JASSS Tears the Cellophane Off Electronic Music
The sound of Eager Buyers is as intense as crackling cellophane – and just as revealing. It’s as if all musical labels have been stripped away, leaving behind a raw, unfiltered sonic world where genres dissolve and everything becomes possible. The Berlin-based Spanish producer JASSS forges her sound in a punkish alloy of electronic music, industrial, EDM, and rock-inspired guitar riffs.
Her third album is a rebellion against conformity and expectation. To label JASSS is nearly impossible – unless the label is cool. In the complex rhythmic compositions, where traces of bitcrush are balanced by melancholic harmonies and subtle hints of medieval-core on the track »Sand Wrists«, we enter a universe that is at once nostalgic and adventurous – and at the same time simmering with the energy of Berlin’s nightlife.
Eager Buyers is magnetic – even for listeners who don’t normally inhabit the electronic realm. The album carries a clear narrative, driven by a dark, almost theatrical energy. JASSS turns toward a world she perceives as »malnourishing« – as she phrases it through song titles like »Hollow« and »The Mob Expects Malnutrition«. Yet the melodrama has a tinge of irony: there’s something disarmingly sarcastic about it all, as if Eager Buyers is ultimately about the disillusioned modern human.
JASSS rattles the cellophane of the musical packaging we usually call genres, reminding us that music, too, is a product to be sold and bought. Eager Buyers is an album that refuses to be wrapped up – and precisely for that reason, it’s worth buying.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
»For me, music is at its best when it appeals to both the head and the heart. I love music that plays with language and understands how words create images, while also possessing its own unique sonic quality and mood. It’s an added bonus if the music energizes me during a run, makes me dance in the kitchen, or makes me laugh. Or cry. Music can be like a chocolate-coated marshmallow treat with a surprise inside.«
Lone Hørslev is an author of poetry, novels, and song lyrics, as well as the TV series Den gode stemning. Together with Mads Mouritz, she forms one half of the Mouritz/Hørslev Project, and she recently wrote lyrics for the musical theatre production STOLT in collaboration with Katrine Muff. The songs can be found on the album Jeg ønsker mig.
»For us, music is... magic? Aside from the fact that we are huge fans of silence, the closing line of one of our upcoming singles perfectly captures our relationship with music:
'Music feels like magic to me / A superior art form in a marketplace / Trying to find an empty space'.
That is what it can feel like as a songwriter and performing musician. We try to hold onto an almost childlike infatuation with music, yet the art form we work in – alternative-leaning pop-rock – was created and has evolved 'in a marketplace' driven by powerful economic forces. As a romantic, that can sometimes be a bit disheartening...«
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