Recently, I was invited to talk on Cerebrotempesta, an Italian podcast that talks about music with 2 hosts: Sergio and a good friend of mine, Claudio.
The podcast has two formats:
I was lucky to be the first guest on their Messaggio vocale series. The podcast is in Italian, so I thought I would share the notes that I took to prepare the episode in English.
Today I wanted to talk about a Swedish singer: Jay Jay Johanson. He is a singer who has a very melancholic voice. He has been around for the last 27 years and became famous with his album Whiskey in 1996. The style is trip-hop jazzy and very cozy music to listen to.
He is an artist that I didn’t know and that I discovered through the playlists “Discover weekly” on Spotify. The song chosen had a strong emotional impact on me. I must say, I am someone who responds very well to music, let’s say that I am a good audience.
The song is: Finally. It is the second song of his last album: Fetish, from the record label: License Kuroneko/29 Music. It came out on the 9 of June 2023 (for my birthday, maybe a sign 🤔).
It is an album that has a cinematographic esthetic of film noir, melancholic. You could hear this type of music in a smoky, dark jazz club.
The instrumental is a sample of the Third movement of the Symphony No. 3 of Johannes Brahms. A very famous theme that appears in many movies, and video games like Civilization IV. Jay Jay puts voices to this beautiful movement.
This is a lyrical song that talks about a feeling that I hadn’t heard in music. It’s not a big theme like politic, love or else that you can find in art. It’s an everyday moment, a moment of peace.
We all host friends at home, Finally describes the moment where everyone just left the party, and you end up alone with your partner. It’s a moment where we are looking around us, everything has to be cleaned, there are no interruptions in our discussions, there is broken glass on the floor, but we will clean later. We are happy about our night. And of course, before we go to bed, we shouldn’t forget to feed the cats.
This is a beautiful feeling, a moment of peace and serenity that I love and that we all live, especially if you enjoy hosting. I have never thought about this feeling, and that is precisely why I love this song.
Take some time to listen to this song without distractions and I promise that Finally of Jay Jay Johanson will give you a moment of peace for 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
I am Thomas (toto) Bille, a software engineer who previously worked as an Engineering manager at Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu. I am passionate about tech, photography and coffee. Make yourself comfy and welcome to my site!