In a little series we want to tell you a bit more about the artists featured on “You Are Safe”, starting today with Jennifer Touch:
Where you’re based?
I live in Berlin.
What’s your story?
I started singing as a child in the staircase, I was singing everywhere. In the 80´s, my Dad gave me a tape with songs he liked – by Duran Duran, Human League, Karat …. I absorbed these songs and they where my first touch with Pop Music, Beats and Vocals beside some records for children. I was not very happy in this times because my parents separated and I really felt that music was “my best friend”.. as something that is kind of permanent.
In the early 90´s there was a TV-Show called “Mini Playback Show” and I always wanted to perform there. But I never did, fortunately we had a “show” like this in school where I finally could do it: Sinead O´Connor “Nothing compares to you”. I did not sing a word but I enjoyed this energy of standing in front of a crowd, performing music. I felt free. Later I was singing in bands, it was fun and we had a little success, but the structures were not open, I was the singer and I suspected – because singing and finding melodies was so easy – that this was not the interesting, beating part for me. I wanted to do the complete song by myself, the structures, sounds, the melodies – without any compromises.
That is what turned me into (producing) music: all the compromises in life. This field is free and open as long as you don’t get under the pressure to become famous or such a shit.
How did you come up with the name?
Some friends gave me this name when they came back from China. The people over there could not vocalize their german names, so they came up with funny 80´s like Bob Heat and Bonnie Flame. Somehow they thought i could be Jennifer Touch. That was the time when i started to produce my own music, so i kept it because it came to me like a gift.
Projects coming up?
Currently i´m working on my album. I released an EP last year with tracks that i created over the years before. Now its important for me to express myself in a more focused piece of art, because things changed in my life, i´m developing as a person and thats changing my music and makes it a more authentic and more honest gift to people.
Riotvan just released a remix-version of my last EP with amazing creations by other artists, like Curses, Panthera Krause, Llewellyn and Chinaski. And by myself. It´s so cool to see how your own tracks are reinvented into new ideas. That shows up a dynamic in art i really appreciate!