As the last Ja Ja Ja was a massive two year anniversary celebration with - as per always - incredible music, and due to us having a month off for Christmas, January’s Ja Ja Ja had to be a pretty special come-back affair.
So as well as bringing you three acts that are brilliant and renowned in their Nordic homelands, we’ve brought you three that are blowing people away internationally and in a world of their own. Mirel Wagner makes stripped down blues of such fragility and beauty, words do not do her justice. Philco Fiction have had both our media partners Record of the Day and the Nordic music connoisseurs at The Line of Best Fit raving with their bold use of instrumentation and songwriting skills, and Giana Factory have created their own blend of noir-pop that won them international adoration from their first EP release onwards.
Ja Ja Ja, I for one have missed you and I am currently more excited by this line-up than I am about Christmas. Who says January is for staying in? More info on all acts playing including links to music, plus stage times and venue details below.
Mirel Wagner
Germany’s Spex magazine said of Wagner: "Songwriting can hardly be more minimalistic, no-frills, more strict as Mirel Wagner's sparse music”. While often categorized as blues, it has fragility and beauty that makes it as distinctive as Mirel Wagner herself, being Ethiopia born, but Finland raised. Learning guitar at an early age, Wagner wrote her first song ‘To The Bone’ (the opener of her self-titled debut) at only 16 and began performing at open mic nights in Helsinki where she was spotted by an American music journalist, Jean Ramsay. He promptly wrote of her; "Mirel Wagner is the real deal, an innovator among imitators. In a genre ridden with cliches she cuts through with the sheer the power of her lyrics and intricately finger picked guitar. And that voice… it is the antithesis of how a young woman in her early twenties should sound. It has those world-weary and resigned tones that make Billie Holiday and Leonard Cohen so appealing. It sounds like the truth...." (Jean Ramsay/Rumba). A photographer friend of Ramsay’s was equally taken, offering to finance the recording her of self-titled debut which was released in Finland in 2011 and now through Europe through Bone Voyage Recordings and soon to be released in North America and Japan via Friendly Fire Recordings. The record of nimbly picked, almost trance-inducing guitar is stripped to the bone, creating a strange but captivating tension felt even more in Wagner’s live performances and heightened again by the songs themes of necromancy, love, death, the devil and desire.
Listen to the full self-titled album here: mirelwagner.bandcamp.com
‘No Death’ video: vimeo.com/27824241
Other links
www.bonevoyagerecordings.com/artists/mirel-wagner
http://www.BoneVoyageRecordings.com
Philco Fiction
The Dance Yrself Clean and Take Me To The Vineyard blogs are just two of many to have raved about Oslo trio Philco Fiction, with the former describing the sound as such: “Throw The Knife, Lykke Li, The XX and Regina Spektor into a glorious musical blender and you get the Norwegian trio Philco Fiction” and the latter declaring the band’s second album ‘Take It Personally’ as “One of my favourite records of 2011, just the most unclassifiable, deep, stunning album”.
‘Take It Personally’ (on Norwegian label Brilliance) is full of rich, haunting songs with frank lyrics, giant choruses and effortlessly sparse, yet lush arrangements.
The full album is currently being streamed exclusively on Ja Ja Ja blog: www.jajajamusic.com/index.php/2011/10/listen-philco-fiction-take-it-personal-exclusive-album-stream with Richard Thane, editor-in-chief of the blog and creator of The Line of Best Fit, declaring it “beautifully produced to the point of pin-precision perfection. A truly stunning collection of songs”.
The music offers up inspired instrumentation, twisty production tics (courtesy of Anders and Biarne from the band), epic, broken-hearted piano ballads recalling prime Prince, pop symphonies that glide through warped electronics, speaker-popping R ‘n’ B spasms, tip-toeing Bjork-like flights of fancy and a fondness for Motown string flourishes. Live, though, is where the band truly come alive, with a weird, charismatic and theatrical show, honed with European and American tours with the likes of Wild Birds, Peacedrums and I Blame Coco.
‘Finally’ Music video: youtu.be/1up-60MaPao
Other Links:
http://www.facebook.com/philcofiction
http://www.philcofiction.com
Giana Factory
Giana Factory played their first show in 2008, supporting Glasvegas at several major European dates at the height of the latter’s fame, and have subsequently supported the likes of Autolux, The Raveonettes and The Asteroid’s Galaxy Tour.
The release of the Danish female trio’s debut EP of unique noir-pop ‘Bloody Game’ (2009) similarly resulted in immediate accolades and early career successes, with blogosphere adoration coming from top international renowned tastemakers like Nylon Magazine and Pitchfork: “This Danish troupe specializes in frozen cold, electronic minimalism, heightening drama through an eerie starkness” - Pitchfork (US).
Back home, on Danish national radio their first single ‘Rainbow Girl’ was on A-list rotation and both major newspaper Politiken and the esteemed music magazine Soundvenue have featured covers of the trio.
In 2010 Giana Factory finally releases their debut album ‘Save The Youth’ in Denmark. Full of gloomy synths, crisp drum pads, atmospheric guitar and sparkingly fresh melody, the trio created a sound entirely their own. Internationally heralded, with prominent UK press predicting their soon-to-be international success - "Mesmerising, and bound to end up up on England's shores sooner rather than later” - Drowned in Sound, 2012 is the year they will release their debut worldwide, preceded with a special showcase at Ja Ja Ja.
Listen to ‘Rainbow Girl’ here: soundcloud.com/gianafactory/01-rainbow-girl-radio-edit
Videos:
‘Darkness’: www.mtviggy.com/videos/giana-factory-darkness
‘Rainbow Girl’: www.mtviggy.com/videos/giana-factory-rainbow-girl
Further info and showtimes at www.jajajamusic.com
