Jo The Man The Music

With a voice as delicate as a blackbird’s flight, her hands on the guitar, ready to strum away – Johanna Gußmagg doesn’t need much to craft music that is both laid-back and haunting, somewhere between bedroom pop and raucous indie rock. So, bedroom rock without any pretensions? Perhaps. In any case, it’s direct, unpretentious and honest. Singles such as “Skinny Dipping” or the beautiful cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” (2025) have recently demonstrated emphatically that, as Jo The Man The Music, she ranks among the most interesting new singer-songwriters from Austria. Having started making music in Graz, she moved to Berlin in 2024 to develop her skills as a singer and guitarist. No sooner said than done. She now crafts incredibly organic and warm songs like “Soft Skin” (2025) with a ease that is nothing short of astonishing – and yet, in every melody and every arrangement, you can hear the passion and raw emotion she pours into them. With the eponymous EP “Soft Skin” (2026), she finally emerges from her cocoon this year and takes to stages across Europe as an alternative indie-pop poet, more self-assured than ever.