Janice

Darkly seductive electro-R&B with one of the hottest new voices in pop, Janice previews her debut album with the new single Black Lies online today.

Fallin’ Up is a future classic, its songs of dark hopefulness dealing with feelings both personal and universal. Set for release on 2nd February 2018 and intimate yet immense, the deep bass and heavy beats providing the perfect ballast to bolster Janice’s powerful voice
and searingly honest song-cum-diary entries.

Janice released her first single in 2016, a melancholy burst of quiet storm computer soul called Don’t Need To. After that, things started happening fast. The single, a sort of latter-day Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack, became one of the most played songs on Swedish radio. Hotly tipped in the Swedish press, she be-come a favourite of Ricky Martin, Charli XCX and Zara Larsson. Record labels queued up to acquire her signa-ture and Sony Germany got there first.

Janice spent the rest of the year travelling between Stockholm and London, working on music with writers and producers such as Andreas Söderlund (Hyena), Bristol musician Javeon McCarthy and English pro-ducer/songwriter Ben Ash (Two Inch Punch). “We met up and exchanged experiences and stories,” Janice says of the above, explaining the division of labour in the studio, between her and the collaborators.

Before she knew it, she had an album, a powerful yet accessible piece of work. There is Lullaby, a slow electro soul jam that alluded to all manner of emotional turbulence. I Got You is soaring, synthesised soul: Synth&B, you might say. Black Lies is somehow joyous yet sad, a very Janice piece that locates the light in the darkness as she discovers the treachery of a partner.

Like Amy Winehouse, she has a propensity towards bad language in both in-song and outside the studio. “I wanted the album to be honest and straightforward,” she says of her colourful street argot “That’s how I talk. I swear a lot. It’s bad, I know. I just write what comes out.”

You Only Say You Love Me In The Dark - which starts off slow and electro-bluesy, shifting to faster cyber-soul - continues with the theme of searing honesty. She laughs off her rough times with men, “All of this stuff happened and luckily I’ve been able to do something with it. It’s been uplifting for me. I’ve changed so much, and I'm now very confident about myself.” Enough is like a 60s torch song given a dark modern lustre. Some-one New also straddles the 60s and 21st century, all lavish strings and references to smoking.

The emotional epicentre of the album is Answer, the first song that she wrote for Fallin’ Up. It goes, “Daddy, I feel lost/Wish you could hear my song/It’s been four years, without you/Never knew time could move so slow/It’s been four years, without you/Daddy, can you cover my soul?” If Janice sounds authentically grief-stricken and bereft here, it is because she genuinely is

It speaks of her father, who took his own life four years ago, Answer has provided a much-needed cathartic release for Janice.

Janice describes her debut as a near-concept album “it’s basically just stories about me, a lot about love, about how I used to be and who I want to be.” “Me, going from a place that’s quite dark and unstable, and then finding my way up and finding myself. I guess I was like every other teenager, only with a lot of drama!”