Jayda G - Significant Changes (2019)

Strong, soulful debut album from Vancouver, CA’s Jayda G, paying tribute to classic Chicago styles in 9 effortlessly distinctive parts - big highlights in the disco come-on of ‘Stanley’s get Down (No Parking on the DF)’, and the brimming broken beats of ‘Sunshine in the Valley’, while ‘Orca’s Reprise’ beautifully points to her new age inspirations...

“The album is a natural progression from a string of EPs both solo and alongside her friend and mentor DJ Fett Burger (Sex Tags Mania), often appearing on the Freakout Cult label the two ran jointly until 2018 and most recently her newly minted JMG Recordings imprint. Also renowned for her high-energy performances as a DJ, the past 12 months have seen Jayda play London’s formidable Printworks venue alongside the likes of Marcellus Pittman, Moodymann and Omar-S; be invited by The Black Madonna to play at her Warehouse Project takeover; and perform at festivals like Field Day, Kala, Melt!, AVA and the xx’s Night And Day.

Growing up some 6 hours outside Vancouver surrounded by an abundance of nature sparked an early interest in biology and the natural world, a passion that has endured and intensified to this day and is inextricably intertwined with her musical output. In 2018 she completed her Masters in Resource and Environmental Management specialising in environmental toxicology, wherein she investigated the effects of human activity on the Salish Sea killer whales (orcas) of Vancouver, in her native British Columbia. It was also the year that she finished recording her debut album as Jayda G: “Significant Changes”. The title of the album was the most used phrase in her final thesis and exemplifies how intertwined her work in science is with her work in music. “I’m trying to bring my two worlds together… to bridge the communication gap, engage people in a new way”, she explains. “I don’t know if people in the electronic music world will want to talk about the environment but I think I should try! I think it’s our duty to use a platform like this in a positive way, that’s our social responsibility.”

“I just want people to feel not so hopeless… there's a lot of really depressing things going on, but people are doing good work out there and finding out really interesting stuff, so I just want people to be informed of those things, so that they feel inspired in whatever work that they do.””