ sees Wells re-imagining the entire record acoustically for a second disc and mirror version. These fresh renditions of an already unique record are stunningly austere, recorded solely with voice and guitar. Emily Wells has stripped off her own armour, leaving only her crystalline voice and equally unambiguous songwriting on display.

String-laden single ‘Passenger’ is released on April 29th. Its noir-ish tone is cinematic in its scope - a song that becomes a real focal point of Mama.

Watch the video for ‘Passenger’ here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXAaPvVaZDQ

From the start of her career, Wells’ musical interests were simply too wide ranging for just one instrument. Trained as a classical violinist, the Texan soon created her own sonic “spaceship,” an ever-growing pulsating arsenal of synthesizers, effects pedals and toy instruments, all tied together with live sampling and a genre-agnostic approach that is diverse, distinctive, and utterly her own. Honing her sound on a series of independent releases, including an acclaimed cover of The Notorious B.I.G.’s classic ‘Juicy’, it was these initial glimpses and the countless live dates both as bandleader and solo performer that carved out the musician she has become today.

The female singer-songwriter stable may be packed with unique voices and varying degrees of talent, but Emily Wells is an artist whose innate complexities lift her out of that particular stable and into a realm all of her own.


Emily Wells - Passenger (Kid Koala Remix)

was in 1996 that Jay-Jay Johanson, a young man from a cold climate, fascinated by the Bristol sound they called trip-hop and Portishead in particular, first tapped delicately on our eardrums.
The intoxicating album that definitively put this rare and elegant Swede on the map was called Whiskey. It was the beginning of an enthralling adventure. In only a few songs he revealed a family tree that spread its roots far and wide: on one branch Lee Hazlewood, or pop from Talk Talk or Nilsson, on the other John Coltrane with Johnny Hartman, and a whole army of calm jazz or symphonic
recordings sampled from everywhere imaginable.
Almost 20 years later he has returned with an
incredible new album. This new release is called Opium and it contains the very essence of Johanson’s music: an ease with inventing melodies, a voice that gently caresses, and the jacked up, heady rhythms that lift and carry the songs. From the peaceful harmonica opening of Drowsy / Too Young To Say Good Night to the smoke-wreathed love song I Don’t Know Much About Loving, via titles with a sporadic and light groove (NDE, Alone Too Long), Opium is a courageous offering. Johanson opens his heart with
fearlessness and modesty, gracefully lowering his guard and evoking the questions that torment men of his age: love, solitude, immaturity. The songwriting is unerring, the words have a suppressed poetry. This
new Johanson is the work of a guy who has survived the avalanches, who is no longer looking for answers and is content to sketch out the perspectives in as many songs. Some titles are serious (Harakiri), but others immediately take up the reins casting a more
gentle, peaceful light, like Scarecrow, a collaboration with Robin Guthrie that would not have sounded out of place on a Cocteau Twins album, or of the strange positivity of Be Yourself or I Love Him So.
The strength of Opium is that it asks questions that don’t necessarily have an answer; it offers a collection of songs freed from any certitude but which convince
through their modesty, through their precision.
In short, Jay-Jay at his best.

I Can Count On You

JAY-JAY JOHANSON