negative metaphysik (2025)
on "negative metaphysik", jena proves even more ambitious. central to the album is the title track, which runs to almost a quarter of an hour. it is an electroacoustic piece for nine guitars and just as many synthesizers (from the company "haken"). the fact that jena wishes to explore ‘the topic of biomimetics and the principle of non-identity’ may be interesting as background knowledge, but is irrelevant to the perception of the music itself. what might sound like lavish orchestration given the accumulation of eighteen instruments turns out to be an extremely restrained exercise in the shifting of pitches, almost a meditative construction.
the other pieces carry this restrained mood, giving ample space to the guitar as a traditional sound-producing instrument (‘okuhotaka-dake’, ‘maehotaka-dake’, ‘kitahotaka-dake’), so that one feels transported beyond time.
susanne müller, jazzpodium
jo jena & burtis knight (2023)
it is unfixed, floating, but by no means ethereally indeterminate music, which nevertheless demands a great deal of attention. an album that is as fleeting as it is emphatic.
gabriel aniol, jazzpodium
selected free solos (2023/2022)
guitarist jo jena developed his “selected free solos”, documented across two albums, from his experience in lage lund's masterclass. (...) these are committed improvisations—in some cases, one feels, involving the protagonist’s entire body—that make the instrument audible in its entirety: the strings, the body, the fingertip striking metal. how much acoustic and how much electric sound is allowed? jena strikes the right balance. there are plenty of dramatic arcs and a great deal of coherence,
even though only a single musician is at work here.
susanne müller, jazzpodium
hydrangea (2022)
our next artist may be the most prolific guitarist you never heard of.
scott millsop, minor7th podcast
german guitarist jo jena makes his recording debut with his nylon string fanned fret 7-string stoll guitar on hydrangea. the acoustic portion of the album is split between original compositions and arrangements of challenging jazz and fusion music. "suite part I: norwegian odd" earns its title with a kind of paraphrase of the beatles tune "norwegian wood." played fingerstyle with liberal use of the instrument's lower register, it strongly suggests its inspiration without ever actually quoting it directly. "suite part II: el arpa de la guerrera" takes its title from a piece by cuban composer/guitarist leo brouwer, and alternates lyrical passages with propulsive odd-metered moto perpetuo. "suite part III: hydrangea" gives the album its title with a gentle, almost folk-like melody. wayne shorter's "teru" (from his 1967 album adam's apple) is a beautiful ballad. kenny wheeler's "ma belle hélène" (from his 1990 album the widow in the window, featuring guitarist john abercrombie) is played freely, an interpretation suggesting the way ralph towner might approach it. the final cover is allan holdsworth's "zarabeth" (from his 1992 album wardenclyffe tower), largely bypassing holdsworth's solo pyrotechnics and stripping the tune back to its lyrical compositional basics. the album closes with the extended "ilkley moor," one of jena's free solo ambient improvisations employing electric guitar, electronics, and looping. A slowly evolving soundscape, it provides a contrast to the acoustic pieces as well as a lovely final chapter.
mark sullivan, minor7th review, spring issue
the guitarist jo jena, a student of elliott sharp, is concerned with levelling genres. he mostly performs and records solo. in doing so, he feels, as one can hear, equally indebted to the solo playing of ralph towner or egberto gismonti as well as to advanced contemporary classical music, but also to naked sounds that reverberate in space and are worth listening to – his cd ‘hydrangea’, released in 2024, was the last to feature his classically based solo playing.
gabriel aniol, jazzpodium
schönberg – 6 kleine klavierstücke opus 19 – arranged for electric guitar by jo jena
with this realization and recording, jo jena has opened a new window on schoenberg‘s work, lifting it out of the second viennese school and bringing it into our very timbral 21st century.
elliott sharp, nyc june 2021
jo jena‘s performance of these brief pieces makes for a delightful musical amuse bouche.
michael ross, guitar moderne record picks XXV
i really enjoyed your performances here! I love the sound of how all the pieces are conveyed in your hands through your guitar constructions! i’ve found them really powerful and hold a very affecting feeling for me. bravo! my respect.
gary husband, message to the artist
an ever-growing number of musicians, especially those from the experimental area, are trying to promote their music on bandcamp in digital format only. It is increasingly difficult for me to follow and review this incredible flow of music. I therefore decided to open this section on my blog neuguitars where I propose music in digital format that I consider particularly interesting and worthy of attention.
andrea aguzzi, blog neuguitars
scapes & experiments (2005)
jo jena’s rhythm ‘n’ drones on the test tube netlabel was a standout last summer (...), a mix of crafty guitar counterpoint and thick industrial hums. The recent addition of four angular, layered guitar pieces to Jena’s own website drew my attention to some work in the interim that I’d missed entirely: four electro-acoustic pieces, one of them in four distinct parts. They’re filed under “flächen und experimente (2005)” (or “scapes and experiments”) on the site.
Nr. 4 (MP3), the true keeper of a great collection, is tubular and flangy, while Nr. 2 (“In a Norwegian Way,” MP3) eventually allows a proper, if single-note, guitar solo to float above the low-level turmoil.
Nr. 1 (MP3) could be mistaken for a church organist on a maudlin, introspective day, and Nr. 3 (MP3s: “Entrance to Gresham College,” 3.1; “The Observatory,” 3.2; “De Corpore Saturni,” 3.3; and “Boyle’s Airpump,” 3.4) is at once diaphanous and industrial, each part abrasive in tone but aspirant in intent.
marc weidenbaum, disquiet, february 20, 2005
jo jena's rhythm 'n' drones, from the test tube netlabel, could just as easily exchange that "'n'" for an "or." The album's eight tracks are divided in two: half are titled "rhythm I" through "rhythm IV", the other half "drone I" through "drone IV". a standard rhythmic track, like "rhythm II", features crafty guitar counterpoint that evades a strict downbeat by suggesting many. to jena, it turns out, this is what constitutes rhythm: something sharp and hard, of definite shape and pulsating with momentum. other variations include scraped percussion and a moire pattern of pizzicato action, but the real keeper, "rhythm III", sounds, of all things, like ersatz african juju pop music, complete with sour bent notes. jena's drones are equally varied, including the industrial hum of "Drone I", which is textured with scrapes, and the orchestral-sounding "drone II". the album is organized in a kind of broken symmetry: alternating rhythms and drones three times, and then reversing for the final pair. according to a note of jo jena "rhythm 'n' drones consists of eight pieces which should be listened to without (even very short) pauses." get the full set, and listen to them as you wish.
marc weidenbaum, disquiet / august 29, 2005
jo jena is an experimental band from Frankfurt whose production I chose for this 2005 album, which alternates rhythms and drones (that's the acoustic meaning of "drone") in an excellent way.
personally, i prefer the drones, but the rhythms aren't bad either. the most interesting thing, however, is that there are always rhythms in the drones and drones in the rhythms.
mauro graziani
contrasts, micro-tonalities, complements, embryo structures, drones. all this, in the casual and systematic exploration of the moment, elevates ‘rhythm & drones’ to intemporality, thus inhabiting the present and the history, so we could freely trail this ‘trans-temporality’ without preconceptions.
bruno barros
this is good music!
john mc laughlin, mail to the artist
jo jena 