Johanna Burnheart: Bär

German-born London-based violinist, singer and composer Johanna Burnheart made a big impact fast on the Britain's underground jazz scene. After graduating from Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2018, and before the pandemic shut things down, she played on three significant albums: spiritual-jazz band Maisha's There Is A Place (Brownswood, 2018), trombonist Rosie Turton's 5ive (Jazz Re:freshed, 2019) and trumpeter Yazz Ahmed's Polyhymnia (Ropeadope, 2019). Then, in autumn 2020, Burnheart released her own-name debut, Burnheart (Ropeadope), which she co-produced with Yazz Ahmed's producer, flugelhornist Noel Langley.

A high-voltage fusion of jazz and electronic dance music, Burnheart was like nothing else coming out of London then (or now). Its sole comparator was the work of another violinist, Norway's Ola Kvernberg, who had also been influenced by edm (as well as, by the sound of it, industrial quantities of 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine). Kvernberg's sonic vision touched on the orchestral, while Burnheart fronted a quartet, albeit a precisely arranged one. But there was a considerable overlap. Neither musician, incidentally, was aware of the other (until introduced by AAJ's matchmaking bureau in 2021). Kvernberg's 2xLP Steamdome II: The Hypogean (Grappa, 2021) is highly recommended.

Now, in June 2024, Burnheart has released her second album, Bär. And it is a slam-dunk winner, developing the blueprint set out on its predecessor. Langley returns, co-producing with Burnheart. The quartet is expanded to a septet, with a new drummer, Ben Brown, a second bassist, Twm Dylan, a second keyboard player, Al Macsween and, in a particularly inspired expansion of the palette, a vibraphonist, Jonny Mansfield. Synth player David Swan and bassist Jonny Wickham return. Eight of the tracks are written or co-written by Burnheart, and a ninth is a cover of Billy Barnes' "Something Cool."

Burnheart's work is strikingly her own, but it carries resonances of two other musicians in addition to Kvernberg. There are the complex interlocking drum and bass patterns which defined composer Nik Bärtsch's Japanese-inspired "zen funk" in the 2000s, and more recently, bassist, singer and composer Ruth Goller's otherworldly Skylla (Vula Viel, 2021) and Skyllumina (International Anthem, 2024). Burnheart's wordless vocals on the new album's brief opening track, "Rix," resemble Goller's overdubbed-choral work on Skyllumina, and Burnheart's use of the bass equals Goller's in sophistication and textural exactitude, with Bär's two bassists between them playing electric bass, double bass and synth bass.

On the aforementioned cover of "Something Cool," the title song of June Christy's 1954 debut album (Capitol), Burnheart also reveals herself to be a drop-dead-cool classic-style jazz chanteuse straight out of a Raymond Chandler film script (who knew?). The track is atypical of the rest of Bär but it is so good, and so unexpected, that is the featured YouTube below.

P.S. An interview Burnheart gave to AAJ when Burnheart was released in 2020 can be found here.

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