Akiba Jonze

Promotional picture for "Say Goodbye" (October 2015)

Escaldes-Engordany

Principality of Andorra

## Musical career

### Genres

Ambient music, ambient pop, chill out music, lounge music, new age music, drum'n'bass, dubstep, electronic, minimalist, experimental music, musique concrète, noise music

### Labels

Mothermantra Records, WEATNU Records

The **Akiba Jonze** **Project** is a musical project by **Iñaki Barrocal Castro**. It has been active since 2015.

## Creation and works

Following the release of ***Droit de Règne: 2013-2015***, Iñaki, then signed to WEATNU Records, decided to adopt a new stage name and persona: Akiba Jonze.

#### **Choosing a stage name**

Feeling that his birthname was hard to pronounce by non-Spanish speakers, Iñaki decided it would be better to change his stage name. To achieve the end result, Iñaki simply shortened "Iñ**AKI BA**rrocal" to "Akiba" and added a simple family name: "Jonze".

#### **Introductory singles**

Akiba Jonze's first release came in October 2015 with ***Say Goodbye***, a one-track rock/r'n'b single released by WEATNU Records. A couple of months later came ***Forbidden Love (Laudate Dominum)***, a track mixing rock, gregorian chants and spoken word vocals. But the success came with ***Realm of Rain***, which was part of WEATNU's first-year-anniversary compilation and was later released as a single by Akiba himself.

#### **Debut album and onstage debut**

Akiba's debut album was ***Akash***, which was first released by Akiba on January 14th 2016 then later by WEATNU Records on February 1st 2016, and was almost instantly praised for its uniqueness and sound.

On January 14th 2016, Akiba also debuted on stage at the highly renowned Andorran expression cafe La Fada Ignorant with a tribute concert to French popstar Mylène Farmer called MYLÈNIUM (Tribut a Mylène Farmer) - this being the first and so far only time Iñaki/Akiba has performed a whole concert consisting almost exclusively on covers of other artists' songs. Akiba also performed "***Samsāra***", thus introducing Akash to the Andorran public.

Akiba would later perform a 50' concert called 光 (Llum) at the 17th-century house museum of Casa Rull (Sispony, Andorra). Centering around Akash (but still including songs from ***Empireo*** and ***Call Me "Your Majesty"***), the concert was a smashing success, managing to fill the 17th-century venue.

In May 2016, Akiba also founded Mothermantra Records, his own netlabel, which would subsequently re-release all of his albums and singles.

#### **Indigo and Chronostasis**

In June 2016, Akiba Jonze released his second full-length album, ***Indigo***. The album was the first to be directly released by Mothermantra Records and instantly became Akiba Jonze's most-downloaded album. Two months later, in September 2016, Akiba released his third album, the experimental ***Chronostasis***.

## Discography

**Albums**

* Akash (2016)
* Indigo (2016)
* Chronostasis (2016)
* NEPTVNE (2017)

#### **Singles**

* Say Goodbye (2015)
* Forbidden Love (Laudate Dominum) (2015)
* Realm of Rain (2015)
* Samsāra (2016)
* Mothermantra (2016)
* Firebird (2016)
* 光 (Light) (2016)
* Suite nº1 for Mouth: Allegory of Time (2016)
* Caprice nº28: Submarine Microcosmos (2016)
* Litany C-432: Hidden Sant Climent (2016)

#### **Concerts**

* MYLÈNIUM (Tribut a Mylène Farmer)
* 光 (Llum)