Yesterday on twitter we went into a sort of mini-blog meltdown. “Today is the first day ever in over 4 years that I feel like quitting the blog. Too tired, too much real life, bands taking the piss,” was the moan in 140 characters or less.
Later in the day, with great reluctance we opened our various blog inboxes. That’s when our hunger returned. For despite the incredible tiredness, for despite the lack of motivation to write anything about music ever again, it took just one press of play for our ears to be seduced by beauty. The moment of disheartenment was vanquished quicker than you can say now that’s what I call music.
Here is one of those reasons why we felt compelled to post again and why really there’s no chance of us stopping for a hell of a long time yet, even when everything is against us. This is why writing about music isn’t really a labour of love; it’s just a pure love.
Let us introduce to you the new song from 2forJoy (pictured above performing in the Swamp Shack at Bestival 2012); it’s called Michaela. If sultry downtempo vibes, silky vocals and a calm sense of purposefulness are what you look for in music, this will be an absolute treat for you as it is for us.
This singer has a past history as one of the superstars of the London neo-burlesque scene and co-founded Glastonbury festival’s Trash City, but now she’s set her sights on spine-tingling pop music.
Her name is Ruth Ivo although you may previously remember her as the front woman of electro-trash pop-rompers Hooligan Night where she used the alias of Ruby Blues. Now Ruth has taken on a new identity and is 2forJoy.
It was back in March when 2forJoy’s music first came to our attention by way of our in-box. We were immediately impressed with the dark sultry song Choke, with its still ghostly piano and bittersweet 'I want to f*ck you again even though this relationship's f*cked' lyrics sung so tenderly. “I don’t believe in fairytales and we both know that this is never gonna end well. Underneath the sweet is the taste of regret, I don’t feel like saving myself yet, ‘cos I keep on coming back for more while you lay tangled in the bedroom sheets and I know that we’ve yet to do our worst but I think darling you’re going to choke on me first.” It was powerful emotional stuff made even stronger by the restraint and lack of drama in Ruth’s voice. This was no Florence & the Machine bombardment of the lungs, yet nor was it so wispy and fragile that it seemed twee and girlish. It was just right, in fact we’d go as far to say it was even perfect. On top of this there was PDA, a stomping electropop tune that added some spunk to the dark bliss of Choke.
We filed the song in the Breaking More Waves ‘to blog’ virtual-drawer sure we would come back to write about it soon. At the same time a couple of our UK blog brothers Faded Glamour and The Recommender wrote about 2forJoy and we were certain that many more blogs would follow suit. But it didn’t happen. Like a cheap tart we got carried away with some other musical fancy and the blogosphere didn’t jump either. Some time passed and we shamefacedly admit we forgot all about 2forJoy. Until now, when a new song, a version of the Tom Waits track Green Grass surfaced on line to pleasure you aurally. This time we didn’t risk shutting the drawer and letting Ruth slip from the memory again.
Three months on and what is most impressive is that Choke sounds even more beguiling, the lyrics even more addictive than when we first heard it. We’re pleased to finally feature it on the blog, by way of this stunningly effective video. This is near perfect pop music that we could listen to over and over.
