AJA
Artist
Previous Events
Bio
Psychoviceral rhythmic noise, blackest ever beats, tortured banshee wails and skullcaving drone. Sonic, visual and physical over-stimulation. Aja Ireland is an award-winning sound and performance artist making deconstructed club and industrial techno whose live shows are described in The WIRE Magazine as “Shifting from ethereal diffusions to potent explosions." With 3 successful UK and European tours, selling out multiple shows and headlining major festivals such as CTM, Sonic Acts and Supersonic. Following her recent explorations at the intersection of visceral sound design, club culture and AI, British electronic artist (and founder of Queer Noise Club) Aja returns with her new album ‘Cryptid’ via Infinite Machine out on January 31st. A high-impact album steeped in themes of empowerment, resilience and mysticism. A vivid testament to the underground culture that shaped her, fusing blistering soundscapes, experimental lyrics, and club-ready energy to encapsulate Aja’s unique and confrontational artistry. Collaborating with artist Joey Holder, the project captures an immersive installation, featuring distinctive costumes by LULALOOP. The visual projections, integral to the live set, transport the audience into a realm where volcanic, ritualistic circles of standing stones merge seamlessly with projections of microscopic creatures. AJA takes on the persona of a cryptid hybrid, adorned in sculptural fashion nightmares, eating green lasers and morphing into underwater creatures. Within the live set, a comprehensive hardware setup reigns, blending experimental electronic, deconstructed club, industrial techno, noise, drone, and vocal processing. With the utilisation of drum machines, synths, and effects pedals, Aja promises an improvised journey, delivering an avant-garde sonic experience. Aja's album “SLUG” was released on Opal Tapes in October 2021and explored themes of warped beauty, oozing translucency and distortions. The project received funding from Outlands, Fat Out and Near Now which produced digital collaborations with artists BORA and LULALOOP to create a virtual avatar, and costumes which were turned into live visuals and a music video. The video 'GRIME' created by IMPATV and AJA, featured on Creative Review's 'Best Music Videos of 2021’ who described the track as: “brutal, visceral and unrelentingly noisy” as well as Louder than War and REDEFINE Magazine. Aja's debut album released in 2018 on Opal Tapes was greeted with critical acclaim and the artist was featured in VICE, The Quietus, Elephant Magazine, Red Bull Music and The Dazed Magazine. IN 2018, Aja won the PRS Oram Award for innovative music production and has created a sound score for a VR experience created by Ryan Heath called "The Thinning”. After composing a sound-score for designer LULALOOP at Berlin Alternative Fashion Week, Aja scored the spatial sound design for Joey Holder’s art installations Ophiux, Adcredo The Deep Belief Network (toured at Bloc Projects - Sheffield, QUAD - Derby, Matt's Gallery - London and 6th Athens Bienalle), Semelparous which was shown in The British Art Show and received outstanding press from A-N to The Guardian and Cryptic at Two Queens Gallery. Although her recorded output is well worth listening to, AJA’s live sets have become the talking point for her artistic output. Aggressive but inclusive, AJA “seems intent on destroying all boundaries between herself and the audience…not just that she tends to spend most shows off the stage, set up in among the audience, but the literal way she ropes the audience into what she does with her long microphone lead.” (Noisey)
Music style
Experimental, Industrial