singer, composer, improviser, sound artist, producer
She grew up in Slovenia, lives and works in Vienna, Austria. In her musical practice, she mostly uses the voice, Paetzold bass recorders, own field recordings, DJ-CD, tapes and other lo-fi electronic devices, toys, trash and found objects. Maja made a name for herself in different musical fields, such as early music, contemporary, experimental, jazz, free improvisation, sound art and heavier music. Moving in limbo between analogue and digital art, virtual and real spaces, she tries to expand, deconstruct and reinterpret the tonal spectra of mentioned instruments and to assign them new roles – a process reminiscent of building anagrams. In her compositions she combines love for simple songs, experimental electro-acoustic, abstract music, early and contemporary classical music as well as elements and forms of noise and rock. The real, the surreal, the fragility, in which both the destructive, abysmal, dark phantasm, but also the beauty, the elegance, the strength are depicting certainty, manifest another engine that defines Maja’s musical creation.
She composes music for dance, theater, film, radio plays, sound instalations and various ensembles and orchestras and writes lyrics, that she performs with her bands. She gave workshops in improvised music in Austria, Slovenia and South Korea, founded Maja’s Musik Markt, Listening Sessions and co-organised the 7th Viennese Soulfood Festival in 2013. As a soloist and in various ensembles, she performed at numerous international festivals and venues. Since 2018 maja is an owner of a new record label mamka records, which has dedicated itself to the publication of high quality self-produced sound recordings in small hand-made series.
For her live performances and sampling she uses her own built sound libraries like for example, the socalled “Rejects” – a library of unwillingly destroyed sounds, glitches, soundwaste that happened in her own recordings or “broken pianos” – a collection of the sounds of detuned pianos.
Discography (after 2010)
· Natascha Gangl / Rdeča Raketa – MI CORAZÓN (Mamka, 2019)
· Natascha Gangl / Rdeča Raketa – Chicken (Mamka, 2018)
· Maja Osojnik – Let Them Grow (Rock Is Hell & Unrecords, 2016)
· Rdeča Raketa – Wir Werden (GOD, 2013)
· Broken.Heart.Collector – Broken.Heart.Collector (Rock Is Hell & Interstellar Records & Discorporate, 2011)
· Low Frequency Orchestra – Kommen und Gehen (Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien 2011)
· Maja Osojnik Band – Črne Vode / Schwarze Wasser / Black Waters (Viennese Soulfood, 2010)
· Rdeča Raketa – Old Girl, Old Boy (Mosz, 2010)
· Low Frequency Orchestra / Wolfgang Mitterer – Mole (Chmafu Nocords, 2010)
Current Projects
·Solo: Maja Osojnik – vocals, live sampling, dj-cd player and other lo-fi electronics, paetzold bass
·Rdeča Raketa: Maja Osojnik & Matija Schellander – bass paetzold recorder, cassette recorders, electronic devices, toys, e-bass, modular synthesizer, computer, words (2008–)
·ZSAMM: Maja Osojnik – vocals, live sampling, dj-cd player and other lo-fi electronics; Patrick Wurzwallner – drums (2015–)
·A.T.T.W.A: Maja Osojnik – vocals, live sampling, dj-cd player and other lo-fi electronics, paetzold bass: Audrey Chen – vocals, cello; Raumschiff Engelmayr – guitar; Matija Schellander – double bass, modular synthesiser; Manu Mayr – double bass, e-bass; Lukas König – drums (2015–)
·Broken.Heart.Collector: Maja Osojnik – vox, gadgets, bass paetzold recorder, field recordings; Susanna Gartmayer – bass clarinet, contra alto clarinet, vox; Raumschiff Engelmayr – guitar, vox, electronics; Derhunt – bass, vox, electronics; Ddkern – drums, percussion, inside piano, vox, field recordings (2009–)
·Maja Osojnik Band: Maja Osojnik – vocals, electronic devices, recorders; Michael Bruckner – Weinhuber – guitar; Philipp Jagschitz – piano, accordion; Bernd Satzinger – double bass; Mathias Koch – drums (2006–)
·Watschen Institut: Maja Osojnik / Daniel Lercher / Raumschiff Engelmayr / Matija Schellander (2010–)
·Low Frequency Orchestra: Maja Osojnik, Angélica Castelló – paetzold recorders, voice, electronic devices; Matija Schellander – double bass; Thomas Grill – electronics (2003–)
·Subshrubs: Katharina Klement – piano, electronics, composition; Maja Osojnik – paetzold, voice, electronics, composition; Angelica Castello – paetzold, electronics, composition; Tamara Wilhelm – electronics, composition (2008–)
·Foyer: Katharina Ernst, Maja Osojnik, Matija Schellander – performative sound art (2014–)
Past Projects
·Plenum: Angélica Castelló, Gabriele Drab, Katrin Hauk, Thomas List, Stefanie Neuhuber, Maja Osojnik, Reni Weichselbaum – Paetzold Recorders (2013–2018)
·Fru fru: Maja Osojnik & Angélica Castelló – voice, recorders, electronics & toys (2004–2014)
·Ensemble MIKADO: Theresa Dlouhy, Thomas List, Katharina Lugmayr, Maja Osojnik, Eva Reiter – soprano, recorders, viola da gamba (1996–2014)
Awards
·Austrian State Schoolarship for Composition (2009, 2019)
·1.Prize “das lange brennende mikro” for WENDY PFERD TOD MEXICO – a sound comic with natascha gangl & rdeča raketa at 9. Berliner Hörspielfestival 2018 (2018)
·1. Prize for the best Film Music with Matija Schellander (Film Einer von Uns – One of us / + Director: Stephan Richter) at the 27. Film Festival “Kinofest Lünen” Germany (2016)
·Award for Composition City of Vienna (2014)
·SKE – FONDS Annual Schoolarship for Composition (2014)
·Stella 13: prize for outstanding children production with makemake theater group – Das Kind der Seehundfrau (2013)
·Mia Award in Category Art&Culture (2010)
·Bank Austria / Jeunesse Artist of the Year (2009)
·SKE Publicity Prize with Low Frequency Orchestra (2007)
·Jazz Fest Wien Award (2005)
We Point Out
LET THEM GROW
Vinyl and CD (2016)
An anthroposophical striptease of the soul, between dystopian chansons, primordial mantras, and musique concrète – both timeless and masterful.
„So COME OUT, you rotten cocksucker,
here’s your fucking POP SONG.“
After fourteen band albums that range from old to new music, improvised to experimental, folklore to industrial, Maja Osojnik is releasing her first solo album LET THEM GROW, in which she searches for the simple song that combines all of these elements both in herself and in its sound.
“I am now almost forty years old. But instead of feeling that I understand the world better now than I did before, I have times when nothing at all truly makes sense to me anymore. I am amazed at how often this world is slipping out of my reach. In these moments, the world seems strange to me, and I seem a stranger in it.”
LET THEM GROW is the product of a retreat, an introspection, a re-alignment. Osojnik asks about the self, asks whether it is possible—beyond the fundamental impossibility—to be understood. She asks about the things people do when they love others and about the things they suppress. What does it mean to live an emancipated life today? In this very personal album, Osojnik examines the strange phenomena of contemporary interpersonal relations, with songs that range from dirty to soft, sensual, dazed, complex, cold, spherical, poignant, and feminine.
music & lyrics, recorded, edited, produced by Maja Osojnik between 2013-2015
instruments: vocals, field recordings, Paetzold bass recorder, e-bass, melodicas, toys, radios, glockenspiel, cassette, recorders, abandoned pianos, installations tubes, electronic setup with dj cd player and different guitar pedals
sampled artists:
Manu Mayr – double bass (#2, #15,#16)
Matija Schellander – double bass (#2,#8)
Tamara Wilhelm – electronics (#4)
Patrick Wurzwallner – drums (#8, #9)
main vocal recorded by Oliver Brunbauer at hotel pupik
mixed by Patrick Pulsinger at feedback studio I.
mastered & LP cut by Rashad Becker, D&M
artwork by Raumschiff Engelmayr
photography by Rania Moslam
“Slovenian born Austrian resident Osojnik sings haunting, deeply affecting torch songs into an electrical storm of her own devising. Pieced together from sounds of radios, tape recorders, CDJs, “installation tubes” and “abandoned pianos”, Osojnik pushes these artefacts and the places she found them in until they become wild alien creatures seething with desires of their own. Every surface has its own grain, every deep drone fluctuates and breathes. Unidentifiable flying sound objects flicker in and out of view. Above it all, Osojnik’s voice is imbued with lust and longing, or righteously angry, as if on the point of bursting out of the recording to snarl straight in the listener’s ear. An urgent record, bursting with ideas.” (Robert Barry, Wire, 2016)
“Let Them Grow is one of those albums that hits like a punch to the solar plexus. It’s impossible not to laud the artist for her openness, her ability to convey so many painful emotions – but at the same time, it’s deeply uncomfortable. Listen, people who use terms like ‘TMI’ are, in the main, uncomfortable because they don’t like to face brutal truths, particularly those belonging to other people. On ‘Let Them Grow’, Osojnik pays no regard to these emotionally closed or stunted types and simply lays it all out there, telling it like it is, spilling her guts because she has no other choice. This isn’t simply music, this is pure art and the very definition of catharsis. Let Them Grow is a work of exorcism, of expulsion.” (Christopher Nosnibor, Aural Aggravation, 2016)
maja.klingt.org
mo.klingt.org
majaosojnik.bandcamp.com
letthem.bandcamp.com/releases