A few months ago, I received a doubtful message from Jess, aka J. Antonette, asking me to take some time out to listen to her music. The New York based singer immediately drew my attention due to the fact that she reminds me of me. It just took me a while to have a spot to blog about it.
On her website, she presents herself as someone who doesn’t like to be labelled. She wants to have the freedom to create the music she likes, without having a genre attached to her. This sounds all too familiar to me. The not wanting to be limited and seeing life as one great timespan to discover everything about the world and about yourself.
All her music has in common, is that it’s incredibly easy to listen to. There’s a gentleness to it, which I think has mainly to do with her voice. It’s soothing for the ballads and it’s got the strength for commercial pop songs as well. It’s not that surprising she has provided background vocals for someone like Melissa Etheridge.
Her debut album, “Lollipops & Daggers”, was released some time ago and features timeless ballads and up-tempo songs. Some of the up-tempo songs remind you of the early Lady Gaga material (“Wonderin’”) or a little bit of Ferg ie (“Girls (Boom Bottom)” ), without the accent. Both of these tracks are also available for listening on her website.
Her need for full freedom makes the mid-tempo track, “The Girl Next Door”, a very personal track. It describes her desire to be accepted as ungraspable and undefined.
The ballads range from guitar pop and beautiful piano ballads. Most of her songs use some digital effects on her vocals. For instance, there’s a few digitalized vocals here and there. And there’s a little bit of creative usage of panning of vocals from left to right to give you the idea that the voice it traveling straight through your head (I was listening on my headphones). But the lead vocals are kept pure and simple and the effects take place in the background.
If you have some time, her debut album is worth a listen.
