Chicago – The quirky husband and wife electronic duo OOFJ – aka Orchestra of Jenno – is back with their sophomore LP Acute Feast, due out April 21 via Ring The Alarm & Fake Diamond Records. Jenno “Jens” Bjørnkjær, originally from Denmark, and Katherine Mills-Rymer, from South Africa, met while living in New York City; Bjørnkjær was scoring Lars von Trier’s Melancholia and Mills-Rymer was starring in a production of Twelfth Night. The two fell head over heels for each other and with making music together. Jens and Katherine’s collaboration led to their 2013 debut Disco To Die For (Fake Diamond Records). Critics applauded the two for their ghostly, experimental synth-pop. Two years later and a move to LA has brought forth a sexy follow-up that again is raking in the praise for OOFJ.
During a recent phone call, Jens Bjørnkjær and Katherine Mills-Rymer took some time away from the tennis match they were watching, in the comfort of their LA home, to chat with Best New Bands about Acute Feast, some recent cinema finds, and what it’s like working with your significant other.
You guys have a new album, Acute Feast. What inspired this record sonically and emotionally?
Jens: Umm.
Katherine: (laughs)
Jens: I’ll do the sonic part and you do the emotion part.
Katherine: Okay!
Jens: I would say sonically it’s kind of like a journey through the whole of both of our lives, and production wise, I would say, from my point of view, it’s a development of all the things I’ve been through in my life, from studying classical music when I was a kid, then moving into jazz and playing saxophone, and then into electronic music and a bunch of other things. Then I met Katherine and things sort of fell into place. So it’s a mixture of all these different genres and all these different things that have happened to me and also to her. The music I made before I met her was not so emotionally strong… When we met all the emotions came into it.
Katherine: From my standpoint, I think this album came about in an emotional way, with the tone and feel of the album, it never really started with a concept… When we look at the body of it, I think a lot of the things that I express come from the heaviness that existence can be. I know that sounds very dire… It’s a big thing to have, this existence thing, and I kind of look into that secret, terrifying place that we’ve all been. This idea that no mater how close you are, we’re all locked inside of our little scars. That’s quite frightening to me.
You recorded your first album in Europe and South Africa, but this one was mostly done in LA, right?
Katherine: Yeah, it was mostly all done in the United Sates. Two songs were done while I was in South Africa, at my mom’s house, and Jan was in Denmark. It was Christmastime. Those are the only two songs that were done while away.
Do you feel that California influenced the album at all?
Katherine: I don’t think the actual place, as in like the highway or the sun, things like that, but the idea of being in one place did. The last album we were in between states and places, we weren’t living anywhere specific.
You said your single “I Forgive You” was meant to sound like an “underwater heartbreak.” Can you elaborate more on that?
Katherine: The thing with that one, there were lots more verses, lots more kicks, but it tends to happen, we chip away at the kicks… I think this idea I had at the beginning of this, it was half the idea that I was imagining that you were in love with an alien, and this alien is always going away. The idea is you’re forgiving them, but you still feel resentful. Feeling these wrong things that you’re not allowed to feel, but you do feel. That idea, I think that breaks your heart, to know love like that. The underwater feel is kind of like it’s not allowed.
I read a great deal about you two online, and a lot of people were comparing you to Portishead, which I hear, but I also hear Björk. I think maybe it’s mostly your voice Katherine, but some of the musicscapes, too. Do you listen to either of these artists, and are there specific artists that inspire you?
Jens: Yes! Yeah, I definitely have listened to them… I think more Portishead than Björk. I listened to them a long time ago. I liked Portishead very much when they first came out, back when they were at the top of their peak or whatever. It’s just something that’s kind of in the back [of your mind], everything that’s content. I also like Rachmaninoff, Stan Getz and…
Katherine: And John Perry.
Jens: Yeah, I also like John Perry and James Bond kind of music… There are a lot of artists that I like, but I think everything you hear, even stuff you don’t particularly like, these things influence you.
Katherine: The Björk thing and other stuff that I’ve read, is strange for me because, of course I’ve heard Björk songs, but I’ve never been a mega-fan… I think it’s quite sad for me because I listen to more males because I like their stuff better. That I think is very influential. I was very, very into Nick Drake for a very long time… The Björk thing, I think because I don’t sing in a very traditional way, because I had never sung before (laughs), I think it comes from that, and maybe it also comes from the song ebbs and things like that comes out of the Scandic tradition.
Jens: Björk’s music obviously comes from this tradition of Icelandic folk and things like that. Iceland and Denmark have a very strong connection. The languages are very much the same; the language they speak is basically the language we spoke a thousand years ago. A lot of Icelandic people come to Denmark to live there. There used to be colonies. I think there’s a connection between her background and our background.
You make your own music videos. Now that you’ve been doing it for some time, do you find yourselves thinking cinematically when making music or do you ever find yourselves making a song around a visual concept?
Jens: No.
(everyone laughs)
Katherine: Very matter of fact!
Jens: No, we definitely do not make a song from visual ideas. We always get visual ideas when the whole thing is ready… thinking cinematically, I don’t think we do… it just ends up that way, and obviously because we use a lot of strings and orchestra and stuff like that, when you’re using strings it can sound like that. Obviously, we do love cinema, and we watch a lot of films. So we’re influenced by films and the soundtracks, and film composers in general.
It’s interesting you brought up loving cinema because I was going to ask you a question about that. I read you’re both cinephiles, so I was wondering if there were any films you’ve seen recently that you absolutely loved?
Katherine: We watched Nightcrawler the other day. It’s amazing! He (Jake Gyllenhall’s character) is the craziest thing alive. It’s just great to watch him worming and sliming through things and just breaking apart. You feel sorry for him. It’s an emotional film… Jens has a thing, he cannot stand to watch things that make him feel embarrassed, and he was embarrassed for the character throughout the whole film. (laughs)
Jens: Yeah, it’s a very terrible film, in the sense you feel very uncomfortable. It’s very well made, but it makes you feel like shit. (laughs) It’s a great movie, but also very f***ed up. I mean, I wouldn’t watch it again. (everyone laughs)
Katherine: If you give him anything else that’s traumatic or sexual or kind of strange, that’s fine, but if it has to do with embarrassment, he can’t handle it!
Jens: Another film we watched recently, which was very, very good, was Birdman… it’s incredible. It’s unbelievable! It’s so radical… even with the score. The score is basically just jazz freeform drums, all the way through. To have that idea is amazing!
Okay, one last question: How does your relationship affect your music and musical collaboration?
Jens: For us, it feels very, very natural. Also the way this band started, it’s like we’ve been on a journey together. We first fell in love, started living together, and then I was making music, doing a song, and I asked Katherine if she wanted to be in it. She said, “Yeah, why not!” Then we started putting it together, made the band, and it became more and more…
Katherine: I think it’s like a natural thing because of how closely we live together, so to make something together, it’s very safe and in general, it’s easy… I know when you work with someone you’re close to, it can be a nightmare for some people, but it’s just been easy [for us].
Jens: Yeah, absolutely. Making anything with anyone, you try to push your limits or whatever, which is not always easy, but it has to be hard obviously to break ground. For me making this with Katherine is probably the easiest thing I’ve ever done. We basically have the same tastes and we want the same things and we understand each other very well… it’s easier than working with other people, I find. We tell each other if we like stuff or not.
Katherine: You’re not going to lie, like, “Oh yeah, yeah, I like that.” You can just be like, “That’s shit!”
It’s that very honesty that led to a fantastic sophomore album! Acute Feast will be available for purchase on Amazon come April 21.
You can keep up with OOFJ on facebook and twitter.
Sarah Hess
After attending The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Sarah went on to study education at Dominican University, earning a degree in history. When not teaching, writing, or taking in a show, she is most likely to be found with a camera to her eye or hanging out in a darkroom.
You can follow Sarah Hess on twitter at @Sarahhasanh and view her music photography on her website: smhimaging.com.
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