JOCO

Photo by Benedikt Schnermann

It’s been one of our Eureka! moments at this year’s WAY BACK WHEN festival: A yet unknown duo playing the beautiful church and it was right there when we fell for the tender pop of Hamburg based duo JOCO. JOCO – that’s short and simple for Josepha und Cosima. These two just released their debut record Horizon which has been recorded nowhere else but in the legendary Abbey Road Studios, produced and mixed by the Grammy-winning Steve Orchard. We couldn’t fight the urge to get to know these two a little better and so they agreed to participate in our one and only Introducing section. You know what to expect now, right? Read on and learn about their influences, their beliefs and how JOCO would turn a dragon into a flying show stage.

How would you describe your music to our readers in one sentence?

We are sisters, playing drums, piano and guitar with the two of us and we love to create musical structures with our two voices.

Which 5 tracks should start a mixtape to perfectly capture your musical influences?

1. LOCAL NATIVES – Heavy Feet
2. EMILÍANA TORRINI – Home
3. JUNIP – Line of Fire
4. RADIOHEAD – House of Cards
5. KINGS OF CONVENIENCE – Misread

Describe your earliest musical memory.

Our mum playing the guitar in the backyard while we roll our bicycles around with all the children from the neigborhood and sing as loud as we can.

Would you rather be a dragon or have a dragon?

We would have a dragon and kindly ask him to balance a gandpiano and a drumset on his wings. And if he is up for spitting fire to the beat, that would be awesome.

If your music would score a movie what sort of movie would that be? What actors can you imagine playing in it?

It would be an adventurous and sensitive movie with humor in it.

If this whole musician thing won’t workout – what would be your alternative dream job?

We just need to create something and to make things up. The way we let these things out of our heads and hearts is sound and lyrics. So we guess we just couldn’t stop making music.

Tell us a mostly unknown artist we should definitely check out.

This is our dear friend Enno Bunger:

The music industry is changing quite heavily these days. What’s the best and what’s the worst part of these changes, in your eyes?

The best part is that your music can reach people in different countries and continents very easily and you directly receive reactions from all over the world.

The worst part is that everything has to move so quickly and you rarely take time and rest for letting things grow slowly.

Unleash your inner Burt Bacharach and complete the following sentence: “What the world needs now is…”

…people that burn for something and courageously give all their power and passion for what they love.

What role play ‘hope’ and ‘passion’ in your life?

We think your life is happy when you do what you love. This way of life is not always easy so you need lots of courage, hope and passion to stay optimistic and keep going.

JOCO