Rena Jones[1] (born 1977) is an American musician, producer, composer and audio engineer from Portland, Oregon. She composes and produces electro-acoustic, downtempo and ambient music with an emphasis on live string instruments. She has released six solo albums and collaborated on over 100 albums.[2] Her latest solo album titled Allegories was released in November 2021 [3] and her latest collaborative album Caesura was released in October 2024.[4]
Life and career
Jones grew up in Texas and started on classical violin in second grade. She showed interest in writing music and as a teenager pursued electronic music. She said the freedom and flexibility that electronic music offered was very appealing to her. From 2000 to 2002 she studied sound engineering at Ex'pression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville, California. She then worked as an audio engineer and a musician in the San Francisco area. At Digidesign she worked on the development of the Pro Tools audio software. In 2006 she moved to Portland, Oregon.[2]
Jones plays the cello, violin, keyboards, and programs the synthesizer and drums. Her musical style is based on incorporation and "manipulation of string sounds from real acoustic violins and cellos along with purely electronic beats."[2] She has released six solo albums. Each album has a concept: Transmigration is about reincarnation, Driftwood is about the cycle of life,[5]Indra's Web is about the interconnectedness of reality, and Echoes is about duality, drawing inspiration from Rumi's poetry.[6]
Along with running her own record labels Cartesian Binary Recordings and Pok Pok Records, Jones has composed for film and video games such as Dance Dance Revolution under the name Jena Rose.[5] She was part of the Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 4 alongside artists Juno Reactor, Prodigy and others. Best known for her unique ambient-electronic music, Rena has released original compositions on groundbreaking labels such as LOCI Records, Disco Geko, Iboga, Spun Records, Aleph Zero, 1320 Records, Addictech, Ultimae, and Schematic Records, while also running her label Cartesian Binary Recordings.[7] Jones has performed at several electronic music festivals around the world including Shambhala, Burning Man and the Glade.[2]
Three of Jones's albums, Driftwood, Indra's Web, and Allegories were listed among Echoes radio's top 25 albums of the year in 2006 and 2009, and 2021 respectively.[8][9] Her album, Echoes, features performances by musicians located remotely in London, Los Angeles and Portland, including Sophie Barker, Earl Harvin, Ilya Goldberg, Matt Robertson, Laura Scarborough and Joshua Penman.[6][10] The album was listed among the top 25 albums of the month by Echoes radio in May and June 2013.[11][12]
^"Rena Jones – Echoes Review". sunisshiningdubnchill.blogspot.com. April 3, 2013. Archived from the original on April 3, 2014. Retrieved April 2, 2014.
