Photo Credit: Jannis Mayr
Jo.Ke is one of electronic music’s distinct voices. The hymn ‘Who loves the Sun'(Bar25), Nu & Jo.Ke’s first and biggest hit yet continues to make its way to listeners worldwide, from Burning Man sunrises to small psychotropic festivals like Vodoohop’s Heliodora. Its creation was a beautiful messy accident, the result of true heartbreak, broken toes, and a pinch of timing and chance. Timeless ‘Fool’ (White Label) followed suit in a similar fashion, before the pair with their collective Feathered Sun started recording and releasing a string of EPs on Platon Records, Circus Company, Laut & Luise & Denature Records and touring widely around the globe in different live constellations.
EG caught up with Jo.Ke to learn more about his upcoming ‘Same Sad Old Songs (S.S.O.S)’ album, his Summer, his future endeavors, the state of the scene, and more.
EG: Hi Jonas! Welcome to EG. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us. Where are you based right now? How have things been going this year?
Jo.Ke: You’re catching me literally in the middle of moving houses (and continents) again. We decided to leave our home in Berlin around February and went back to our winter base, which is Tulum, Mexico, and then spent the summer season in Ibiza. Now, we‘re setting up a house in Bali, giving it a year’s trial, and having our son Sun start school there. Let’s see how it goes 🙂
EG: So, Summer’s over now. Any particular highlights from the season?
Jo.Ke: I really haven’t even started to process this intense summer full of movement that is just wrapping up as we speak. I cherish a lot going to new places for the first time, this summer was my debut in Albania for example. Garbizc Festival was really a beauty-, and meaningful this year, being with my Berlin community (and all my international friends). Finally got some caravan time just me and my wife Maxima. We went from there, lake-to-lake-hopping, all the way to Sacred Ground, which was so intimate and musically well-curated. Right in the middle of summer, this was probably my favorite time window. My first Burning Man as well was a big one. What an incredible experience and world, full of synchronicities, magic, and madness.
EG: What has Jo.ke been up to musically outside of Feathered Sun?
Jo.Ke: For ‘solo’ electronic work, I have been busy making some fruitful collaborations, including 2 new songs in the works with M.A.N.D.Y. We also played a spontaneous DJ gig in Bali together (my second back-to-back ever). We‘re thinking about releasing that recording, actually, and plan to hopefully do more gigs together next year.
Also, I have a beautiful song with Chambord called ‘Quiet Times’, dedicated to all mothers of young children. Wow, such an intense and self-sacrificing endeavor that one (even with present fathers). We‘re finishing up on remixes for a Summer 2023 release on Sol Selectas. With Ulises, I’m working on my first song in German, ‘Gerne Alleine’ after we had such a good time making ‘Wave’ together. Also loved co-creating the video for that one, a big first.
A while ago, I made a very nice track together with Roderic, ‘Cuidame’, where I also spontaneously did my first video shoot during the first lockdown in Mexico, just friends on a day at the lake. Got really inspired and encouraged to do more visual creations. I used to be a photographer’s assistant and also shoot & develop a lot myself, so I’m happy to create more in that realm.
EG: We know there’s a new album in the works. What can you anticipate on that front?
Jo.Ke: During Covid I finally got the time and space to record my debut singer-songwriter album: ‘Same Sad Old Songs (S.S.O.S)’. Quite a few things had to happen in alignment for this to materialize.
I met guitar player and producer Billy Mendrix during a Feathered Sun gig in DF. When I asked the Bachstelzen crew for a slot to present my new electronic live set at Fusion Festival, without properly explaining the concept, I had a fortunate miscommunication as they slotted me on the Velvet Soup Live Stage and not in the booth of the main floor. So I quickly had to try and put my band project back together. My guitar player happened to have a dislocated disc and was not able to join and I knew Billy had just moved to Berlin, so I asked him if he would fill in. After the second or third rehearsal, he asked me what I was planning to do with this project since he found the songs to be really good. I was saying I might get us another show, and he insinuated I record them as a full album which of course was in my plans, but I was a bit clueless about how to go about it. He reassured me he had recorded and produced a couple of albums already and had a studio up in Tepoztlan to record it. So when the first lockdown caught me and my family just before flying back to Berlin, we decided to stay and I took him up on his proposal. I called him, and he pulled out some of his major cards, golden bullets as he calls them, and recruited one of Mexico’s best drummers and an amazing young female bass player and we locked ourselves in and got down to it. I’m just finishing mixing and mastering and doing the final edit of the video for the first single.
“It’s also the first time I went through the process of going from hearing fully formed songs in my head while composing the vocal melody, and then actually bringing all that from inside my mind out into the world”
EG: Does your solo work feel more ‘personal’ than what you do with Feathered Sun or is that relative according to the song?
Jo.Ke: The singer-songwriter album is definitely my most personal and vulnerable work, reuniting the songs that have helped me through my deepest struggles and sublimations of the past 10 years or more. It’s also the first time I went through the process of going from hearing fully formed songs in my head while composing the vocal melody, and then actually bringing all that from inside my mind out into the world. Eternally thankful to Billy and The Love Bruise Band for accompanying, guiding, and facilitating this process.
When entering the realm of merging songwriting and electronic, beat-oriented music production the process of channeling lyrics and melodies is mostly the same for me. The main difference would be that, for collaborations outside of the collective, I will often receive a more advanced composition, whereas, with Feathered Sun, we mostly start a new idea from scratch. But I feel songs have their own life somehow and I’m mostly the container/messenger for them.
EG: Have you ever felt the weight of having to replicate something like ‘Who Love The Sun’?
Jo.Ke: More than a weight and having to replicate something similar, I feel a lot of gratitude and wonder for and about that song. It was the first time I ever recorded anything and it flowed so naturally and opened up a whole new life and career. Also amazed that it has aged so well (in my ears at least) and that people are still discovering and loving it. It was such a difficult moment in my life and it’s such a beautiful act of sublimation that it has uplifted and helped other people through difficult moments or sustained their happy times. I more sometimes feel a little tired of having to play/perform that song again, of being a one-trick pony. So wouldn’t mind if any of the new songs end up being a big hit, to take away and divide a bit of the spotlight.
EG: What does your solo setup look like at the moment? Have you picked up any soft or Hardware on these past sessions that you’d personally recommend?
Jo.Ke: My solo setup for the live show right now is quite simple, a laptop with Ableton, an AKAI APC 40mkll controller, a Pioneer mixer, and a wireless mic. In the studio, I’m getting more acquainted with synthesizers, slowly learning to produce by myself, and will take a little break from the live show or play just a selected couple more before setting up the new setup and changing songs around to accommodate the new material. Also thinking about incorporating a guitar into the setup. A Rhodes and or piano is usually always around as well, so I’ll have to see about that for the new Bali setup.
EG: How do you keep entertained when not in the studio? Have you come across any good movies, books, or albums lately?
Jo.Ke: I have been getting more into reading again, and really enjoyed ‘Los Naufragos’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Right now I’m reading ‘Freedom for All (The End Of Work As We Know It)’ by German philosopher Richard David Precht, which boards the really interesting concept of freedom from most work we are gradually able to obtain thanks to automation and AI.
I usually only find time on long flights to catch up on movies, but I enjoy that a lot, that time for myself and watching movies and catching up on sleep. A lot of fellow artists struggle with all the airtime, but I embrace it (and religiously never, ever connect to wi-fi on the plane).
“When I started going out there was a d&b room where people would go to have a joint or a chat. I would like to see more of these alternative spaces with more slow-paced music and a chance to connect in a different way than at the bar or on the dancefloor”
EG: What does a regular Monday in the life of Jo.ke look like? And a Friday?
Jo.Ke: You know Mondays are a DJ’s (and chef’s) Sunday, so I usually just like to be at home with not a lot of people around and not too many plans. This way I can connect back to my base. Spend some time with my kids, cook a meal, unpack my bags, etc., and just take it pretty easy.
EG: By the way, what are your thoughts on the current state of the scene? What would you like to see more and less of?
Jo.Ke: I believe the scene is getting back on track. Covid was obviously a huge slump in the road for everyone and this summer I felt people were over-eager to get back into it and the crowd was very rave-starved and hungry for a moment of release, celebration, and communion.
For years I have been dreaming of the return of the chillout floor. When I started going out there was a d&b room where people would go to have a joint or a chat. I would like to see more of these alternative spaces with more slow-paced music and a chance to connect in a different way than at the bar or on the dancefloor.
EG: What’s next for Jo.ke? What particular milestones are you looking forwards to now?
Jo.Ke: Definitely focused on all these upcoming releases and my first video collaborations to accompany them. Launching the singer-songwriter singles and album in the best possible way is also a riddle I am still trying to finish solving. Enrolling for my first triathlon in 2023 supposedly, so getting my training and resistance up is a major milestone as well. And surfing every day again and living and eating healthy and being with my family more.
EG: Thank you so much for your time, Jonas! We wish you all the best for the future.
Jo.Ke: Thank you. Happy to share and really liked the questions!
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