Ajja

Ajja is an eclectic and multi-talented Swiss artist who channels his creativity through parallel careers as musician, producer, label manager, graphic artist, software developer and painter.

Born in London in 1975, Ajja grew up roaming the planet with his world-renowned family of tattoo-artists. Wandering across the world and bathed in various artistic scenes, he was instilled from childhood with a constant creative drive.

He started playing guitar when he was nine years old, and having been reared in a rock’n’roll and funk atmosphere, he initially concentrated on these musical styles. He first performed on a stage at twelve years old, playing songs between acts at the stand-up comedy club Les Faux Nez in Lausanne, Switzerland. Around the same time, Ajja learned the art of being a street musician, which he continued to practice occasionally all over the world well into his adult life.

By his mid-teens, he had composed, produced and recorded over one hundred original songs. He performed with live bands and continued to create music and self-release rock albums for another decade under the name S.F. Leu & The Family Iron. During this time, he also picked up the family trade and started tattooing alongside his parents Felix and Loretta and his older brother Filip. At the end of the nineties, his interest gradually shifted towards electronic music, causing him to explore new digital horizons.

Ajja played his first big psychedelic trance gathering in December 2002 on the main stage of the Outback Eclipse Festival in Australia, during a full solar eclipse. Upon returning to Switzerland from this life-changing experience, he founded Peak Records in 2003 with his wife Tanina Munchkina and fellow musicians Master Margherita and Dj Gaspard. The same year also saw the birth of the psychedelic live band The Peaking Goddess Collective with Master Margherita, Dymons & Flooting Grooves, as well as Yab Yum, his electronic live project with Dj Gaspard.

In 2005, Ajja started a solo project under his own name. He quickly became known for delivering groovy psychedelic trance, crossing genres to attract people from a broad range of styles. His debut studio album “Psychogenica” was released in 2007 on Syncronize Records, followed by “Tulpa” in 2012 on Peak Records and the mid-tempo album “Spira Mirabilis” in 2017 on T.I.P. Records.

Around 2010 Ajja teamed up with fellow guitarist and producer Cosmosis, playing high-energy psychedelic trance featuring live rock guitars. This formation played at major festivals internationally but remained a pure live act and did not release any studio albums. Ajja & Cosmosis did, however, release the successful electronic chill album “The Alien Jams” recorded live in the prestigious H.R. Giger Museum in Switzerland, before they disbanded in 2013.

In 2015, Ajja & Tanina Munchkina created the much-acclaimed Novelty Engine project, a high-power psychedelic jam-band with a modular cast of all-star musicians hand-picked from both the electronic underground and mainstream music scenes.

Since 2006, Ajja has released over a hundred songs under various names, including many collaborations with other well-known musicians and producers, spanning a wide range of styles. He has also formed a few side projects in recent years, including Infinitti Gritti in 2016 with Dickster and Burn in Noise, and Vogon 42 in 2018 with Dickster.

In 2017, Ajja created an alternate version of his solo project under the name Junju, which focuses more on the groovy melodic sides of psychedelic trance with a more noticeable influence from old-school Goa trance.

In 2021, Ajja & Tanina Munchkina created the label Superfluid Sound as a place to gather all the unreleased music that Ajja has created over the years.

Ajja lives with his family in a quiet little village in the Swiss mountains. When he’s not busy touring or in the studio, he designs web applications, writes audio plugins in C++, paints and creates digital art.

Although he has regularly performed at major events around the world and is used to a heavy touring schedule, he still enjoys small, intimate parties and clubs just as much.