A Marriage of Mediums: How Jordi Up Late Combines Art and Music To Create a One-of-a-Kind Listening Experience
By Chika Ojukwu
Photograph courtesy of the artist.
Jordi Up Late is an artist and musician based out of Los Angeles who describes her music as “a mix of indie pop, electro pop, and alternative”. The self-proclaimed genre-bending artist recently released her latest single “Wasting Away” on October 21st. With it’s upbeat track and wistful lyrics, ‘Wasting Away’ is both a welcoming of the future and a reminiscence of the past. Jordi’s unique collaboration of visuals and sound in her music video for the single fully captures the ephemerality of the song through its strata cut animation (done by Jordi herself). This combination of art and music is what Jordi Up Late defines as her artistry.
Last month, I talked to Jordi Up Late about the influence of social injustice protests on her music, the power of art and sound as dual mediums, and her hopes and dreams as an up and coming artist.
Chika Ojukwu: I'll first start off by addressing the giant elephant in the room. So, you released your debut single a few months ago in August, right in the middle of a pandemic that has affected the world and the music industry in multiple ways. How has the pandemic influenced your debut and your creation of art as a whole?
Jordi Up Late: Personally, the pandemic has affected me in not really being able to connect personally to people and to share personally. To me, social media and the virtual world isn't where I find the most love and connection, although, it's definitely been pushing me to do that in the pandemic. I missed the opportunity of being able to have all my friends over, talk about music, and listen together. I think even more pressing than the pandemic, though, are just the social injustices being protested now. I think that's affected my creativity the most. Being someone who was out protesting during the pandemic is just super stressful. I'm just trying to be conscious of the fact that I'm releasing music in a time where there are so many voices that need to be heard aside from mine. But at the same time, it's an amazing time to create art and put out art because it's needed more than ever. I think the pandemic and the and the protests for me have kind of gone hand in hand. I can't think about one without the other. It's all so connected.
CO: Ah, I definitely see that.
JUL: Funnily enough, the first lyric of the single, 'Facts', is "Won't you face the facts?" and I thought that would be such a good single to release because it felt relevant to the time that we're in. There is just such a large divide between people that are not recognizing facts and people who are. Although the song is about love, I think it can also be looked at in many different ways, in terms of seeing truth and trying to ignore truth with the ignorance of people in our country right now.
CO: Wow. That definitely changes the way I'll be listening to this song now. I really see that in the lyrics now that you mention it. For a lot of people reading this article, it will probably be the first time we've heard of you and your music. What do you want the audience to know about who you are and the music that you create?
JUL: To me, music and art go very hand in hand. I grew up learning art and music together. I started playing music by ear at a really young age with this method called Suzuki Method, where your instructor basically teaches you to listen and watch before actually reading music. To me, it's all about listening. Composing to me is just sound. It's not numerical. I started learning music and started painting and drawing at a really young age. I think because I couldn't read music, art was always something I was better at formally. So, I chose that path. I went to art school. I studied film and animation. I think it was such an easy transition for me to get into film because of the other time based medium that I was interested in, which is music. Everything that I did in art school was pretty heavily focused on sound. Everything that I would make was born out of whatever music or sound I was making at the time. I'd say that everything in my work is pretty interconnected to sound and visuals. I hope that one day when we're out of the pandemic, I can share that aspect of my creation with people in live shows and have people be entranced by what would be on screen behind me as well as what they're listening to.
CO: So cool. I've never heard of that before. This is definitely the first time I see a combining of visual mediums and sound, very cool. How would you describe your music to someone who's never listened to it?
JUL: I think when people ask me what genre my music is, I would have to say it's on the spectrum of indie but in many different fields. So, it could be indie pop, could be electro pop, could be alternative. I think because of collaboration as well. It can take me in so many different directions and I love writing most genres of music. I would probably describe it as being a genre bending for the most part. I really try to make my lyrics empowering towards myself and towards women and towards my abilities as a female producer. In the album I'm working on right now, I kind of speak to that more. I pretty much never play the part of being the woman in distress. I might be yearning for something, but there's always some kind of message of how I'm fine without anyone, a partner, a man or a woman. So, that's kind of lyrically how I would describe my music. But musically, definitely genre bending and that depends on who I'm playing with.
CO: So, what is your Jordi Up Late name origin story? How did it come to be?
JUL: I actually had a really long process of coming up with a name for myself because literally there are so many people that go by Jordi, that I couldn't just make it Jordi. And I didn't want it to be my real name. And I looked at other people's names like Rex Orange County, which is one that I really like because it has an adjective that really describes him. I came up with a song called 'Up Late on My Laptop' which is not out yet and will be on the album. I came up with my name through that song because I thought, "What is an adjective that really describes my process and describes who I am as an artist?" I don't know if you experience this, but a lot of artists are awake at really crazy hours because they have some spark of inspiration and then they can't put it down and then all of a sudden, I'm up when the sun's coming up and I haven't shut my computer. So, that's where the name came from. Both really liking names that have a describing factor of the artist but also keeping my name involved in it.
CO: Your debut single 'Facts' and your recent release 'Wasting Away' are what you have released so far. Can you describe the individual experiences of writing those songs and bringing them to completion?
Photograph courtesy of the artist.
JUL: My buddy who I went to high school with, Mikey, actually wrote both of those songs with me. He would come over and we would just sit on my laptop and come up with either hooks or guitar riffs. For 'Facts', he came up with the bass line. He brought the bass line in to me, and then I said, "Shit, this is really funky. I love it. I need to write on it". As soon as I came up with a hook for it, and kind of just wrote itself. And actually for 'Facts', I had written an entirely different pre chorus. It was on the backburner for months because it just didn't feel right. And then we finally came up with something and it felt good to both of us. It's funny, that song came about pretty quickly. I wrote the whole thing pretty quickly and the music pretty quickly. But then, just because of one area of the song, I just let it simmer for a while. 'Wasting Away' happened really quickly. We wrote that one pretty immediately. He played really easy chords that are like classic pop song chords and I wrote the verse in five minutes. And then we just kept working on it. I produced the whole demo. And then Jadu Heart, which is an amazing band based in the UK, came on it and totally revamped it and redid it. It originally was a slower, more chill song and they turned it into this song with a more upbeat pop, indie, punk kind of vibe. It was very much a marriage of what I've been doing and what they've been doing, which I loved about it. That's why I love collaborating with other people.
CO: Beginnings are always the hardest for budding artists who want to start making music, be it writing songs or producing them. What words of wisdom do you have for them? What have you learned through your experiences?
JUL: There will be a lot of people telling you no or telling you yes. Some of the people telling you yes might not have your best interests at heart or might not understand your creative vision. Your creative vision is the thing that's going to propel you. I had someone in my life recently say to me, "If you never put out your first song, you'll never put out your second and you'll never put out your third". What people are scared of and what I was scared of was putting out the perfect first thing for people to get to know me by. But we all know that we're all constantly developing as artists and as people in general. So, if you just are too scared to put out your first thing, then you don't even give yourself a chance to grow through that and no one will ever know you. So, for me, those words for some reason, just really resonated. And I said, "Shit, I'm just going to do it. I have to do it. If I don't put one thing out, then I'm never going to do it". After putting out one thing, I got so much more confident about putting out the rest.
CO: Speaking about that album that's coming up, is there anything you can tell the audience about the feel of the album, what we should expect? Anything you want to say about it?
JUL: There will probably be some tracks that are unexpected from the singles that I've put out so far. I've definitely put out the two "pop"-iest songs on there. I have a much darker side in terms of writing and those are not reflected in the two singles at all. A huge influence of mine is James Blake. I would also say Little Dragon is a good example of a darker synth pop or a darker writing. It's kind of somber and sorrowful. I try to tap into those notes as well in the album. So, it'll probably be majority electro pop and indie pop, but then there will be a few things in there that are maybe a little unexpected. Those things to me are even more emotional.
CO: When is that album scheduled to come out?
JUL: Right now, we're saying spring of 2021. Hopefully March. Fingers crossed.
CO: On that note, what is in the future of Jordi Up Late? For the start of next year and the release of that album, is there anything that we should be looking out for?
JUL: Yes. Because of the pandemic and not being able to perform live, I'm going to try to do some live stream performances, specifically early 2021. People should watch out for that. I hope to do some more live stream chats that people can come on and ask questions. That'll all be on my Instagram. Updates will be on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, wherever.
CO: I feel the anticipation building. I'm really excited and amped up to see what's coming from you. Are there any last remarks that you want to make to the readers of Sunstroke?
JUL: Stay safe and love everyone. Do what you can to emit positivity into this insane moment of time. Keep doing what you can do for your neighbors and for people that need it. With this morning of thinking about the election and thinking about everything happening in this world, that's mostly where my brain is at right now. Also: creatives keep creating. That's what I'm trying to do to make sense of it all.
You can continue following Jordi Up Late’s journey on her website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Facts and Wasting Away are both available to stream online now.