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There is music that does not arrive. It returns.
It's Not a Joke is her debut album, and first albums cost something. This one cost emptiness. The kind that comes after you've given everything and have to decide whether to keep going anyway. She kept going.
The record opens with "Angu," Portuguese learned not from books but from living: the hot feira, the streets of Cidade Baixa, dendê thick in the air, the atabaques drying outside. Words like angu, batuque, and urucubaca came through streets and markets long before they entered the songs. From there the album moves through grief, psychedelia, displacement, and irony, closing with a saxophone solo that leaves everything unresolved. Featuring Chibatinha of ÀTTØØXXÁ and mixed by Grammy-winning engineers Justin Gray and Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire), the record moves between Bahia and Toronto, between terreiro and synthesizer.
JER has performed at Calgary Folk Festival, TD Toronto Jazz Festival, and Massey Hall, where she shared the stage with Luedji Luna. Through JER Creative Lab, she develops projects with artists working across sound, image, and new tools, including MIYL.AI and Invisible Friends.
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