Featured Photo by Dash Grey @dashgrey
Jai Wolf released his debut album, The Cure To Loneliness, on April 5th, 2019 under the independent label Mom+Pop. Jai Wolf, whose name is Sajeeb Saha, has been making music since 2011. In 2014 Sajeeb adopted the alias Jai Wolf and became a member of ODESZA’s Foreign Family Collective. His first release with Foreign Family, ‘Indian Summer’ is his most popular track to date and recently went Gold in the United States. As a member of the Foreign Family Collective since its founding, Jai Wolf displays ODESZA’s influence in his music in his own unique way. The best way I can describe Jai Wolf’s music is electronic, of course, but it is extremely mellow, soothing, and progressive. It brings you on a journey through his mind and his emotions, each song takes you through a different page in Jai Wolf’s book of life. It is truly special to be a part of his magical music with his unique future sound. The first time I saw Jai Wolf perform was at SUNDARA festival on the beach, performing The Cure To Loneliness for the first time prior to it coming out. That performance was one I will never forget and made me realize how much I enjoy Jai Wolf’s music.
Jai Wolf started his Cure To Loneliness tour on April 10th, 5 days after the release of the debut album that had everyone beaming. His home town of New York City was the first sold out show on the tour at Terminal 5 on April 13th. I had the pleasure of attending this show and experiencing The Cure To Loneliness just the way Jai Wolf dreamt it up with his unique stage design and lighting. This show was completely different from the show I saw at SUNDARA because it was his own tour, it was really quite breathtaking. Jai Wolf stood in the center of a half dome made of LED lights and screens, it looked like he was standing in the center of a sphere the way it was crafted. I found this unique stage design extremely powerful because the artwork on Jai Wolf’s album cover is an image of his mind spilling into a rainbow of colors. This stage set up made it look like Jai Wolf was inside of a globe which could represent a symbol of his world, his mind, or maybe the helmet of the astronaut that is the mascot of this project. He played the crowd his beautiful music that he has been dreaming up for the past few years from this sphere, a perfect representation for the album. Paired with the warm colors of pinks, purples, and blues the lighting really set the mood. I had never seen any stage setup like this and I can honestly say paired with the visuals and lighting, it truly was a captivating performance to watch.
Jai Wolf performed The Cure To Loneliness in its entirety blending all of the songs together in a cohesive way. He played the album whilst mixing in unique ODESZA sounds, remixes of his like ‘Feels’ by Kiiara, and of course his most popular songs, like ‘Lost’ featuring Chelsea Jade. When he played ‘Lost’ he had Chelsea Jade come out as a guest performer. Chelsea gave a breathtaking performance while the music video for the song played in the background. The treatment for this video is extremely interesting, it draws on the high school experience and shows the meaning of being ‘Lost and Found’. He played this at SUNDARA as well and the video really got me thinking of the meaning of the song. All of Jai Wolf’s visuals really help to express what he is trying to say through his music. Speaking of live performances, Jai Wolf also had Mr. Gabriel come out to perform the lead single off of this album, ‘Lose My Mind’ which really was a great addition to his performance.
This was one of my favorite shows that I have seen in a long time because it really showcased how a producer who started off creating remixes to popular songs can grow into a solo artist of their own. Just because artists produce electronic music and DJ doesn’t make them any different from any other recording artists out there, which is something that many people are still learning that are new to the electronic world. Jai Wolf is a perfect example of this and watching him grow into this incredible solo artist in the dance world, someone that can create such high quality music and develop a unique sound, on top of delivering a captivating performance, must be really beautiful and inspiring to all the other DJ’s and producers out there. Jai Wolf started off just like all of them and is a perfect example that it takes time to find your sound and success, so don’t give up! ODESZA is another great example of an electronic group that has grown from remixing songs to producing full projects of their own as solo artists and curating an incredible live show with unique set design, lighting, and visuals. The Foreign Family is the perfect home for Jai Wolf to follow the same path with an incredible label such as Mom+Pop in support and an experienced agent like Jay Moss from Paradigm to bring this live set on the road. Check out The Cure To Loneliness tour yourself, get tickets here: http://www.jaiwolf.com/tctl#tour