senna JMB, a Brussels-based artist, combines elements of cloud rap, postpunk, IDM-influenced electronica, and experimental pop to create a very bright, bizarre, and intimate universe. Purity, his debut album, purposefully focused on "songs" as such, occasionally recalling the pop-rap of Yung Lean or the pop-meets-post-punk style of Yves Tumour. The rhythms were carefully co-produced by Kiche (Ismaël Iken) and have a strong sense of nostalgia and urban unrest mixed in with an obvious punky and club-oriented vibe.
Purity's, sound isn't modern, but the breaky beats, vibrant synths, and fluffy autotune all have a modern digital vibe to them. The unrelenting interplay between the frantic and unapologetic guitars creates a sound that is both in line with today's hybrid internet culture and evocative of dissonant guitar tones from the ‘80s and ‘90s. senna JMB is looking towards the future with one foot in the past.
The eight-track album's purpose is made even more intimate by those guitar elements because, at the age of 14, senna JMB started learning the instrument on his own. Later, he played live as a guitarist, lyricist, and co-vocalist with the band Fornet at Pukkelpop, Best Kept Secret, and Ancienne Belgique, among other places. Purity combines melancholy and bleakness with dreamy, ethereal, punky moments in bright and cheerful creations. Cloud-rap, post-punk, hyper-pop, pop, and electronica are some of the genres that are blended imaginatively to create a pleasing whole for the album.
“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,” senna JMB comments on the release.