Last week the dreamy debut by a new band from the Netherlands was released. The band is called Jo Marches, and is the brainchild of songwriter Johanneke Kranendonk. She has been writing songs and playing the piano for a long time. With her new band she finally found an outlet for her songs to be intimate and having a raw intensity at the same time. “The Night” is the beautiful first result.
Johanneke Kranendonk is a songwriter from Utrecht, the Netherlands. She has been writing songs and playing the piano for a long time, but she had a hard time finding a way to make her songs work. On her own, she wrote while playing the piano, and then performed them together with a band. Somehow this didn’t work for her, the songs didn’t seem to fit.
“Playing my songs in a band didn’t always do justice to them, but at the same time I missed the intensity and ‘rawness’ of a band when playing them on piano”, she explains. So she was looking for a combination of those two elements. And then she met producer David Hoogerheide.
“When I started working with David Hoogerheide I soon realized that a good pop song may hurt a little and can sound dirty. “The Night” is the first result of our collaboration.”
Next to Johanneke (vocals) and David (synths) the band consists of Gijs Coolen (guitar & bass) and Thomas Bosveld (drums). Important sources of inspiration for the new band are Tame Impala, Lykke Li and Portishead. And we have to agree: when you put those three together you get a dreampop song with a psychedelic touch and haunting vocals, which “The Night” is, for sure.
But there is definitely something more. Other key elements are the lush synth-melodies and the hazy guitars which make this a classic sounding dreampop/shoegaze song. Every single sound is at it’s place, and together they pull you in immediately. Once you are in their world, you’ll be mesmerized. Best is to listen to this gem at night, being it the perfect time for traveling in mind and music.
The artwork and photography are done by Mathilde Karrèr. The accompanying music video is by illustrator Iris Deppe and has the same atmosphere as the song. With deliberately vague visuals of a night walk and using ‘neon’ colours like pink, purple and blue, she created a beautiful music video that emphasizes the best time to lose yourself in the music: in the night.
Jo Marches’ debut EP will be released later this year. For more information:
Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Instagram | Soundcloud