Jordana Brings Opening Night of the Lively Premonition Tour to Johnny Brenda’s, 1/24: “I love it there!”

“I’m gonna have rehearsal every day for a week, so I’m gonna sound great for ya!” Jordana Nye, best known simply as Jordana, playfully proclaims during a recent phone...

“I’m gonna have rehearsal every day for a week, so I’m gonna sound great for ya!” Jordana Nye, best known simply as Jordana, playfully proclaims during a recent phone chat.  This coming Friday, January 24th, Jordana will kick off the monthlong Lively Premonition Tour at our very own Johnny Brenda’s, a venue that the Grand Jury singer/songwriter has played before, and apparently left quite an impression on her: “I love it there!  I love how intimate it feels.  It’s unlike anywhere I’ve ever played.”

The last Jordana and I spoke was in May of 2022, just prior to her first time headlining Fishtown’s “mini rock n’ roll ballroom,” after opening the venue for friends and collaborators TV Girl (The two released collaborative EP Summer’s Over in 2021 and Jordana could be seen dancing onstage with the band at Governors Ball and Lollapalooza last summer.) the previous year: “I forgot that I played there with TV Girl, which is crazy because they’re huge now!”  At the time of our last chat, Jordana had just released her Face The Wall LP, a dream-pop-heavy collection.  However, Lively Premonition — which dropped in October — sees Jordana exploring her love of yacht rock and the Laurel Canyon sound.

Lively Premonition was made throughout the course of 2023 with producer and multi-instrumentalist Emmett Kai, who characterizes his own sound as, “Freak pop novelty based in Brooklyn, NY.”  Jordana tells me she and Kai felt like a perfect match from the time they met: “I think he’s just so easygoing and just as fucking crazy as me.  He’s like my brother, the brother I never had.  The first time I made music with him, I’m like, ‘We’re doing an album!’”

“I think it’s way different than anything I’ve ever done and I’m super proud of it!” Jordana tells me of Lively Premonition.  Upon release, she referred to it as possibly being her LA record, but has admitted she likes the idea of exploring different musical interests with each era of her career, at one point even referencing formerly having a “Lindsey Stirling Dubstep violin obsession,” which she tells me during our recent chat was definitely a serious thing for a few years, even leading her to ponder going down Lindsey’s “path” for a minute or so…

“I love her, and I got to see her in like 2014, and I was just starstruck.  I was just under her magic the entire time…  I almost became a Mormon in 2016… but my mom shut that down real quick [laughs].  They’re so weird…  [Lindsey Stirling] actually wrote me a letter one time.  My friends know how much I love her and my friend’s mom, who was really Mormon, and still is, got it for me…  I was reading it and crying, but my mom was like, ‘They’re brainwashing you!’  She was onto something…”

And while her foray into dubstep and the world of Lindsey Stirling may be a while off, Jordana has already been working on some new music that she tells me has a very different sound from her latest LP.  On her recent “Medium Sized Backyard” performance for Pigeons & Planes, Jordana premiered a couple new songs, including “Still Do,” a collaboration she wrote with Charlie and Julian of New York City indie-pop collective MICHELLE (who headline The Foundry February 16th), with whom she’s been working on a dream pop record and who she’s apparently texting while we’re on the phone.

“I’m in New York and I literally am just texting Charlie right now…  Charlie helped me write a bunch of songs for Face The Wall…  We just finished up a pop record.  I don’t know what the plan is, release-wise, but we have a bunch of songs that we really love…  I met Charlie in 2021 and he showed me all the demos for AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS.  I fucking love that record!  I still know all the words to that record… and I love their new stuff.  I got to see them at The Roxy, which was fucking amazing…”

Following her June 2022 show at Johnny Brenda’s, and an August 2022 show opening The Fillmore for Local Natives, Jordana headlined The Foundry in fall of 2023, but she tells me that fans can expect something brand new at her show this coming Friday: “It’s gonna be way different this time, because it’s a completely different set of songs.”  And she feels like the new songs need a somewhat different approach: “It’ll be a little less track-heavy than my other tours.  I wanted that live sound…  It’s gonna feel a little more organic.”  She also admits she’s been pushing herself especially hard with her singing: “I’m gonna try really, really hard… I mean, I try hard every night, but I’m really challenging myself with these vocals, which can be difficult!”

Jordana will be bringing her friend Nick to play keys for these dates, adding to the live sound, but she’s also bringing along Fantasy Records alt-pop singer/songwriter Rachel Bobbitt, who she tells me she’s definitely a fan of, but who she suspects will be a pretty hardcore friend by the end of this month of dates: “I’m super excited!  She’s Canadian, which is cool.  I love Canadians!  I think she’s awesome.  I remember when I first looked her up, I saw that she covered a Sufjan song, and I was like, ‘She’s gonna be my best friend!’”

*Get your tickets here.

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During the day Izzy Cihak teaches transgression, subversion, and revolution at Temple University. At night he haunts Philthy's best venues to cover worthwhile acts for Philthy Mag. Morrissey is everything to him and, in their own heads, all of his friends see themselves as Zooey Deschanel.

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