JoVia Armstrong & Eunoia Society to Release Project “Inception”

JoVia Armstrong & Eunoia Society Present Inception, Out Digitally June 30; Physically August 11 on Black Earth Music

The prequel to her acclaimed 2022 debut, The Antidote Suite, is a musical representation of going from childhood into adulthood

In a strictly chronological sense, Inception is a follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut album The Antidote Suite; but in reality, Armstrong penned Inception first. It serves as a prequel of sorts, “music that is the story of my childhood. My transition from childhood to adulthood,” she says. Inception unveils a roadmap to a brave new future.

“Creation” mirrors her conception, while “Embryo” and “Birth” are, according to the artist, “the evolution of my nascency…entering into the wrong universe, on the wrong planet.”

Armstrong has always been concerned with what lies below the surface: the speculative, not just the concrete. She classifies her father as both “alien” and “superhuman…He’s a country boy from Alabama, not far from where Sun Ra was raised.” Referencing the mythology around Ra’s oft-cited early alien encounter, she suggests “I think they saw the same alien…possibly at the same time. He can do anything, build anything, prototype anything and is simply brilliant. I’ve watched him do the impossible with very little.” That same echelon of inventiveness permeates JoVia’s artistic practice.

A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Armstrong gravitates towards “the small instruments that people ignore.” She aims to “do something magical with it,” as evidenced by her signature hybrid cajon setup—usually a cajon with high hat and ride cymbal—sometimes seasoned with a floor tom, and often enhanced by electronics. “I’ve learned to give the impression of a drum set, that there is a groove, but I am not trying to replace a drum kit.”

While working towards her 2022 Ph.D. in the Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology program at the University of California-Irvine, she researched caves for her dissertation, “Black Space: Composing Meditative Music Through the Black Lens to Combat Unconscious Bias.” One takeaway from that exhaustive research was an understanding of the extensive history of caves serving as backdrops for rituals or ceremonies. Both Inception and The Antidote Suite contain sonic references to cavernous expanses: creating space with heavy reverb delay and effects, and lots of bass drones. All band members—Damon Warmack on bass, Leslie DeShazor on electric violin and Sasha Kashperko on guitar—utilize pedals or other electronics to augment the sound.

The album concludes with “Hide, Then Seek” reflects on the period after her family joined the Apostolic church in her native Detroit. “I grew up in a sheltered household where we couldn’t go to sleepovers, listen to secular music, or watch rated R movies. Some of us would sneak out to listen to the forbidden pleasures of music and watch monstrous movies. And some of us didn’t. When it came to pop culture, I didn’t know anything about it. I was quiet and cool, but I could hide that I didn’t know anything about the latest Freddy Krueger movie.” Meanwhile, she adds “Instead of [a typical American childhood of] playing hide and seek, my parents appointed me the job of seeking the Kingdom of Heaven”.

Fortunately for all of us, her proclivity to seek and to explore truths never ceased. “I like to challenge philosophies in the music,” she explains.

One philosophy that she holds close to her heart is that, from the perspective of the musician, the joy of music is not just about expressing technical mastery, but also about capturing creative passion and verve at its most essential level. “The purpose of my music is to go back in time to that moment when we first picked up our instruments. If I drop my sticks, I’m not going to edit it out. It’s not about avoiding mistakes. There’s no such thing as mistakes.” It’s all a part of experimentation, and building a pathway to greater understanding.