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Janine Rainforth, lead singer and original co-founder of Bristol post-punk band Maximum Joy/MXMJoY, is set to release her debut
solo album ‘Soul Retrieval’ on the 14th February via London Field Recordings.
Ten songs about soul, love, loss, hope, survival and rising again, the album took shape following Rainforth speaking publicly for the
first time in 2019 about her reasons for having to turn her back on the music industry in the early eighties and leaving the band she
formed at the peak of their creative output.
Deserving to be cited alongside their musical counterparts Gang of Four, A Certain Ratio and ESG, Rainforth founded Maximum
Joy aged 18 and their spiky, joyful post-punk funk rose up from the fertile Bristol scene of the late 70’s/early 80’s, inspired by the
likes of punk, Albert Ayler, I-Roy, Funkadelic and politics. They released a number of cult classic singles including ‘Stretch’, ‘Silent
Street’ and /White & Green Place’. The band toured extensively, releasing ‘Station MXJY’ in 1982 – an album part produced by the
legendary Adrian Sherwood. Their final single – a cover of Timmy Thomas’ Why Can’t We Live Together & Man of Tribes – was
produced by Dennis Bovell.
Rainforth’s career in music and with Maximum Joy was cut short by a near fatal serious violent sexual attack from within her close
professional circle. Receiving no support from the people around her, she left the band and formed Leonard & the Cats with
previous players of PigBag and The Cortinas. However, freezing up whilst in the studio and on stage and not understanding why,
ultimately she was forced into retreating from the music industry. “The resulting impact on me and my life was extremely negative.
I’ve since realised there was a lot of trauma,” says Rainforth. “I spoke publicly for the first time about what had stopped my music
career and why I had to leave Maximum Joy, the band I’d formed, in 2019 with a national newspaper. It was a pretty momentous
moment for me, being in position to be able to finally speak out and has been part of the on-going process of the reclaiming and
healing that’s been, in my view, miraculously for me, taking place in terms of my career in making music.”
After a number of decades out of the music industry, Rainforth has slowly forged her way back into performing and recording, with
her first solo music EP released back in 2014, then in 2015, she spearheaded the reforming of Maximum Joy to perform at Simple
Things Festival with a new line-up. In 2019, under the name MXMJoY, she released ‘P.E.A.C.E.’ which received critical acclaim
from media including Pitchfork, The Guardian and Crack among others.
New album ‘Soul Retrieval’ hints at a new musical future for Rainforth. These ten laid back, pop-centric grooves with Rainforth’s
distinctive vocal are buried deep in emotion and feeling. This is a reclaiming of the music for Rainforth, and the method involved in
writing these tracks was all part of the healing process. “I made the album in my small, home studio in North East London. It’s a tiny
space but in my view, it’s where the magic happens! I would find inspiration in unexpected places that would pop up or fuel
inspiration – sometimes random, sometimes contemporaries. It could be a noise, a beat or a juxtaposition. I also found old diaries
specifically, from that period in 1982 that I hadn’t looked at in years. There were poems and writings that have also informed some
of the writing.”
Tracks such as ‘Always With You’ and ‘Alchemy’ are lush and moody in sound. Rich synthscapes and stripped back samples
dominate, with Rainforth’s ethereal vocals adding a dream-like quality, while the avant-pop album title track ‘Soul Retrieval’ is
Rainforth at her most redemptive. “There have been some challenging moments that in the end I tried to look at as healing
opportunities alongside some transcendent moments. It was important to me to explore and find new ways to express myself, so
moving into new places with my voice, and writing. Ultimately, making this album has been about ‘soul’ in all its guises and how that
fits in to the present and manifests itself in all of us. We are all soulful people, and we all need it!"
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