Mrs Jynx

Inspired by aspects of the work of Orbital, Aphex Twin, and µ-Ziq -- the artist who ultimately signed her to his Planet Mu label in 2008 -- Manchester, England's Mrs. Jynx creates pastoral, melody-driven IDM. Fittingly, her love of Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree trilogy of children's books is often cited, and this aligns with the escapist thread running through her music: the sense that she is creating imaginary worlds. She was born Hannah Davidson and raised in a musical family (her mother was a classically trained viola player who regularly performed with the Hallé Orchestra). The large attic above her bedroom frequently played host to a Baroque ensemble headed by her mother. Davidson was encouraged to learn the violin, but she soon gravitated to piano and, on leaving sixth-form college, she moved to London to study jazz at university. In time, she developed a love of electronic music and, on returning to Manchester, was encouraged by a friend to create her own sounds. Experiments on a keyboard with a built-in sampler led to her purchasing a PC and making use of rudimentary music production software. Inspired by the name of her friend's cat, Davidson began to use the moniker, Mrs. Jynx. At Christmas 2007, she self-released a split EP with Wisp -- aka Reid W. Dunn -- entitled Present from Us to You, containing evocative seasonal recordings. A chiming, twee take on the traditional carol "I Saw 3 Ships" made use of retro synth sounds, in a similar fashion to contemporaneous artists on the Ghost Box label. Although a number of her subsequent recordings contained vintage sonic touchstones of this ilk, Davidson's canon also revealed a willingness to incorporate contemporary club sounds. Following another lo-fi EP -- 2008's Ensoniq Entrees on Canada's Napalm Enema -- she fully embraced this dichotomy on her debut album for Mike Paradinas' Planet Mu, The Standoffish Cat. August 2009 brought Symbiotix -- a split EP with Oxynucid via the Centrifuge -- before her second Planet Mu full-length, Shark Carousel, appeared in July 2010. The ensuing years provided low-key Mrs. Jynx EPs on Milieu Music and Complex Sound Sagacity, before the late-2013 Central Processing Unit EP Diving Loop marked the beginning of a hiatus from composition for Davidson. This silence was broken, in part, in 2017 with the release of Jynx's Garden, a double-CD compilation of mainly unreleased Mrs. Jynx material recorded between 2004 and 2013. The set was mastered and compiled by the Analog Botanist, aka Brian Grainger, and was issued on his Recycled Plastics imprint. The set caught the ear of Paradinas, who pulled Davidson out of apparent retirement, asking her to collaborate on a joint Mrs. Jynx/µ-Ziq project. The resulting album, Secret Garden, was issued on Planet Mu in late 2021.
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