LAKE JONS
Electronic Press Kit
BIOGRAPHY
It was here, in a state of severe isolation and deep desire to connect with the wilderness that they wrote and recorded the majority of the album. The aim was to try and examine, capture and represent whatever tenuous connection still exists between the natural world, all its authentic randomness, and the human construction.
With their second album The Coast released on Playground Music, Lake Jons tried to connect with the city life, but also to figure out how to sustain the tree hugging mentality in artificial circumstances. Thematically, the album is Jons’ endeavour to dismantle ’life’, space, and time.
Now with their newest release (TBA) they are aiming back at the forest womb with sophisticated binoculars, observing the emotional waves in life. The wish is to set up a warm tent for each listener inside which to freely dance one’s own dance.
Along and for this new release they have assembled a new ensemble to aid deepening that mystical space they hope to create for their upcoming shows.
Lake Jons rolling in like a thick mist on a sweet northern wind. Born in the woods by the dark water from which the band got their name. Lake Jons is comprised by Jooel Jons and Mikko Pennanen, both classically trained jazz drummers, who together walk a fine line between being a producer-tandem and full-on band. Since their formation in 2014, the band has come forth with delicate folktronica-tinged dream-pop, weaving emotions in transit. The band has performed actively on live circuits and stood up at festivals across the Nordics as well as being promoted by Ja Ja Ja, who showcased the band across Europe like London, Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Budapest etc.
Here, at Lake Jons, one may find the harshness of folk-ish disposition entwined with the beauty of the mystic melodies of the north. They like to explore the world in turns within human cities and animal nature, while trying to make sense of our weird lives in such themes as introspection, existentialism, relationships and stillness of being.
A calm and persistent “life will go on” motif is prevalent throughout their first full-length album Lake Jons, released on AntiFragle Music. For the self-titled debut album, Lake Jons retreated to an isolated cabin, a cabin without running water, deep in the Finnish forest during the few summery months of the year.
NEW ALBUM - AN ESSAY
Running feels good. Running through the forests and away from problems. Like a gazelle realising little bits of freedom. But I’m running mentally all the time. To a point it’s nothing like freedom. To a point of trying to think smart in a library and writing notes on my phone what I so much try to avoid. I think looking to a screen the whole day makes us paralysed like never before. Maybe culture is inhaled and taken too much for granted. What if we are wrong and the all the animistic cultures are in the right path understanding earth as it is? It makes totally sense. Anyway. In a way the whole album is about running. Either running away or towards something, never reaching that idealistic idea that would somehow transfer into physical life. Bouncing through temptations, options and fear. Maybe this is called growing up or being lazy or whatever. Who knows. I don’t. I wanted to reach (with Mikko Pennanen, the second half of Lake Jons) something that I think is the essence of Lake Jons.
I believe in signs. I also believe that if you start doing something physical in your everyday life you start to learn to read the signs your body gives you. I believe that has happened with this new album. It feels more honest yet mystical in a personal way. Maybe because I’m getting more used to some signs. Who knows. Maybe spirituality is coming back to us, our western culture. Maybe we really need it to. Or maybe it never left us. Maybe we are just a bit blinded by the materialism and inequality between us humans and between us and our home, this planet. It feels weird we have lost something so essential and still manage to live on earth.
I feel like with this album we, Mikko and I, have found greater working harmony. Something that comes from accepting things as they are and relaxing a bit more. We looked back to the roots of Lake Jons and used those elements that started this whole musical thing and hoped it would make somehow sense without looking like a retrospective imitation.
We are both originally drummers and by that I mean we have both studied drums as the main instrument. No idea if it can be heard from the album but I think it’s a secret unifying link between us. And we really hope this album would unify people and us in understanding and increasing respect for each other and our surroundings.
Some of the lyrics on the album feel like they’ve been written in some kind of psychosis. You maybe know the feeling when you understand your actions only afterwards. Well with many of these lyrics or poems I only fully understood what I wanted to say after I had written them. In some cases after many days.
In any case I hope we can keep on running towards the truth that’s so often lost in progress.
Jooel Jons
