If you are looking for a record that’s cinematic, edgy, wild, lavish, original, oozing with dark charm, pathos, warmth and bursts of frenetic energy then look no further than Joyeria‘s FIM. FIM was released via Speedy Wunderground in October 2022 to rave reviews followed by the vinyl drop in January 2023 and live shows in support of Independent Venue Week. Award winning producer, Dan Carey‘s, contributions to the EP, “were plentiful.” Joyeria said, “Dan Carey is an incredible producer, and an exceptionally accomplished musician and a very kind person. He is driven by curiosity and experimentation and has the mastery of the craft to execute on any idea.“
Carey has been responsible for producing the likes of Fontaines DC, Slowthai, Wet Leg, Foals, Kae Tempest, Kylie Minogue, Tame Impala, Squid, Moreish Idols and The Lounge Society; many on his own cult label, Speedy Wunderground.
Joyeria’s FIM EP is another example of the label’s boundary pushing vision, with Joyeria’s singles on heavy rotation on radio stations across the globe from America to Spain, Italy to Canada, The Netherlands to Ireland’s RTE 2XM, not to mention BBC Introducing and 6 Music.
There is clearly a universal appeal to work of this quality and an integrity to their process. Joyeria sent in two tracks to Speedy Wundergound anonymously. Although he had met Carey in the past, he refused to call in favour. It had to be “pure” and “It had to be about the sound.” He was signed immediately. Joyeria told GIITTV that he trusted Dan Carey with his work because, “There is a purity to his intentions, and I saw that straight away.”
Joy’s back story is elusive, hinting that he has been hiding in the crevices of the music industry for years, leaving bands “when their buzz was the buzziest, releasing music under names even devotees could never remember how to spell.”
Joyeria is a “Canadian who has spent his adult life patiently crafting his own path as a songwriter in London instead of following his heroes and peers to Austin or Nashville…FIM is what happens after a songwriter has worked hard for a long time in the dark, looking for lighting in a bottle- and finds it.”
Lyrics like ‘I take everything personally, especially the weather’ could easily be penned by Oscar Wilde, while the soundscapes push the sonic boundaries like skilful, yet loosely tethered performance art. FIM (Fuck I Missed) is a dark, whip-smart, refreshingly witty EP, woven with endearing honesty. It firmly sees, Joyeria making his mark with indelible ink, making an authentic impression on the world with a Sharpie.
Each track seems to layer the sound like brushstrokes in slanting directions like an abstract painting, while Dan Carey‘s exuberant production reinvigorates the essential weirdness of what united the early phases of fellow off-beat masters- the pair’s buoyant taste for the strange. In that sense, they are the perfect match. It’s the sound of two collaborators working fast, wild and free with years of experience under their belts and exacting standards. As Joyeria told GITTV “The recording process is Polaroid photographs rather than oil painting of still life. It should capture the chaos of thought and the energy of players in a room together” and it is this energy that makes both the EP and live performances so unmissable.
If you had to describe your music life as a chess piece what would it be and why?
I like to play as Black. Generally, I would swap a Bishop for a Knight early in the opening to stop white from running the middle of the board and blocking my king castling. It lets me get more control when it works. I’m the Bishop. Not here for the long game. I’m not the Rolling Stones.
Maya Angelou said, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Is it hard to pare down the complex to the simple? In a press release you said of the lyrics “It is written as simply as I could write”
Yeah I like that, I’ve never heard that one. Another Maya Angelou quote is “You can’t use up creativity, the more you use the more you have”. It’s a practice, not some abstract gifted to a few chosen at birth. Human thought is complex, writing it down in a simple way is the job. To say something new and add to the canon of human though and not say something that has already been said over and over again but in a new way. As the centre of my universe (just as you are the centre of yours) emotions are sharp, immediate and understandable. On top of this complexity lives truth. Hemmingway said “All you have to do is write one true sentence”. To distil the convoluted nature of thought to the simple and make it true and unique. Hemingway was a master at this. Work done at that level makes the explanation of the work redundant.
I read that you were born in Poland before moving to Canada- Cool- I wonder if there were any similarities with the Czech Republic in terms of freedom of artistic expression? The Czech Republic’s Velvet Revolution was named after the Velvet Underground and and all the music that was previously banned was celebrated, post-revolution especially rock and jazz. I notice free jazz and rock elements in your work and a creative and musical expanse that not all artists take advantage of. It reminds me of the post-revolution explosion of creativity that I saw in Prague. Do enough artists make the most of the expanse of artistic freedoms afforded them or is freedom itself an illusion?
I feel we could talk about this for a very long time. I was too young at the time so only discovered it all retrospectively, but Poland had the Yass scene which sounds similar and came out of the 80’s and is still one of the most musically interesting spaces. Jazz was illegal in Stalinist Poland so there was an explosion of it in the 60’s. One of my prized LP’s is a copy of Krzysztof Komeda’s “Ballet Etudes”. It fed into the Yass scene which is now continued in bands like NRD, Green Light, and Milosc or the piano of Marcin Masecki which at times approaches the works of Cecil Taylor who I adore. Polish music by nature is underground… the western world is happy to miss-sing Gypsy King lyrics, less so with Polish avant-guard punk and jazz. It can be nuanced and difficult. You have to climb a fence just to hear it correctly. The artistic freedom is real, the social measures of success are what need adjusting. The democratisation of recorded music has done very little to change the status quo of popular music (not pop the genre). 3.5-minute songs still dominate the airwaves and most sound the same. I think music as an art form has never been more interesting and people participating in it are remarkable from all over the planet. The most interesting work is done in clubs or in the corners of the internet. This work rarely makes it to the radio or public playlists. Those spaces are hard fought by large organisations and outsiders don’t tend to have the support.
Is Kafka and the absurd an influence at all or just freedom of expression in general?
I think that Kafka was an obsessive writer constantly at odds with his work, so we have that in common. I think most people who pursue something creative go through a similar path that Kafka underwent from youth to adulthood. The world is absurd and when it’s not being absurd, it’s cruel. At least there is comedy in absurdity.
Would you rather be reincarnated as a fish or giant insect or any other animal ? There seems to be a fish motif running through your visual art. Is it just there for the craic?
I do not wish to be reincarnated at all. I will be cremated and disposed of in the cheapest and most efficient way possible. My only hope is that death resembles the infinite darkness I imagine before birth. I do paint a lot of animals, it’s true. I haven’t really developed as a painter. Someone else had pointed out the fish thing, I wasn’t aware of it. I used to fish a bit when I lived in Canada. Perhaps it’s nostalgia shoehorning its way into where it doesn’t belong.
Should we all question the ‘norms’ more in terms of politics and life in general? Lots of your songs like ‘9 to 5’ and even ‘Decisions’ seem to question the ‘norms’ of society.
I certainly had it ingrained in my head that all politicians are liars, my parents gave me that. But that’s not entirely true because some are thieves, war mongers and beacons of human mediocrity. I think most people are aware of this, the wave of people fighting for humanity, equality, and justice both in a broad sense but also in very specific cases have helped create an increasingly moral world, for the better. And one could argue the world is the most moral it’s ever been. However, though we might live in a more moral world, we do not live in a very ethical one. I’m lucky enough to live in a place where I can say whatever I want. Ask a Russian author or artist how they can question norms… Subversion in art and the nuance that comes with it gets lost in a world that consumes a lot very quickly. I’ve never felt I belong to this world. I’ve never been in harmony with it. The way our lives are structured causes great anxiety. None of this is normal.
Is there a form of catharsis in those primal screams that we hear in your songs?
Screaming is cathartic. There is nothing worse than a fake scream though. So if you’re going to phone it in, leave it at home.
How important is authenticity and purity to you in the creation of your music / art?
Authenticity? I don’t know if that’s possible, all sound is a derivative of some other sound. Some more so than others. Purity is different. I would say that to create without an audience in mind is paramount to everything.
If you create something and you know who will listen, and when, and why, then you might as well be making shoes…. It’s a modern sort of Muzak that occupies the playlists and radio of offices and coffee shops of the world…The music industry, for all its praise of being a creative and forward-thinking place, can be very complacent and risk averse. I see why some artists do what they do, I empathise with it, it’s very difficult to get challenging music heard.
How much lightness and spontaneity is there in the recording process in the studio?
The recording process is Polaroid photographs rather than oil painting of still life. It should capture the chaos of thought and the energy of players in a room together. When listening back to a recording it should feel like it could fall apart. Approaching the process this way allows the movement away from regurgitation and into the place where performance comes to life. If you can’t be spontaneous and react to the players around you it would be impossible to achieve this.
Dan Carey’s input must be significant. How is it to work with him in the studio as opposed to the energy at live shows with your stellar band? Especially the triangle player
I try to create the same energy on stage that Dan and I had the studio. Not allowing the music to fall into a state of regurgitation but allowing it to be a performance. More chaotic, perhaps. Dan Carey is an incredible producer, and an exceptionally accomplished musician and a very kind person. He is driven by curiosity and experimentation and has the mastery of the craft to execute on any idea. ANY. I had met him a few times prior to being signed to his label. It was in meeting him that I thought I could trust this person with my music. There is a purity to his intentions, and I saw that straight away. Dan not only produced the record but if you read the credits his contributions are plentiful. It was just three of us in the studio, Dan Carey, Ryan Grieves and myself. Ryan played the drums and percussion, but Dan and I did everything else. We recorded the backing tracks, live in one take. Then Dan lined up all the songs back-to-back and we recorded the vocals live in one take. Then Dan and I spend a couple of days doing some overdubs and that’s what you hear on the EP. If we did it again next week it would be different and would probably have much more triangle. I’m glad it sounds how it does, it’s a beautiful and honest polaroid.
I can imagine your songs sound tracking an indie/ Wes Anderson style film. Is this ever something that you would consider?
It’s weird you ask that….I have not told anybody, but I scored a feature film called ‘Tyger’ for director Alexander Milo Bischof which stars Dylan Edwards, Natasha O’Keeffe, Laura Haddock and a few others. It was entirely recorded to tape in one take as I played along to a cut of the film. It’s purposefully left raw as it suits the narrative. I enjoyed the process and the improvisation. I’ve not been given a release date but it’s about to be released on the festival circuit.
Is there anything else in the pipeline?
There are some live shows coming up and some festivals…
Well, we feel very honoured that Joyeria shared news of upcoming feature film, ‘Tyger’ with GIITTV as well as taking the time to share such illuminating insights into his craft. You can order Joyeria’s debut EP, FIM via Speedy Wunderground and see him play live with his stellar band on the dates below and if previous gigs are anything to go by, these are bound to be eclectic, electric and unmissable.
Album links and gig tickets here: Joyeria – FIM (EP) (ffm.to)
Live Dates
18th May- The Lexington London
19th-21st October- Left of the Dial Festival Rotterdam
Follow Joyeria here for more updates:
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