Joel Sarakula

In the organizer's words:

Imagine if Ray Manzarek was the frontman of the Bee Gees...
This is a pretty visual introduction to Joel Sarakula, an Australian artist living in the UK and Spain who writes, produces and sings soulful pop and looks at the world today through vintage glasses, vintage clothes and long blonde hair. His music is based on a rich, 1970s-inspired palette, drawing on soft rock, funk and disco influences: sunny uptempo jams for darker times. He's self-aware that he looks and occasionally sounds like a descendant of the Doors keyboardist and the Gibb brothers, but his self-deprecating humor is always on the sidelines.

Sydney-born, internationally-minded Sarakula is a songwriter who has traveled the world in search of his muse, experiencing everything from being the victim of Caribbean carjackings to performing in the remote fishing villages of Norway, before finally establishing his career in the UK and Europe. Since then he has now released six albums which have been on rotation on all UK and European radio stations and have been mentioned by the New York Times, the Independent (UK), the Irish Times, Rolling Stone Germany, El Pais (Spain) and the Sydney Morning Herald. He has been favorably compared to fellow Australians Parcels and Donny Benet as well as Prep, Benny Sings and Young Gun Silver Fox.

It's been a long road to his current cult status, having started at a young age on the piano in a Sydney suburb, writing and singing songs when he was a teenager and taking to the stage at sixteen playing jazz standards at his local golf club. I come from humble beginnings, best not to mention that," he sings in his 70s boogie-influenced song "I'm Still Winning" with echoes of formative musical influences such as Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs, Todd Rundgren and Sly Stone.

Joel Sarakula is a fixture on the festival and club scene and has performed at SXSW, Primavera Sound and Glastonbury Festival. As an internationalist, he often tours with pick-up bands from the country he is performing in: a band from Barcelona for Spain, one from Berlin for Germany and so on. This cross-cultural exchange is another echo of the 1970s, when soul and pop artists from the USA traveled around the world, and guarantees that his live shows remain fresh, exciting and absolutely contemporary.