One to watch: Jane Paknia
One of this year’s best EPs was partly inspired by a cryptic dream about a Muppet dying. As Elmo floated into the abyss, New York musician Jane Paknia unexpectedly realised she was living the musical dream that had always felt just out of reach.
Paknia, 24, had been frustrated that she couldn’t connect her youth as a talented pianist (taught by her Iranian grandmother) and brass player with her boundary-pushing inspirations Sophie and Alice Coltrane. But you sense she was being hard on herself. Since releasing her debut EP, Orchid Underneath, last year, Paknia hasn’t lacked validation. Cape Town collective John Wizards reworked her song Glimmers; a remix of the title track by producer Hagop Tchaparian was named among 2024’s best tracks by Pitchfork.
Paknia’s addictive second EP steps up again. Millions of Years of Longing is choked with ideas, recalling the ur-hyperpop of British producer Max Tundra, Jockstrap’s seesawing between sweetness and chaos, and the most intense end of Brainfeeder’s catalogue. Single songs seem to encompass Paknia’s entire musical history: the warped vamping of Circular came out of obsessively practising Bach; the Elmo-inspired The Dream Is This cracks from self-possessed piano noodling to intense breakbeats. No Muppets were really harmed in the making of this music – but a new pop iconoclast was born.
