In quick succession, Joanna Rives found out that her show at « FGO-Barbara », where she would have performed as part of the MaMA festival, had been cancelled. The same thing occurred for her appearance at the “Bars en Trans” that should have taken place in December. Nowadays, most artists and musicians have to deal with the same issues but they choose to cope differently. The Bordelaise singer decided to escape for a few days in a little village called « Angoisse » (“anguish” in French).
She planned some Nordic baths, forest walks and reflexion on the future of her musical project. The musicians from the band J‑Silk, composed of Joanna (guitar, synth, singing), Louis (bass, synth, choir) and Didier (drums, pads, choir), have planned to release an EP, Dreaming Awake. Because of the unusual situation, its release has been postponed…
In the meantime, Joanna had given up on the idea to finish her work with Slash, the European program initiated by Trempo, which should have come to an end at the MaMA festival, from October 14th to 16th. Luckily for her, Chloé Nataf, the project coordinator, called all five Slash fellows and offered them to complete the program with several workshops organized the day right after the MaMA festival cancellation. « It was a great surprise for me, said the J‑Silk singer. I thought that after the MaMA cancellation, we were done with our work with Slash. Which would have been such a pity… But Chloé called me and I thought it would be nice to come back to Trempo, to finish what we have started. I am very lucky being French because I was able to get on a train and be here in person, unlike the other artists. »
© Gregg Bréhin
Stuck in their respectives countries, Simone Tang and Martin Baltser (DK) , Alice Hubble (UK) and Marta Cascales (SP) took part in the workshops through videoconferences, from October 14th to 16th. The five artists had relaxation sessions with naturopath Sandrine Bileci, who also created recipes for musicians to improve their feeding routine, with the chef Bertrand Lacroix. They also had individual and collective workshops on livestream with the community manager Haus-Paul Landriève and the comedian, dancer and choreographer Bénédicte Le Lay, and also personalized interviews with the label manager from Believe Digital, Quentin Gauvin…
Joanna Rives had the opportunity to ask questions to the stakeholders about the delayed release of Dreaming Awake. The hip hop, soul and electro six-tracks EP is ready, as well as a meticulous video clip directed by American visual artist Rachel Seropian. « It helped to talk about all these problems because we, as J‑Silk, are in deep reflections, said Joanna. We have already delayed the release (of the EP) once and talking about it with people with hindsight, was really important to me. But these are decisions that we will take ourselves , afterwards. It was a chance to talk about these issues in this timing. » Joanna had just one regret at the end of her week in Nantes : her four Slash colleagues were not there. « We have built strong relationships in Nantes and Rennes last year and then in Athens in February. We laughed a lot. It was very interesting to intertwine our different visions on music. And then, to only see them through a screen was particular… It is a current situation nowadays but I don’t know if we will get used to it… »
Nothing feels better than a holiday to « Angoisse » to wear off these thoughts.
