The Joni Project

Joni Mitchell's Blue is the record at the heart of The Joni Project, a band from Germany whose whole reason for existing is to take it apart and play it back whole. Built around Stefanie Hempel, Iris Romen and Anne de Wolff, the group sets out to play the album in full, front to back, rather than selecting favourites from it. What distinguishes the act is that commitment to the whole sequence: hearing these songs again, delivered by a different set of voices, and asking what still holds up half a century on.

The group was formed in 2021 with a single defined aim: to bring Blue to the stage at full length in celebration of the album's 50th anniversary. Its one listed release so far is the album Shades of Blue, released in 2023. That narrow, stated purpose is the clearest way into the group.