PREMIERE | JAN3T, "Allons Y"
Styled like the dearly departed and long lost Laura Palmer — we introduce Brooklyn’s rising star JAN3T; press photo courtesy of the artist.
In reflecting on current and recent events, finding impactful and meaningful language in daily discourse is quite often a difficult task and tall order. What many would chalk up to the cliché expression of being a fool's errand is in practice a daunting endeavor. In a worldwide society with proclivities toward the weaponization of words to suit any number of polemic viewpoints and talking points, well intentioned (and commercialized ad nauseum) mantras and trending hashtags are often hijacked, countered and reduced to trite drivel. The tenets and foundations of semantics and language increasingly have become a battlefield to be battered by opposition trolls and soft targets for calumny (both real, imagined, and/or gaslit out of proportion). The culmination of all these things and countless other factors too numerous and exhausting to list have made dialogues more and more difficult. Inherent truths have largely become obfuscated by conspiratorial, reactionary tribalism as fallacies and backwards, base perspectives and toxic doctrines have been enrobed in the deceptive garments of truths by YouTube demagogues and various other toxic fringe hegemons. Words are not found easy to describe any of this. Talking is difficult. Dialogues feel now next to non-existent. Communication is reserved for stifled textual exchanges, facetious FaceTimes, loathed Zoom and G-Chat exchanges and more all facilitated across end to end high speed date transmissions. With all of the bandwidth and mobile devices in the world, we are pseudo-connected and yet completely divorced from one another in the face of these extraordinary, inexplicable and overwhelming times (that are truly without parallel).
With all this in mind and more, meet Brooklyn artist JAN3T who attempts to encapsulate the ineffable of modern day madness with the debut of “Allons Y”. A creative inception and materialization made flesh during the malevolent throes of summer 2020, it’s an otherwise anxiety inducing time capsule from a cursed era (guaranteed to keep all of us in therapy for an eternity) all dressed up as a snazzy, sinewy, sleek, smart and chic earworm. Directing an atmosphere and cadence that more than faintly resembles the underground dance pop oughts of the hip electro set of early 2000s NYC boppers; JAN3T keeps the synths metallic and jagged with a percussion that perfectly matches the exacerbated anxiety of a grounded and secluded international community. Everything about the production strikes a chord and all too familiar nerve. JAN3T's delivery is a breathy stream of consciousness existing within a state of fractured union. Radical, raw and real audio brushstrokes illustrate generations in jeopardy, nations and worlds divided, the mania, the mood swings and everything awful and insane about an era that need not be named and yet still feels impossible to wrap our collective heads around. And like the pendulum between our muffled breathless sobs to the extremities and rancor of our anger — “Allons Y” puts on a dazzling display of JAN3T’s delivery that hums in the vibrations of a teary-eyed whisper, to barely controllable shouts that all remains in an unchained and relentless harmony.
JAN3T delivered some exclusive thoughts on the single “Allons Y”:
In the summer of 2020, I used to wake up every morning and look at social media and the news in bed and feel a tremendous amount of anxiety — it felt like everyday there was a new harrowing event in America. While locked down, my girlfriend and I would spend hours arguing viciously over our different takes on current events amongst other things. One afternoon, I was looking on Instagram and I saw a video of some young girl calling out her dad for his racism/homophobia, I can't remember. I thought it was emblematic of how hard generation Z goes for social justice — and there are many different ways that you can conceptualize the causes/effects of that fervor, but in the moment I was just struck by the energy in the video amongst the backdrop of 2020’s sociopolitical climate: BLM protests, Antifa, Proud Boys, Trump. “Allons Y” only took a couple of hours to write and record. It's a lot simpler than most of the music I write — I've usually got an inclination towards intricate harmony and smooth vocal layers. This song is definitely not that, but I know how to rock with the energy when I need to.
It’s tough to [write about politics] without sounding like you're getting on your soapbox. In the 70’s and 80’s artists could just sing War, what is it good for, absolutely nothing, but a lot of us are immune to earnest and direct messages like that now. Political songwriting in the 2020’s is an absolute tightrope act. “Allons Y'' might be the first song in that bracket I’ve ever written that I actually feel good about. It's kind of a weird thing to release for me since I have family that's in the police and work in prisons and also have friends who have been affected by police brutality. I feel like people on both sides might be upset with me, but I also don't really believe it's my job to censor myself especially when the song shows up as pristinely as this one did.
JAN3T’s “Allons Y” is available everywhere courtesy of Super Fine Audio.