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Composer, singer, bandleader
When Jomi Massage was asked to do the opening act of the Danish Festival Spot in 2005 she managed to shock the entire audience. Instead of doing a conventional act Jomi Massage decided to do a controversial performance in which she ended up in the nude. Jomi Massage had strategically placed microphones in her clothes, so while undressing onstage the sound of textiles and fabrics would come out through the speakers of the concert hall. She finished off the act by playing a couple of songs – naked with just her acoustic guitar.
This performance of Jomi Massage sums up her approach to the art. Art must shock, art must be thought-provoking and art must not compromise. In the beginning of 2006 Jomi Massage was about to release the album Skandinaviske Klagesange (Scandivian Elegies). But Jomi Massage’s label Morningside Records chose to postpone the release date due to the political crisis Denmark caused by the newspaper Jyllands Posten’s “Muhammed drawings”. On the cover her album Jomi Massage is dressed in a burqa made of the Danish Flag.
At the opening of Spot Festival and on the cover of Skandinaviske Klagesange Jomi Massage uses very simple methods to make the audience rethink matters. She takes elements from our everyday life, like nudity and the national flag, and places them into a new context where they are used as aesthetic as well as ideological weapons.
This confrontative way of being sums up the attitude of Jomi Massage. But Jomi Massage is of course an alias. Her name by birth is Signe Høirup Wille-Jørgensen and that is the name that she was originally known under in the Danish noise rock act Speaker Bite Me. Again Speaker Bite Me is a project that is very radical in its artistic expression, as noise is the main source of expression. The group has several resemblences to Sonic Youth but remains their own.
Noise and the confrontation is a big part of the impression Signe Høirup Wille-Jørgensen gives as an artist, but the sensitive and fragile elements are in crucial contrast to the radical art. She has a very strong charisma onstage. She is not afraid of giving herself away and exposing everything. Signe Høirup Wille-Jørgensen is a skilled singer who is often aknowledged for the curious ways she explores every aspect of her vocal potential. She screams, she sings and she whispers.
In 2006 Signe Høirup Wille-Jørgensen received the 3 year working grant from the Danish Arts Foundation
By Louise Yung Nielsen
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