jeudi 25 février 2010

"Shift" by Antoine Carlier



Antoine Carlier (picture) is the artwork director on our new album.

He directed our videos for "oh my love" and "Time for the Devil" , did the arwtork cover and takes most of our pictures...
he's a bit like the third member of J&J right now really...

On the 9th of March, Antoine will exeptionnaly perform a show called "Shift" in Paris with the pianist Guillaume de Chassy @ the Cinéma le Balzac.
The idea is that Antoine projects images on the screen while Guillaume De Chassy improvises on the piano.
We're gonna be there to see the performance ; Antoine asked us if he could use images from our video "oh my love" to screen during the performance. of course we said yes. see their trailer below:




On the 9th of March 2010 in Paris @ Cinema le Balzac / "Shift" with Antoine Carlier and Guillaume de Chassy.

jeudi 18 février 2010

JOE MOO


we'd like to introduce you to JOE MOO , who did the artwork for our first album. He is a french tattooist, the best actually, and has just put his work online.

Check him out here: JOE MOO

Joe is John's old friend and personnal tattooist, he is also an amasing artist, you can see his drawings on his website now as well.
enjoy!
http://www.joemootattoo.fr

jeudi 11 février 2010

Fernando Pessoa "The hour of the Devil"




"the wedding ring that you wear and love, the joy produced by a vague thought, the fact that you feel good when you look at yourself in the mirror - do not fool yourself : it's not you , it 's me.'
The Devil from "A Hora do Diabo" by Fernando Pessoa.

This man on the picture is Fernando Pessoa. He is a portuguese poet and writer from the early 20th century. His short story "The Hour of the Devil" (‘La Hora del Diablo') inspired us for the title of our album and to write the song of the same name.
The book came into our hands accidentally. It was sitting on the shelves at my parent's house and John picked it up to read before going to sleep. Before I knew it , he got inspired by the poet's words and few days later, had written a song about the short parable.

In his short story, Pessoa imagines a conversation between the Devil and a woman. He creates a reality where the Devil is not to be feared and nothing you expect. He is a gentleman who would never intentionally harm a human; he's no longer the usual symbol of the enemy of God. He is harmless and is certainly ignorant of the things that actually rules the world. The Devil himself tells about his traumas, his story and his work... This accessibility creates a modern, conscious way of dealing with the subject of evil, which we found inspiring for our work and lives.

The Devil feeds our emotions and inspires us a love of art and of love itself.
Our emotions aren’t bad or dangerous. What is dangerous is when they are hidden or suppressed. It’s safer and healthier to experience the vices of humanity, to express our emotions rather than label them as evil or dangerous. The sentiments actually inspired many of the lyrics on the album...

But enough now, I highly recommand that you read it and get inspired yourself :)


Time for the devil.

It’s time for the devil to come
And put a smile on my face
He’s not that bad my devil
He’s moving things in my head

It’s time for the devil
He cares for me and all
It’s time for the devil

He doesn’t want my soul
He wants to speak that’s all
He cares for me my devil
About my fate and my goals

It’s time for the devil
He cares for me and all
It’s time for the devil

samedi 6 février 2010

Fear Fear Fear in Skins

Hello,

Skins have selected our song "Fear Fear Fear" to feature in their 2nd Episode of season 4.
"Fear Fear Fear" is a song from our first album "John & Jehn" which was released in 2008.

To be honest I never watched Skins before ,though we do watch some tv series; "Mad men", "Sopranos", "True Blood"... some channel 4 comedies like "the big band theory" or "Peep show"... some cartoons like "Harvey Birdman", "Family guy", "Futurama" and of course the forever classic "The Simpsons"!

below is the extract from the episode where you can hear "Fear Fear Fear"; it's very funny for us to hear it there, this song was recorded in our bedroom in London for god's sake!! :)

kiss x

jeudi 4 février 2010

"TIME FOR THE DEVIL" 1st Single





This is the picture we chose for the cover.
It was taken by Antoine Carlier, who's the man behind all our artwork and videos for the new album. Antoine is an old friend of us. Him and John used to go to the same high school in france.
We took this picture in his appartment in Paris, one night very late ,using the simple device of one mirror , one lamp. Our first idea was to create an atmosphere inspired by the surealists' from the 20's , and then we gradually got away from that I guess, we spent hours playing with it, it felt very creative.
Antoine is an interesting character, we believe he is the one of the best director and designer in Paris at the moment, which is very demanding! antoine is constantly working very hard, sometimes it's like he is too tired to sleep ha! he doesnt even have a bed in his flat... I think he's a vampire!
Also this is a very demanding period for everybody working on John & Jehn at the moment.. coz now is Time for the DEVIL! who needs to sleep :)

evil best,
J&J

mardi 2 février 2010

let us tease you again...

This is an introduction to our next music video, "Time for the Devil", directed by Antoine Carlier :



enjoy!
love on the beat x
j&j
or follow the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do8d324FpSY