Maja Osojnik

http://maja.klingt.org

*1976 born in Slovenia, lives and works in Vienna, Austria

as a singer, composer, improvising electroacoustic musician, sound artist, producer, mostly using voice, paetzold bass recorders, field recordings, DJ-CDs, tapes and other lo-fi electronic devices, toys, trash and found objects. Maja made a name for herself in different musical fields, such as early music, contemporary, experimental, electronic, jazz, free improvisation, sound art and heavier music. Moving in limbo between analogue and digital art, virtual and real spaces, she tries to expand, deconstruct and reinterpret the tonal spectra of mentioned instruments and to assign them new roles – a process reminiscent of building anagrams. In her Music she combines love for simple songs, experimental electro-acoustic, abstract music, early and contemporary classical music as well as elements and forms of noise and rock. The real, the surreal, the fragility, in which both the destructive, abysmal, dark phantasm, but also the beauty, the elegance, the strength are depicting certainty, manifest another engine that defines Maja’s musical creation.
She composes music for dance, theater, film, radio plays, sound instalations and various ensembles and orchestras and writes lyrics, that she performs with her bands. For her live performances and sampling she uses her own built sound libraries like for example, the so-called “Rejects” – a library of unwillingly destroyed sounds, glitches or “broken pianos” – a collection of the sounds of detuned pianos.
She gave Workshops in Composition and improvised Music in Austria, Slovenia and Korea, founded Maja’s Musik Market, Listening Sessions and co-organised the 7th Viennese Soulfood Festival in 2013 and has been awarded several prizes and scholarships, ao SKE Publicity Prize 2007, 2009 and 2019 the Austrian State Composition Scholarship and the Passticio Prize (Ö1 / ORF). 2014 followed the City of Vienna’s Prize for Composition and the SKE One-Year Grant. The Composition of Rdeča Raketa for the film “One of Us – One of us” (Director: Stephan Richter), was honored at the 27th Kinofest Lünen 2016 with the prize for the best movie music. 2018, Rdeča Raketa and Natascha Gangl received also 1. Prize for their Radio Piece „Wendy Pferd Tod Mexico“ at 9. Berliner Hörspielfestival. 2021 followed the Prize „best radio play of the year 2020“ by Ö1/ORF for their new soundcomic „the revenge of the snake woman” dedicated to Unica Zürn.
In 2018 Maja started a new label MAMKA RECORDS, which is dedicated to the publication of high quality self-produced sound recordings in small hand-made series. Her Art was shown at Lentos Museum Linz, as a part of the collective exhibition “for the birds”at aeronautic sculpture garden on the premises of the Landesklinikum Hollabrunn (permanent exhibition), Kluckyland and Echoraum in Vienna.
Her solo performances, works and formations, ao. Rdeča Raketa, ZSAMM, Broken.Heart.Collector, All.The.Terms.We.Are, Maja Osojnik Band, Subshrubs, Low Frequency Orchestra etc. were presented at various international festivals. Artist in Residency: DAR Lithuania, Hotel Pupik Austria, Radio Cona Slovenia, Kud Mreža, Saalfelden Jazzfestival

Records after 2010:

• LP „…AND CANNOT REACH THE SILENCE rdeča raketa, Labels Ventil Records & Mamka Records 2021
• SUPERANDOME – SUPER RANDOM ME single, natascha gangl & rdeča raketa, Mamka Records 2020
• MI CORAZÓN single natascha gangl & rdeča raketa, Mamka Records 2019
• CHICKEN single natascha gangl & rdeča raketa, Mamka Records 2018
• DBL LP & CD „LET THEM GROW“ maja osojnik solo, Labels Rock is Hell & Unrecords 2016
• LP “Wir Werden” rdeča raketa, Label God Records, 2013
• LP & CD broken.heart.collector, Labels Rock is Hell & Interstellar Records & Discorporate Records, 2011
• CD & Book “Črne Vode/Schwarze Wasser/Black Waters”, Maja Osojnik Band, Label Viennese Soulfood Records, 2010
• Cassette “Old girl, old boy”, Rdeča Raketa, Label Mosz, 2010
• CD “Mole”, Low Frequency Orchestra & Wolfgang Mitterer, Label Chmafu Nocords, 2010
• DVD “Das Spiel von Kommen und Gehen”, Low Frequency Orchestra, 2010

http://maja.klingt.org
http://mo.klingt.org
https://majaosojnik.bandcamp.com/
https://letthem.bandcamp.com/releases

Maja Osojnik – Between noise attack and dystopian chanson – Musician Maja Osojnik, born in Slovenia in 1976, has been living in Vienna for many years and has settled down here, solidly anchoring herself in the progressive sound environment with her mixture of avant-garde song structures and electronic soundscapes. Osojnik is a singer, a recorder player, but above all an electronic musician who makes the bits and bytes dance. Although the artist is generally credited with the avant-garde field, she is also active in many other genres: she plays Early Music, Jazz, Free Improvisation, Sound Art, makes music for film, theater, dance productions, etc. A multidisciplinary, comprehensive connected sound creator, which rides from the most beautiful sound next to silence to an acoustic shitstorm the whole range of signals, sound gestures, aggressive and delicate sounds in order to perform their integrated sound vision so diverse and differentiated in different contexts. Some time ago she even founded the label Mamka Records in order to work completely independently. Motto: By my art before I die. The biggest resonance in recent years has been achieved by the solo album “Let them grow”, in which Maja Osojnik combines songs, field recordings, guitar effects and electronic impulses to create a hodgepodge of fascinating magic sounds. “Osojnik skilfully moves between different musical languages,” writes the Music Austria magazine, “while retaining her unmistakable style, and the countless tracks she expounds are bound together by the overwhelming passion of a free-spirited personality.” (Thomas Mießgang for Ö1 Lexica, ORF, february 2019)

An Architecture of Composition – Maja’s show was underlined by the authenticity, the power of spoken word, and the way her hands “danced” on the instruments. In MADEIRADiG, an intense voice and soft delicate hands manipulate the instruments as if we were watching a contemporary dance piece. The concert of Maja Osojnik is one of those that remain in our thoughts for days after the performance. Let Them Grow, her latest album, continues to sound in intense lightning bolts on the turntable platter. It arises from failure, from trial and error, from taking advantage of works that have never been shown or from those which have been refused and are now gaining a quite intimate new life. 2018 @ Madeiradig Festival, Elsa Garcia for Umbigo Magazine, Portugal

Any ideas of a night of non-disruptive music is quickly blown to pieces as Slovenian Maja Osojnik takes to the stage next. Bathed in firelike light, she manoeuvres her technology and vocals like a warrior. Heavy beats prop up her deep dramatic voice as she takes protest songs to another level. I’m amazed. In voice not dissimilar to Barbara Morgenstern or Monotekktoni and lyrically on page with Jomi Massage, her performance is intense and once again everyone leaves the auditorium ripped out of the calm we were lulled into at the start of the evening. She delivers a lasting shake-up which I’d not seen coming. @ Madeiradig Festival, Mette Slot Johnsen for http://passiveaggressive.dk