As I stated earlier, Joni Ljungqvist is one of the big new names in trance music. He works under a lot of names: JPL, Ljungqvist, External Art, LNQ - to name a few. To get an impression of his music you can go to JPL Music, his label’s homepage, and listen to extracts of his work. “We Forget”, a track released under the name External Art made it to the number 1 position in my last personal charts, so I decided to ask him about this project and his other work:
Me: As described in a former post on these pages, you certainly belong to the most talented trance artists at the moment, but above all this your different projects prove diversity. What was the idea behind “External Art”, how would you describe the trance style of this project?
Joni: “External Art - We Forget” is a tune where I think I went back more to the “classic sound” of melodic/uplifting trance. Not a too complex melody, typical leadsounds but yet up to date. A heavy inspiration for “We Forget” was MIKE. He’s a legend for many, including me, and I was inspired by his sound and wanted to make a track that had the “classic sound”, as I mentioned. So that’s what “External Art” is about.
Me: Are you planning any future releases under “External Art”?
Joni: At the moment I’m very busy with different projects, especially my main projects (JPL, LNQ and Ljungqvist) but also some non-electronic ones. But I’ve started on a track that may well turn out to be an “External Art”-track!
Me: How would you describe “JPL-Music”? Does it basically exist as a label for publishing your own music or is it open to other trance artists as well?
Joni: JPL Music is for now strictly to publish my own songs through. I found that it was easier keeping everything together by starting a company where I could handle international affairs with the labels and artists I work with. However I’m very openminded and in the future I hope it can evolve into a record label, not only for trance but for other types of music as well.
Me: Besides the UK, Scandinavia seems to be one of the main places where a lot of trance artists come from. Do you have any idea why and do you have a lot of contacts to other swedish, finnish or norwegian artists?
Joni: Yeah Scandinavia is definetly on a roll now. To be honest I don’t really know the reason because the EDM-scene is very weak here. However we’ve had lots of talented artists from here and I think it took some time to evolve some good artists within the trancebusiness as well. But also the “swedish house mafia” (with Angello, Axwell, Ingrosso and Prydz) has made quite a big step representing electro, house and progressive too.
I’ve met and worked with quite a few swedish producers, like Progresia, Selu Vibra, Carl B, Terje Bakke, Airbase and more. So yeah, I definetly have contact with other scandinavian artists. Norwegian Terje Bakke and I have just released our second single “Bali” on Enhanced Recordings and I’m working on a second EP with Carl B so there’s definetly alot of collaborations going on between scandinavian artists as well, which is fun to see and be part of!