JEM

By Jim Nelson, A Taste Of Triple A
  
The Album
Finally Woken

The Track
"24"

Label
ATO

Native
Wales

Liner Notes
They’re everywhere in the music industry; people who started out as a musician or a singer and wound up on the business side of things, in A&R, in radio promotion, etc. But turn the equation upside down, and you’re hard pressed to name three people who began behind the scenes only to make their way behind the mic.

Welsh-born, English-trained, Jem Griffiths is on that short list. Jem (short for Jemma) was well down the path to becoming an industry vet in Brighton, England, having jumped right in when she finished up at Sussex University; by her mid-20s, she’d already done club and festival promotion, represented DJs, worked promotion for English indie Skint Records and helped launch the specialist break beat label Marine Parade. And then, at 24, Jem jumped off. Consumed and finally overtaken by a lifelong dream, she dropped everything and fled to Wales, back to where she’d first been inspired, and undertook an extreme makeover. The new Jem closely resembled a younger Jem, one who knew that the path to her soul didn’t run through concert promotion or record labels, but rather through her own self-expression.

Thirteen is an awkward age for most. For Jem, it was the age when she first knew that she’d be a singer; thus armed with some recording equipment and the healthy imagination of youth, Jem began making music. Nine years later, now back in Wales, she ditched the business and got back to the music. Putting a mobile studio together, she started writing and recording again. Then, with four demos in hand, Jem moved to London, where she found other songwriters and producers to work with (one of these hook-ups, with Björk’s producer Guy Sigsworth, led to Jem co-writing a song on Madonna’s American Life album). Within three years of dropping out, Jem had captured Nic Harcourt’s attention halfway around the world at KCRW Santa Monica/Los Angeles; in March of 2002, Nic started playing “Finally Woken,” a lullaby laid over an insistent dance beat and groovy bass line, in which Jem sings of having a “big smile,” feeling “so calm” and experiencing “life flowing through me.” A song of hope, “Finally Woken” is Jem’s testament to her reconnection with a dream.

Finally Woken, Jem’s debut CD, is a mélange of loops, dance beats, samples, elegant melodies and sophisticated, often stunning lyrics. Jem, now 29, hit the scene in 2004 with an album that offers deceptively strong songs done up in a tantalizing array of ear candy and diverse rhythms. There are strings for drama, slashing guitars for raw power, choral vocals, and always a healthy beat driving it all. In her new single, “24,” Jem underscores the tension with a wash of strings that move the song along at freeway speeds. Throughout the song, you sense the ticking of an unforgiving clock, the chiming of faraway church bells; a buzz saw guitar threatens to blow it all up. It’s easy to fall into the swirling music, but it’s what she does with the storyline that brings the whole thing into focus. In the length of a four-minute song, Jem counts down the final day of a condemned man, from his point of view. “24” is a stellar offering—one of many—from a young lady who would have still been hawking other people’s records if not for her choice to reclaim a dream.

Will Appeal To Fans Of
Beth Orton, Dido, Sarah McLachlan

Site
www.jem-music.net

What Is Radio Saying
”Electronica meets pop yet altogether fresh sounding.”
—Duncan Hudson, KXCI Tucson MD

Performances/Tour
Jem is touring beginning in March. She will be supporting Gavin DeGraw on his U.S. tour in April/May and will appear at the Coachella Valley Music Festival in Indio, CA on May 1.

TV
Breakfast with the Arts (A&E) on Sunday Feb 27.

Retail
Finally Awoken is in stores.

Contact
Nick Attaway
nick.attaway@musictoday.com
212.353.1413