JakoJako (DE)

JakoJako is committed to exploring the spaces that emerge between the technical and emotional sides ofelectronic music, fostering a relationship to sound that implements both rigorous knowledge andunrestrained intuition. Engaged in a constant dialogue around the use of hardware in music, JakoJako’sartistic output is informed by the tension and release of techno, but ultimately coloured by ever-expandingforms and structures that play with the contours of the genre.

As a live performer and DJ, she searches for spontaneity amongst the mathematical patterns of arpeggiosand loops, locating kinetic energies that convert into moments of dancefloor catharsis. A resident atBerghain, her multifaceted approach has taken her from some of the most respected electronic musicfestivals in the world - including Dekmantel, Awakenings, and Fusion - to institutions of great culturalsignificance like the Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican.

Her album Têt 41 on Mute (April 2025) is an expansion on these core ideas. Rhythmic fragments weavebetween analogue processing and melodic distillations, swirling in organic cycles of warehouse maximalismand sonic minutiae that speak to the somatic and unworldly in equal measure. Recorded in Vietnam duringthe Tết Lunar New Year celebrations and made with a minimal hardware setup, the album taps into a deepunderstanding of machine-based music illuminated by references to her heritage, reflecting on notions ofrebirth, and the pursuit of a sonic core. From this simplicity emerge some of her most expansive, unworldly compositions to date.

Arrangements of sound that speak to both vastness and intimacy underscore her productions, which havelanded releases on labels like Tresor, Mute and Leisure System, and remixes for New Order and Martin Gore,amongst others. Infinitely curious about the threads that connect different genres, as opposed to the rigidityof genre itself, her music is driven by a desire to document the potentials of analogue and modularsynthesis, and to consider new contexts within which these could exist. This is reflected in her ongoingrelationship with Berlin institution SchneidersLaden, where she worked for a number of years and continuesto spend time regularly, engaging with new machines. She elaborates - “It's still important for me to gothere; the exchange of knowledge and ideas is invaluable and I feel like I want to give back just somethingof what I got over the years”.

Her curated compilation ‘Hardwired’ drew its conceptual foundation from synthesizer terminology. Thismetaphor of pre-established connections forms the emotional core of the compilation, celebrating thecommunity of hardware enthusiasts who share an intuitive understanding and appreciation for machine-based music creation.

Ultimately, it’s the raw feeling of sound that has sustained a lifelong obsession with its intricacies andprocesses, and the compulsion to search for new energies in musical hardware continues to ensure JakoJakois one of the most intriguing artists in electronic music today.