EHN JEY
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Image by: Awa Mally
EHN JEY (fka Nick Jordan) is an electronic R&B musician and producer based in Minneapolis, MN, who is getting ready to drop his debut album, “Needs & Non-Negotiables” on May 26th. On the album, EHN JEY explores his own vulnerability and desires, weaving extended vocal harmonies with smooth, swelling instrumentation. These eight tracks will pull you in with lush melodies and keep you on the edge of your seat with deeply personal lyrical honesty and storytelling. Every song has its own sonic textures, ranging from bouncy, danceable anthems like single, “Lock & Key” to intimate, sparse arrangements like “Golden.” What ties these tracks together is EHN-JEY’s lyrical honesty and tightly sculpted production.
Can you talk about some of the themes on the album?
A lot of the songs come from lived experiences and my own messy thoughts because writing music helps me process more complex emotions and situations. The album is called “Needs and Non-Negotiables.” Even though the sonic aesthetics are different throughout these eight songs, I think there's cohesion in the themes, things like communication, trust, and surrender.
“Bag” was the last song I finished writing for the album and it was the first one I put out, because that's the kind of song you get after you purge everything. It’s more celebratory. It’s about how, in order to get the bag, or prosperity, you have to let go of all this baggage. It's about all these things I had to let go of or get past, like failures, past iterations of myself or expectations. With all of these things I had to be like, if I want to move forward I can't keep defining myself by these standards.
This project has been in the works for four years, and at first I was working from this place of lack. I was so burnt out that I was like, I want to make an album and if that's the last thing I make, then that's fine. I felt like I needed to be the biggest and the baddest popstar the world has seen, but once I let go of that and I stopped trying so hard, I realized it was right there in front of me. And I started piecing the puzzle together.
My mentality has really changed, and that's why releasing this feels really good. It doesn’t feel like I have expectations. I mean, what’s the point of this if I can't even enjoy it?
What are the things that you're really proud of on this album?
I'm proud of the songwriting. The first song, “Hurt Myself,” feels like the culmination of a decade of work writing songs. It's clever, it has a story, it has a really nice melody and countermelodies. If people only got to hear one thing from the album, then I'm like, please just hear that song.
Can you tell me about your songwriting process, and some of the challenges in that?
For me, the main challenge in songwriting is just having the courage to open the computer and put some shit down, knowing that 95% of it is probably not going to be for other human ears. Oftentimes the less I think about it, the better. I'll start with a voice memo, and then go back later and fill in the gaps.
Another challenge though is to keep that energy when I revisit the song, because I usually don't have the attention span to make something start to finish in one sitting. I'll work and rework and rework something, trying to get at what my soul was feeling in the recording.
Can you talk about collaboration, especially working with Luke Darger as a co-producer.
Luke and I worked together on this project for years, but initially I was doing a lot of heavy lifting on my own and not actually bringing my songs to completion. It was challenging. That's when I really called on Luke and I was like, I need you here. We did Zoom calls and weekly check ins and gave each other assignments, like okay, you finish writing the verse, I'm gonna work on production, and then we'll meet again and talk through what we did.
Music is a communal thing. With Luke I was able to have deadlines and accountability to someone other than myself. I was starting to drive towards completing a project. That was really helpful, I don’t think I would have been able to finish this without a partner.
How did the album get mixed?
Image by: Awa Mally
A mutual friend connected me to a musician and engineer named Ryan Mach here in the Twin Cities, and he just completely understood where I was coming from. I loved the way he spoke about music and his passion for it. He was just so willing to meet me where I was. I asked for three revisions, but he had pretty much gotten it on the second, and then I got to have fun and be nitpicky. As an artist and a producer, it's more rewarding for me to be detail-oriented. I don't want to be doing the big picture things all the time.
It was really helpful to have someone else mix the album because I was so close to it. Everything in there is important to me, but when everything is important, nothing is important, you know? When everything's urgent, nothing is urgent. And so having somebody who's more objective and doing fundamentals was important.
How does it feel to have finished such a big project?
I don’t think it will really hit me until I start performing these songs live. What motivates me to actually finish a song is imagining what it will feel like on stage. To me, success feels like being able to take the songs that I make in my bedroom and have others connect with them.
I haven't had a proper headlining show since before COVID, but I'll be headlining my album release show at First Avenue's 7th Street Entry on Friday, July 8th. I'm looking forward to bringing this music live to my community in Minneapolis.
For most of my life I was on the stage like every other week, so when things shut down and I took that step back, I had to learn how to be comfortable with not having that as an immediate part of my identity. I think that it made me more versatile and probably more mentally stable, but I'm also very excited to go back to it, because it’s so integral to my upbringing, and it’s what I love to do.
What does it feel like when you are making music and are in the zone?
Oh, it's like the best feeling in the world. I really can access my higher self. A good song makes me feel understood, it makes me feel sexy, it makes me feel confident. It makes me dream beyond the current reality. It makes me feel confident in my ability to lead something.
The energy I get from making music allows me to show up in other spaces or in my relationships and in life as a better version of myself. Songwriting gives me a deeper understanding of myself and helps me express myself and be free. Music is so free, there are no rules.