We Speak Music
senna JMB Shares Debut Album ‘Purity’
senna JMB, an artist based in Brussels, creates a very personal, vibrant, and surreal world incorporating elements of cloud rap, postpunk, IDM-influenced electronics, and experimental pop. He returns with his debut album, Purity.
Purity, deliberately concentrated on ‘songs’ as such, at times evoking the pop-meets-post-punk aesthetic of Yves Tumour or the pop-rap of Yung Lean. Together with Kiche (Ismaël Iken), the beats were closely co-produced, and while they are unmistakably punky and club-oriented, they also carry a strong sense of nostalgia and urban unrest.
The breaky beats, colorful synths, and fluffy autotune all have a contemporary digital atmosphere to them, even though Purity’s sound isn’t entirely modern. The unrelenting interplay between the frenzied and unapologetic guitars results in a sound that is reminiscent of discordant guitar tones from the ‘80s and ‘90s yet in step with today’s hybrid internet culture. senna JMB has one foot in the past, but both eyes are focused on the future.
With those guitar aspects, the eight-track album’s intention becomes even more personal because, at the age of 14, senna JMB began learning the guitar on his own. He then performed live at Pukkelpop, Best Kept Secret, and Ancienne Belgique, among other venues, as a guitarist, lyricist, and co-vocalist with the band Fornet.
Purity, has lively and upbeat productions with dreaming, ethereal, and punky moments combined with melancholia and bleakness. The genre blend of cloud-rap, post-punk, hyper-pop, pop, and electronica mashes the entire album creatively together in a nice manner.
senna JMB takes listeners on a self-referential journey through his punky, image-heavy rap singles ‘Weekend’, ‘Bossa Nova’, and ‘Lotus’. He blends memories from his childhood with views of and escapes from the present, leading him to a hubris-induced crash into a fantasized, collapsing future. The songs feature a strong bassline, ethereal synths, and guitars, lively and breaky drums, and existential lyrics in swaying rap flows.
‘North Sea’ is a darker track that features lyrics full of escape and drift, a danceable trap beat, and IDM-inspired keys. While ‘Genesis’ captures the rawness and bewildering attractions of the city, ‘Slap Back’ harmonizes a Brazilian baile funk rhythm with carefree and sunny atmospheres.
senna JMB displays a gloomy side on the songs ‘Chains’ and ‘Retro Green.’ His expressiveness is captivating and gives Purity’s unique sound new depth through enigmatic, introspective themes.
On the album, senna JMB comments, “Purity, counts eight uninhibited tracks that surf on a dreamy energy and create a rule-free world that makes it impossible for senna JMB to be pigeonholed. Its title refers to rebirth through music, to staying true to intuition, the freedom of inconsistency and change.”
We Speak Music
Acclaimed US singer-songwriter Juliet Lloyd to tour the UK for the first time this summer.

Shortly after releasing her sophomore album in 2007, US-based singer-songwriter Juliet Lloyd walked away from music completely for more than 10 years, feeling burned out and unhappy with her career progression like so many other independent artists. After going through a divorce in 2019 and in the midst of a global pandemic, she found herself pulled back toward the siren call of songwriting and again making the leap to pursue it full time. Her latest album ‘Carnival’, released in 2024, is in many ways the culmination of those decisions, and the reintroduction of an artist who now has the wisdom of experience.
There’s an unmistakable urgency you can feel when a song is written and performed from a place of complete honesty. That feeling permeates ‘Carnival’. “I’ve always been envious of writers who say they write songs because they have to, because they had these things they just had to get out of themselves,” Juliet says. “I had never really felt that way until this album. I’ve become someone who writes because they have to.”
Stylistically, ‘Carnival’ draws on a range of influences from Laurel Canyon-era singer/songwriters, to Lilith Fair rockers, to confessional country/folk balladeers, to indie pop. The central theme of the record and that of its title track is not being too precious about any one experience or decision. Take them for what they are, live in the moment, and move on when they’re done. It acknowledges also that memory can be subjective, and ambiguous—was an experience ultimately a good thing or a bad thing? And whose memory can you rely on to determine the answer to that question?
‘Carnival’ doesn’t just deal with the complexities of ending relationships, it also deals with all the feelings that come with moving on. The album’snine songs feature evocative storytelling that reveals a simple truth: when the carnival inevitably leaves town, you’re left with an empty parking lot. And how you remember, it is a choice. As Juliet sings in the title track, “If only there was a way you could bottle up that feeling / and you’d drink it in / when the days are short and you long.”
Across her 20+ year career, Juliet has been admittedly stylistically non-monogamous. Her first full-length album, ‘All Dressed Up’, was released in 2005 and was heavily jazz-influenced- a label that she rejected at the time. “I am a piano player and a woman, so I was immediately compared to Norah Jones—and I bristled at that,” Juliet says. “Listening back now, I can totally see that it was true, and it of course wasn’t a bad thing.” Her follow-up release ‘Leave the Light On,’ came out two years later and featured a slick piano-pop production that led to five of its songs being placed on reality TV shows on MTV and VH1. Coming back after her 10-year break from writing and recording, Juliet released ‘High Road’, a collection of five Americana/soul-tinged songs produced by Jim Ebert (Meredith Brooks, Shai) that earned her widespread recognition and songwriting awards both in her home region of DC as well as nationally.
Now with her first ever UK tour scheduled for July 2025, Juliet has also dropped a completely brand-new single ‘Wild Again’, which like ‘Carnival’, was written with and produced by Todd Wright (Lucy Woodward, Butch Walker, Toby Lightman). ‘Wild Again’, however, charts yet another new step in Juliet’s journey.
“Carnival’, is full of deeply personal songs that are drawn from my real-life experiences and relationships. Coming out of that album cycle, I was feeling a little exhausted by my own navel-gazing and I was craving inspiration elsewhere. So, a lot of the songs I’m writing now are an evolution of sorts – focused more on external stimuli and finding the personal stories and humanity in that. Wild Again is a perfect example of this,” she explains.
The idea for ‘Wild Again’ was born out of a NY Times podcast Juliet listened to about the real-life efforts to return the whale that played Willy in the iconic movie ‘Free Willy’ back into the wild.
“It’s an insane, heartbreaking story that asks all kinds of thorny questions about human responsibility and humility and what’s the “right” thing to do and is that the same as the “kind” thing to do. There was a line that one of the trainers said in the podcast, explaining that they were trying to “train him to be wild again.” The complete absurdity of that statement hit me in the moment, and I immediately started jotting down lyrical ideas”, Juliet says.
Catch Juliet Lloyd on her UK tour this July:
1st July: The Folklore Rooms / Brighton
2nd July: The Hyde Tavern / Winchester
3rd July: Hen and Chicken / Bristol (CRH Music promotions)
4th July: Artisan Tap Hartshill / Stoke-on-Trent
5th July: Waggon & Horses, Nottingham
6th July: Cafe#9 / Sheffield
7th July: Hyde Park Book Club / Leeds
10th July: FortyFive Vinyl Café / York
11th July: The Muddy Puddle / London
13th July: The Wrotham Arms / Broadstairs

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