No End by Joanna John

I guess it's pretty difficult to look beyond the profile of a certain label if you think of new releases coming from it. With Bocian records who releases improvisational stuff or modern composition, sometimes more or less obscure drone noise aspects of the former two, I was pretty surprised to hear about Joanna's album. It was also intersting since I know her from her visual art side which doesn't change the fact that it was a bit surprising to see her upcoming release on Bocian.

"No end" starts with a track "I don't remember how I got here" which has this nocturnal soundtracky feel to it with circulating narrative emphasized through concrete sounds of human footsteps and conversations. The streaming electronic sounds drives you through an edgy, austere domain of a night walk which might have started without a reason or a cause.
"Imagined truth" is a subtle play with overtones and delicate drones that remind me both of quite classical ambient tracks but with more gritty bit that sounds quite fresh and has a good lead.
"First morning out" might at first sound a bit repetitive but there is a rhyme and reason here. It's one of those tracks where a sound of metal gong leads you between the verses. The video that goes with it perfectly captures a concept behind it but also makes it almost like you are touching something vulnerable in yourself to reflect it in the track. It's quite unique.
"The deepest instinct is expressed in running" - the title has this aspect of conceptual art, a deeper paradigm expressed in a haiku. The track itself brings on a beat that is a deadpan pulsation and slowly opens up the textures that haunt from start to finish - diminishing the beat that comes back again slowly. A post-techno dynamics however keeps it afloat and through unassuming melody keeps everything together.
"Here warmth is transmitted" is on a pair with the former. The rhythmical aspect is subtler and more dispersed through the arrangement and the voice.
"Nothing is changed but everything will alter" is a good coda to the whole set of tracks, nicely timed and works as a pulsative emoticon to the whole album.

Joanna's debut album is a nice promise to something, I am sure, she will develop in her own time. It has lots of subtle hues and undertones. An element of mystery and even whimsicality. An aspect of arcane eroticism and even synergy of the elements. It has a rubber stamp of her associations with the creative background which by all means is not a blemish. And foremostly there is something else. A courage to step into a larger world with something that creates a new profile, a new aspect of expression. Re-modelling, re-defining, self-actualising and at the end of the day self-discovery is growing pains in artist's life but hats off to those who do it. Well done! 

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