Ambient music from Jocéan

Based on Orcas Island, the multi-faceted artist, instrumentalist and composer Jocéan offers spiritual and serene sonic landscapes, using field recordings in her delicate handpan-based music. Growing up as the niece of Jamey Haddad, a world-renowned percussionist, she had rhythm in her heart and began her musical journey aged seven when she first picked up a violin, going on to master over ten instruments and an array of percussion.

Drawing heavily on her natural surroundings for inspiration, she weaves a deep connection to the earth into her music, while also taking influence from artists such as Paul Simon, Olafur Arnalds, Björk and Dean Evenson. She truly embraces all artistic mediums and strives to create music that’s both intimate and relatable, meditative and awakening.

Now the handpan extraordinaire brings us a new release with the EP Ephemera. The 3-track EP is titled as such to represent the fleeting nature of these instruments and the compositions that they inspire and blends in nature sounds to play off the harmonic qualities of her main instrument.

Blissful and calming, she spins a delightful sound across Ephemera and hopes to draw more attention to the handpan as an instrument, demonstrating the compositional capabilities and textures it offers. As a champion of this niche device, she is passionate about bringing it to more people and teaches it to women online and in person to not only benefit from what it has to offer as a musical instrument but also as an outlet for the soul.

Commenting on the handpan and what it means to her, she offers, “From an instrumentalist standpoint I am passionate about the handpan because I get to work with rhythm, melody and harmony all in one instrument – my creativity and compositional aesthetic comes alive on this instrument.”

Listen to Ephemera below

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