Joni Void Selfless

Producer Jean Cousin - known online as the prolific Johnny Ripper for several years -
presents his debut physical release under the new pseudonym Joni Void. RIYL: The
Books, Laurel Halo, Forest Swords, Burial, Four Tet, Delia Derbyshire. Joni Void is the
newly minted pseudonym of producer Jean Cousin - known until now in online music
communities as the prolific Johnny Ripper. Moving to Montreal in 2012 from his native
France, Cousin plunged into the city's fertile DIY/loft scene and rapidly evolved from
cloistered bedroom/virtual persona to highly engaged organizer and multi-media live
performer. An increasing obsession with micro-sampling, aleatory composition and
history of cinema - alongside an increasingly active practice of remixing and beatmaking
- has seen Cousin's music flourish in fascinating ways. His personal hero Delia
Derbyshire (BBC Radiophonic Workshop) has cemented his commitment to making
musique concrete avant-pop soundscaping. On Selfless, Joni Void constructs tracks
entirely from found sources and aims not to 'play' anything at all - while celebrating
intimate community and inter-subjectivity through solicitation of private voice
recordings from various musician and spoken word friends. The album is an
exploration of catharsis and the escape from entrapments of subjectivity and
solipsism, chock full of stand-out tracks that work in on their own but also make for a
wonderfully complex, coherent and compelling album of structured sampledelica,
balancing a freeform spirit with the conceptual, emotive and stylistic specificity of
individual songcraft, to glorious effect.