The transformation of sensitive root material and experimentation are the basis of the creative process resulting from the collaboration between Joana Gomila and Laia Vallès. Voice and synthesizers, organicity and machine, tradition and experimentation, take us through an archipelago of surrounding islands and rural and sidereal landscapes.
When Joana Gomila published Folk Souvenir (2016), the world of traditional music was shaken by her way of doing things, which was both personal and daring. There have been few records that have so faithfully captured the real soul of Mallorcan tunes, achieved now in part and paradoxically thanks to their ability to free them from corsets and reimagine them from a kaleidoscopic point of view.

In Paradís (2020), Gomila starts a new duet format with Laia Vallès, with whom, through an expansive and transgressive sound (keyboards, synthesizers, samplers), she soaks into the spirit of research and experimentation that gave impetus to her debut, while broading its sound language by incorporating songs of its own composition, what forces us to rethink everything we knew about it and the kind of artist we have in front of us.

Their last album, Així Deçà, their first autoedition in a cassette form, was considered one of the best 2021 Spanish releases by El País. 

They’ve been touring and playing in festivals such as Primavera Sound, Fira Mediterrània, Càntut, Música Viva de Vic (Catalonia), FIAS (Madrid), Muteke (Canada), Suns Udine (Italy), Jarasum (South Korea),… They are currently working in their new project.

Awards:

2020 Premi Altaveu (Paradís)
2020 Premi Especial de la Crítica Enderrock (Paradís)
2020 Premi CIutat de Palma Bonet de Sant Pere (Paradís)
2018 Premi Bartomeu Rosselló Pòrcel de l’OCB (Folk Souvenir)
2018 Premi Bonet de Sant Pere (Folk Souvenir)

“In a safe place Paradís reveals a singer who masters traditional grammar, and uses it to speak to infinity, while processing the voice, playing with the timbral, dreaming of ghosts and sometimes releasing a wild background. Gomila leads you towards unknown lands without transmitting sensations of danger or darkness, with a maternal bonhomie. If you get carried away with it, there is nothing to worry about. Sensory journey through a nature of increased pigmentation, invoking almond trees, goats and moons taking forms of a magical minimalism from the synthesizers of Laia Vallès, source of echoes of underwater probe or frugal harmonies. Through the osculation of that instrumental language with inland sources (from the Indian “shruti” harmonium to the Majorcan percussion “castanyetes”), the couple opened the window to an unprecedented panorama, connected perhaps by some black hole with the classic achievements of Laurie Anderson, that left a trail of magnetic compositions (No tenim mapes, Paradís or Dianita) and that, raising the tone, embraced unbridled tribalism (Deliris). After all, without losing sight of the world, and tuning the Mallorcan tourist imaginary in that Jota dels hereus, which Gomila invited us to sing along to, a very simple act ends up taking on luxurious forms in these streaming days.”

Jordi Bianciotto, El Periódico