With a love of nature, the coast and the mountains, Jannek left a life of New York behind in 2020, to embark on a new musical journey.
He had been spending most of his music career producing music for others, but with 2 Synths and a guitar in hand, Jannek began to create his own unique style of musical expression.
During the pandemic period, Jannek had experienced isolation as an opportunity to embrace the calmness and mindfulness that isolation gave him the space to do and within this space, created a large body of his own work.
As Jannek returned to New York, his album, Sunbow began to come to life and he collaborated with industry legends, Tony Visconti (Bowie, T-Rex), Donny McCaslin (Bowie, Maria Schneider) and Kristeen Young (Bowie, Dave Grohl) to create the sound we now hear within the album.
As you listen to the tracks on the album, you will be gently guided through the calm space and atmospheric music within the album.
“in a subtle way this record reflects the eclectic landscape of our minds, having to harbor so many different aspects an influences from the bombardment of media and consumption. sunbow is composed as a portal to visit these disjointed places and join them so they can enter a focused state, which is what my second record will speak of.” – Jannek
You can listen to Sunbow below:
Tell us a little about your background
I grew up in Germany and moved to the US almost 9 years ago!
I’ve been absorbing the NYC music scene for about five years now and have drawn lots of inspiration from all the warehouse parties and ambient shows.
What was it that first got you into music?
It was actually my high school teacher “Jörn Beineke”.
He’s a great guitarist himself and has a few records out.
He played acoustic guitar during instrument study once and I was just so blown away that I asked my dad for a guitar and never stopped making music since!
That was when I was 12.
I’m truly thankful for having had a great music teacher like him.
Good teachers is what this world needs more of!
Who have been your biggest musical inspirations?
My inspirations come from so many different places.
From a composer standpoint I’ve been drawing lots from Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnalds.
I’m absolutely obsessed with their neo classical and ambient work.
The Berlin scene, in which Nils resides, has always intrigued me and so has Iceland actually.
The calmness in Olafur Arnalds’ music is truly breathtaking.
One of my mentors is Tony Visconti, who I’ve been working with for a few years now.
His teachings and approach to producing truly resonates with me.
He’s a master of the old school and truly aspire to keep my passion for music active as he does.
I also love Four Tet, Pantha Du Prince and Donny McCaslin has recently sparked my love into Jazz again!
You have now released your Album, ‘Sunbow’. Are you able to tell us a little about what inspired you to put this Album into the world?
The urge to calm myself.
During isolation in 2020 I went to the dock by the water in Newport every morning to meditate.
With “sunbow” I wanted to describe the eclectic mind and the journey to slowly clear it toward a more focused state.
Sunbow is a mix of different sounds I was experimenting with and they’re very much a record of the state of mind I was in during the summer of 2020.
What do the songs on the album mean to you?
The world!
There’s only one first release and I’m proud that it’s “sunbow”.
It’s a special work that involves new explorations on my end as well as collaboration with friends and icons of mine and I’m incredibly proud of it.
What is your creative process like when you are creating your music?
It’s a wee bit different for all songs but I love coming from a place of improvisation.
It doesn’t happen much that I have a song ready to in my head and then just put it down into Logic.
I like to channel the creative forces in my composition process and get inspired by sounds as much as my environment alike.
“Monty” was inspired by listening to Sufjan Stevens a lot in Spring 2020 and I was refurbishing a 1970s Ukulele from Hawaii at that time.
Once I was done refurbishing it I wanted to come up with a little riff that’s Sufjan inspired.
Out of it came this weird but flowy motif in the odd time signature of 13/8.
Have there been any significant challenges along the releasing journey?
The releasing journey was actually quite smooth in technical terms but what non musicians don’t understand is how gruesomely overwhelming it is to reach out to Blogs, media outlets, playlist curators and pitch your music to them.
Therefore I’m thankful for chatting with you about my music because it’s so very hard to get your voice heard in this busy world.
Thankfully there have been no problems with my release though – *knock on wood*
How has Covid-19 affected your release?
Not at all!
It actually gave me the opportunity to record at the studio I work at in Manhattan without any people around.
We have this gorgeous Steinway from 1914 in the lobby and I had all the time in the world to record it for my songs.
I ended up recording 19 songs for this project that I’ll be releasing in the shape of 3 records throughout the next year.
If all the stars aligned, where would you ultimately like to get to with your music?
On tour!!! Haha.
The music I write is hard to realize on stage as it has so many elements to it.
I frankly don’t expect to bring this particular album on stage.
Some albums are studio records and I have full appreciation for artists who make studio-only albums.
My goal is to continue tapping into my creative spirits for the rest of my life and never stop releasing music.
From your experience, what advice would you give to aspiring musicians?
Learn, learn, learn.
Expanding your toolkit and helping others achieve their musical aspirations is the best way to become a fluent musician yourself.
It’s really a matter of furthering your knowledge and thirst for knowledge in the musical language that will allow you to fully express yourself.
Just like learning your first language, that can take many years and you’ll have drawbacks and might have to re-learn things and the rules might even change over time… that’s ok.
Be patient with yourself and understand that a slow career is a solid career and is often much better than an overnight success.
Where can listeners find more about you and your music?
My website www.jannek.io, Instagram @jannek.io and on all streaming platforms!
By the way… the first single for my second record is going to drop on November 26th J
Thanks for having me!
Karen Harding is a Melbourne, Australia based singer/songwriter, founder of Sounds On The Couch, and founder and operator of boutique music PR service for emerging and independent artists, Rise Indie.