Jordan Reyne

Jordan Reyne
Jordan Reyne 2009
Background information
Origin	New Zealand
Genres	industrial-tinged alternative folk
Instruments	Vocals Industrial revolution era machinery
Years active	1997 — present
Website	jordanreyne.com

Jordan Reyne is an experimental musician originally from New Zealand, now living in the UK. Jordan's sound has been variously described as "industrial-tinged folk" and "antipodean Steampunk" yet defies any cut and dried genre description. She combines the two usually disparate genres of folk and industrial, bringing in Celtic vocal melody, historically based narrative and the sounds of steam, iron and industrial "found sound". Several of her releases are set in the time of the Industrial Revolution.

Reyne grew up in an isolated community on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island, 30 km south of Westport. As a teenager, Reyne moved to New Zealand's North Island where she studied software engineering at the Central Institute of Technology in Wellington. She later moved to Auckland to study philosophy at the University of Auckland before leaving for Germany in 2006. Jordan remained in Germany until 2011, when she relocated to the UK.

Jordan Reyne's first album release (Birds of Prey) was in 1997, and earned the New Zealand born musician a Tui nomination for most promising female musician. Reyne has since released 11 more albums of her own work to critical acclaim worldwide, earning two more Tui nominations and a Sounz commendation award.

Reyne's music draws on folklore and story telling to depict political themes and the lives of ordinary characters in often extraordinary situations Her use of "Found Sound," percussion and drones, often in the form of factory noise, aims at grounding the stories in their time. The album "How the Dead Live" was commissioned by the New Zealand Arts Council and Wild Creations initiative and follows the life of one of New Zealand's first pioneer women, Susannah Hawes. The album draws on Susannah's archived letters, and the sounds of farming machinery and the environment at the time. Similarly, "Children of a Factory Nation" follows a Welsh family from the ports of Cardiff to the workhouses and Factories of London. Jordan's most recent project "Maiden, Mother, Crone" looks specifically at how pagan archetypes effect the roles and perceptions of women in the present day.

Along with her own releases, Jordan has performed and written with other musicians and bands as well as featuring on projects such as Capcom's Resident Evil 7: Biohazard soundtrack, written and arranged by Michael A. Levine. Her vocals also feature on releases from Cafe Del Mar, Breaks Co-op, The Strawpeople, and The Eden House where she contributed vocals to the album "Half Life" and was part of the band's live lineup until 2014. Her own album "The Annihilation Sequence" (2013) also features the voice of Tony Pettit and the mixing / mastering of Stephen Carey from the band.

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