"Welcome to our cosmos - a place where you can slow down, tune in and get groovy"

ABOUT

From Ireland to Lanzarote and back to Germany

Jan and Jannike - what at first sounds like a made up name is instead a lucky circumstance.  When the two met in Freiburg in 2011 while studying jazz, they had no idea what journey they would have travelled together to this day. It was only after half a decade in Ireland and Lanzarote that things clicked: "For far too long, we kept our musical projects as songwriters and composers separate. Since we have brought ALVA into the world in 2020, it feels just right. It's exciting to write music that is based on Jannike's strong intuition on the one hand and Jan's persistent perfectionism on the other."  After an often bumpy road full of ups and downs, the result is a carousel of songs that have found their balance.  

Green hair and a piano drum

With a witty sense of humour and a strong assertiveness, half-Swedish Jannike grew up in Freiburg on the sunny side of Germany as the youngest of four.  From an early age, she was surrounded by her brothers' guitar and drum jam sessions as well as her sister's classical piano lessons. Thus, it was inevitable that her earliest contact with the piano was quite unconventional: she hit the keys using drumsticks leaving the keys forever marked. This incident quickly convinced her parents to send her to piano lessons. Since then she has used this instrument as her first means of expression, improvising and composing little pieces at a very young age. At around the age of 12, she started writing and singing her first songs in English.

  In the seemingly idyllic setting of a small village in northern Germany, Jan found himself growing up between teenage rebellion and emotional chaos. He felt like a stranger in the midst of the rural village mentality. With green hair and a skateboard under his arm, he made like-minded friends at the local youth centre, with whom he lived an anti-concept to the village cliché. During that time alternative music was an important source of identity. „Music was our refuge and life without it was unimaginable. Everyone played some kind of instrument and a guitar was always available.“ Since then, the guitar has become his constant companion and the voice for his emotional world.

„…a perfect getaway from reality“ - Lefuturewave

Alva manages to blend an indie-rock attitude with intimate singer-songwriter vibes.

In their (as yet unreleased) debut album PROUD SNAIL, they bring this unique sound to the core: the duo's distinctive, sometimes continuous two-part harmony, groovy keys, detailed guitar layering and a driving rhythm section. Hardly one song is the same as the other, instead you are browsing through a colourful storybook into which you become more and more absorbed as you are turning the pages. Their diversity is also reflected in the lyrics. Like the road through life, they don't follow a straight line: sometimes bold and playful, sometimes reflective and spiritual, but always intensely personal.  In their live performances, ALVA has grown into a five-piece singing band that is waiting to hit the stages of the world.

Photos: fokussiert.studio

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