The first thing that draws attention is Jay-Jay Johanson’s voice. It is not soulful and triumphant, it is restrained, fragile, with cracks and unresolved emotions, something rarely heard in modern music. His vocal style, rooted in jazz, embraces fragility and emotional darkness.
The noir mood is the core of this music, not just a decoration. While other artists use mood as one of the sound textures, Jay-Jay makes it the main theme. Arsenic feels more like a psychological state than a collection of songs, claustrophobic, exhausted, inward-looking, and thoroughly saturated with rich, cinematic melancholy without irony.
Some songs recall film noir soundtracks from the 1960s, but without nostalgia or parody. This music is serious, slow, and emotionally heavy. The compositions are spacious and generous, while also filled with beautiful emptiness. The space between the sounds and the refusal to build toward a gradual emotional climax is a radical choice. Arsenic simply allows beautiful despair to exist - in silence and restraint.
The album was recorded in Stockholm and Paris. Alongside the quartet known over the years, Erik Jansson on piano, Johan Skugge on sound effects, Jeff Tekeyan on double bass, and Fredrik Wennerlund on drums, the album also marks the debut of the young jazz trumpet virtuoso Linnea Jansson. Guest vocalists Amina Annabi, Gaëlle Joly, Sadie Percell, and Anthony Larcher also appear. The album also features Swedish DJ champion and DMC World Championship finalist Robert Wåtz. Meanwhile, house music legend Alex Gopher once again lends his magic touch, handling the mixing and mastering.
With this album, Jay-Jay Johanson opens the door to a new sound and direction in electronic music, where sadness is understood as a state you can live in, not one you must escape from.
Although Arsenic’s musical DNA was formed at the crossroads of different influences, the feeling it creates is new. The album does not so much announce a new trend as quietly redefine how contemporary music can sound when it stops trying to surprise and starts openly telling what lies in its depths.
The album Arsenic will be released on March 5, 2027.
