Dear Dea - When You Go Home Again (EP)
“When You Go Home Again” is the debut EP from Helsinki-based artist Dea Juris aka Dear Dea, released via Boston-based independent label EveryDejaVu. It features previous singles ”Sage” and “Call Up My Phone” which saw support from Craig Charles and Tom Ravenscroft & Deb Grant’s New Music Fix (BBC 6Music), Jyoty (Rinse FM), China Moses and Tony Minvielle (Jazz FM), Wordplay Magazine and Clash Magazine. “When You Go Home Again” takes inspiration from Dear Dea’s multicultural roots – born to a Syrian mother and Ecuadorian father – a deep love of jazz, and much of the reggaeton and Latin music she was listening to while writing. Focus track “Papi” is an exploration of this. Dea adds, “I kind of like that it’s almost cringy and digging into that whole scene of reggaeton artists talking about mamis. I wanted to do the same”. Listening to artists like Rauw Alejandro and Yebba, Dea leans into the melodrama the Spanish language allows for, alongside the bittersweet memories of her previous relationship and city she’d left behind: “I remember cold feet under covers / the crickety crack of the heat in winter”.
The EP is a cathartic journey through letting go, acceptance, and moving on, exploring what it is to call somewhere home. Having spent nearly a decade living in New York, in 2019 Dear Dea had her artist visa denied and was given six days to leave the country. She returned to Finland, to her childhood bedroom for the first time since she was 19. Devastated and heartbroken, unable to visit the city she loved and in turmoil over her now crumbling long-distance relationship, Dea found inspiration to write for the first time since before putting together her visa application.
Having bonded over Laura Mvula’s “Green Garden”, Kasperi Kallio became Dear Dea’s main collaborator and producer on the project. Following their intuition, the pair crafted a sound that threads between the EP’s lyrical journey, capturing a warmth and closeness. “When You Go Home Again” sees a deeply personal experience processed and explored with insightful lyrics and careful sonic choices. On the EP’s standalone ballad “Tuesday”, the stripped production leaves room for a softness in Dear Dea’s voice – recorded as such because she was living with her parents and didn’t want them to hear the emotional lyrical content. This sound evolves on “Sunflowers”, which closes the EP with a contemplative piano outro and a sense of hope. The track is the only one written at Dea’s new home, rather than back in her teenage bedroom, and it carries the triumph of that move and of the relief of this release.
“I remember being very happy living in my small apartment and getting to come home and be alone and do whatever I want. Maybe “Sunflowers” even feels like coming home after a long, crazy day. There’s just some sense of triumph after all the s*** I went through, which I don’t think I was noticing at the time but listening to it in this context of the other songs on the EP, I feel it.”
Dear Dea spent most of her early life in Helsinki while spending long periods of time in Damascus and Quito. This upbringing can be heard in her sound, alongside the music that was constantly playing at home; “mostly classical, because the rest of my family are classical musicians, but also legends like Stevie Wonder and Chick Corea, and Arabic gems like Fairouz, thanks to my mom”, she explains. From Lauryn Hill, Destiny’s Child and Aaliyah to Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn, Dear Dea eventually found herself fascinated by jazz, working with a vocal teacher who cultivated her love of the genre.
Having always struggled with not feeling “Finnish enough” in Finland and dreaming of seeing the world, Dear Dea moved to New York for jazz college aged 19 and began collaborating with other musicians and exploring songwriting. While there,
Dear Dea met Emiliano Flowerman who encouraged her to develop her songwriting. As the duo Eda Wolf the pair released two EPs (“Slow Speed” and “Spring Came Slow”), performing several live shows around the city.
Since completing “When You Go Home Again”, Dear Dea has continued to write, attending songwriting courses with the LA-based School of Song hosted by Kimbra and Adrianne Lenker, and is beginning to piece together a new album. Alongside her solo project, she teaches vocals and band at the Pop & Jazz Konservatorio, Helsinki and recently took a trip to Ecuador with her dad, visiting Quito and absorbing the art, her dad’s home, and her relatives with grown-up, fresh eyes.