It’s a busy brew, but an easy listen, and it was the sound of Jai Wolf finding his voice. The EP merged the sweet melodies of 80s synth-pop with the atmosphere and grandiosity of EDM, the intimacy and closeness of chillwave, and the thoughtful introspection of indie-rock. The result was the debut Kindred Spirits EP in 2016, a record that stunned critics (“Breathtaking, emotional” is how Billboard described it), and signaled the birth of Jai Wolf the songwriter, the live performer, the indie-tronic artist. He decided to ditch the drops and focus on crafting songs with depth, meaning and melody. The success of that song which leans more indie than EDM, was the catalyst to a major change in Jai Wolf’s perspective. The song made Jai Wolf a star, but creatively, he was already looking towards bigger and better things. But it was ‘Indian Summer” that propelled him to the stratosphere, racking up tens of millions of streams, a major GoPro ad campaign, appearing on American Idol, and even soundtracking Kobe Bryant’s final basketball game in the NBA. It was Skrillex himself who plucked Jai Wolf from obscurity when he came across the then-fledgling bedroom producer’s bootleg of “Ease My Mind” in 2014. Jai Wolf has taken an unconventional path to arrive at this point. I also want you to be inspired about where your life could go.” “My music is for people who are desperately dreaming beyond where they are at right now - it can be the future, it can be the past. “I like writing songs that have a duality, a complexity of feeling that takes you to a melancholy, reflective space,” says Jai Wolf.
This all converges to create an emotional complexity to the music that cuts deeper than the average festival fare. The sunny melodies and bombastic hooks bely subject matter that often ruminates on loneliness, distance, and a lack of place. It’s that quality that takes center stage on The Cure to Loneliness, as he slips between references to cultural moments with an ephemeral quality tinged with nostalgia. The album is available everywhere April 5th.īorn in Bangladesh, raised in New York City, inspired by everything from indie-punk to hip-hop, orchestral symphonies and the Bollywood classics of his parents, Jai Wolf’s life and music have been defined by a liminal quality that only a third culture kid could understand. The result is a thoughtfully framed, confidently expressed musical vision that will tug at heartstrings in 2019 and long beyond.
“From the sounds to the lyrics, it’s everything that I’ve always wanted to do.” Jai Wolf has taken a different approach than many of his contemporaries under the wing of indie darling label Mom+Pop (Courtney Barnett, Flume, Jagwar Ma, Alina Baraz), largely eschewing singles to focus on patiently crafting The Cure to Loneliness over the course of the past two years. “In my heart, this album is me,” says Jai Wolf, better known to some as Sajeeb Saha. While still very much a dancefloor-focused endeavor, some tracks on the LP conjure the angular riffage of The Strokes and Phoenix, while weaving melodies through the sugary happysad of M83 and CHVRCHES, and building up walls of sound touched by Explosions in the Sky - all while maintaining the melodious polish and evocative groove to which fans around the world have grown so close. The Cure to Loneliness finds Jai Wolf completing his evolution from upstart bedroom remixer to future bass DJ to dream pop artist and builder of lush musical worlds.
After hundreds of millions of streams on astral- indie-dance anthems like “Indian Summer” and “Starlight,” blockbuster festival sets from Indio to India, and regular co-signs from the likes of Skrillex and ODESZA, it’s clear from the opening notes of Jai Wolf’s long-awaited debut album The Cure to Loneliness that he sees the expectations around his name as an opportunity to challenge convention. You don’t know Jai Wolf like you think you do.
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