CYPRUS / JAY-JAY JOHANSON, Limassol
The first thing that hits you is the vocal presence of Jay-Jay Johanson. It’s not soulful in a triumphant way, it is withdrawn, cracked, and unresolved, which is so rare in contemporary music. This vocal style, rooted in jazz, is embracing fragility and emotional darkness.
We are met with noir atmospheres as the core, not decoration. When other acts have used mood as texture. Jay-Jay makes mood the entire subject. "Arsenic" sounds less like a collection of songs and more like a psychological state, claustrophobic, exhausted, inward-facing. Full of rich cinematic melancholy, without irony.
Some songs feel indebted to 1960s film noir soundtracks, but without nostalgia or parody. It is serious, slow, and emotionally heavy. The compositions are generous, but full of beautiful emptiness, and space between sounds, and the refusal to crescendo, is radical. "Arsenic" just sits with beautiful despair. Silence and restraint.
The album was recorded in Stockholm and in Paris, and in addition to the quartet we have grown to know over the years (Erik Jansson on piano, Johan Skugge on effects, Jeff Tekeyan on double bass, and Fredrik Wennerlund on drums) we are introduced to the new jazz trumpet virtuoso Linnea Jansson, and guest vocalists like Amina Annabi, Gaelle Joly Sadie Percell and Anthony Larcher. Robert Wåtz, the Swedish Dj champion, and DMC World Championship Finalist also appears on the album. And again we get the magic fingers of house legend Alex Gopher as the mixing and mastering engineer.
Jay-Jay Johanson opens a door, to a new sound, and to a strain of electronic music that treats sadness as something to inhabit rather than escape.
So while this albums DNA comes from many places, the feeling of "Arsenic" is new. It doesn’t announce a trend so much as quietly redefine how modern music could sound when it stopped trying to impress and started confessing.
"Arsenic" is scheduled to be released on the 5th of March 2027
November 28th, Limassol, Music Hall
Georgiou 'A 89A, Germasogeia, Lemesos 4046, Limassol, Cyprus
Show on map
Show: 20:00
We are met with noir atmospheres as the core, not decoration. When other acts have used mood as texture. Jay-Jay makes mood the entire subject. "Arsenic" sounds less like a collection of songs and more like a psychological state, claustrophobic, exhausted, inward-facing. Full of rich cinematic melancholy, without irony.
Some songs feel indebted to 1960s film noir soundtracks, but without nostalgia or parody. It is serious, slow, and emotionally heavy. The compositions are generous, but full of beautiful emptiness, and space between sounds, and the refusal to crescendo, is radical. "Arsenic" just sits with beautiful despair. Silence and restraint.
The album was recorded in Stockholm and in Paris, and in addition to the quartet we have grown to know over the years (Erik Jansson on piano, Johan Skugge on effects, Jeff Tekeyan on double bass, and Fredrik Wennerlund on drums) we are introduced to the new jazz trumpet virtuoso Linnea Jansson, and guest vocalists like Amina Annabi, Gaelle Joly Sadie Percell and Anthony Larcher. Robert Wåtz, the Swedish Dj champion, and DMC World Championship Finalist also appears on the album. And again we get the magic fingers of house legend Alex Gopher as the mixing and mastering engineer.
Jay-Jay Johanson opens a door, to a new sound, and to a strain of electronic music that treats sadness as something to inhabit rather than escape.
So while this albums DNA comes from many places, the feeling of "Arsenic" is new. It doesn’t announce a trend so much as quietly redefine how modern music could sound when it stopped trying to impress and started confessing.
"Arsenic" is scheduled to be released on the 5th of March 2027
November 28th, Limassol, Music Hall
Georgiou 'A 89A, Germasogeia, Lemesos 4046, Limassol, Cyprus
Show on map
Show: 20:00
Solo concert JAY-JAY JOHANSON on November 28th in Limassol, Music Hall
* Children under 3 years old are admitted free of charge.
*REFUND POLICY: No Refunds. All sales are final.
© All rigths reserved