ionnalee

Swedish vocalist and composer Jonna Lee channels a more intimate, unfiltered strain of electronic pop through her ionnalee alias, moving beyond the enigmatic audiovisual projects she previously shaped as iamamiwhoami. Her first collection under the new name, Everyone Afraid to Be Forgotten, arrived in 2018 and offered brooding reflections on death and temporality, while its 2019 counterpart Remember the Future supplied an optimistic counterpoint. These departures from her earlier output only underscore Lee’s ongoing drive to reinvent her approach.

Born and raised in the village of Fågelsta, Lee displayed an early fascination with music and relocated to London during her teenage years to launch a singing career. She came back to Sweden in 2002, established herself in Stockholm’s independent circuit, and initially distributed her recordings via her personal site before securing a deal with Razzia in 2007. The label issued her first full-length effort, 10 Pieces, 10 Bruises, that October; the set paired her with Ed Harcourt on one track, featured drumming from Supergrass member Danny Goffey, and initiated her enduring partnership with Claes Björklund. She followed it with the 2008 EP This War and the 2009 album This Is Jonna Lee, the latter revealing a growing reliance on electronic textures. Also in 2009 she issued a version of Nitzer Ebb’s “Violent Playground” that the band endorsed by hosting it on their own site.

In 2010 Lee launched the imprint To whom it may concern and intensified her efforts on iamamiwhoami, an endeavor fusing shadowy, atmospheric electronics with enigmatic video works. Early anonymity fueled online curiosity around the project, yet Lee disclosed her central role—alongside Björklund and the visual team—in June of that year. The live recording In Concert surfaced during the same period. The following year iamamiwhoami received the inaugural Swedish Grammi honoring Innovator of the Year. To whom it may concern then released the project’s debut studio album Kin in 2012, an effort that earned widespread praise and secured the Digital Genius prize at the MTV O Music Awards. Bounty, gathering the earliest iamamiwhoami material, followed in June 2013. Late in 2014 Lee and Björklund unveiled Blue, an audiovisual set marked by a brighter sonic palette. Concert in Blue, comprising CD, DVD, and book components, appeared the next September.

After two years of road work supporting Blue, Lee stepped away from iamamiwhoami to explore fresh territory. ionnalee surfaced publicly in March 2017 via the single “Samaritan,” signaling a more straightforward take on the sophisticated electronic pop she had refined earlier. Additional singles that year formed the core of her debut album Everyone Afraid to Be Forgotten, released in February 2018 and self-produced throughout, with featured appearances by TR/ST and Jamie Irrepressible. In early 2019 the record earned a nomination for Best Synth Album of the Year at Manifestgalan. Remember the Future, ionnalee’s second album, emerged that May and incorporated input from Björklund, Röyksopp, Zola Jesus, and Jennie Abrahamson.