“Exploring power, desire, injustice and survival… MXMJoY sound like hope.” The Guardian ★★★★

Maximum Joy live
MXMJoY live — We Out Here, Corsica Studios

More about Maximum Joy →

Maximum Joy are taking bookings for live performances.
Contact mail@londonfieldrecordings.com

P.E.A.C.E. — the album

A blissful amalgam of electronica and R&B laced with a grittier, brooding undercurrent that harks back to their early–80s vision. P.E.A.C.E. is a sophisticated rebirth for one of the UK’s unsung trailblazers. The Vinyl Factory

P.E.A.C.E. (2018)

The first MXMJoY album. Limited edition vinyl + digital.

Listen / buy on Bandcamp →

Their trademark ‘funk-punk’ sound lives on in this album — stabby bass guitar grooves, simmering synths, sliding airy vocals. Crack Magazine 7/10

Joy Again — EP

Joy Again (2022)

The latest MXMJoY EP.

Listen on Bandcamp →

Joy Again — Maximum Joy Remix 2023 →

The BBC Radio 1 Sessions

Maximum Joy’s John Peel and Kid Jensen BBC Radio 1 sessions have been audio-restored and are available on Bandcamp.

About

The seminal 1980s post-punk band Maximum Joy reformed in 2015, spearheaded by founding member Janine Rainforth. They went on to release P.E.A.C.E. in 2018 and played the inaugural We Out Here that year.

Bristol band MXMJoY play to a loyal crowd. Seminal to the funk-punk movement in the early 80s, with tracks like Stretch proving anthems of the New York underground — their set packs a punch. Smooth bass lines fall into dub delays and parping horn parts, all providing a strong soundtrack to a sea of skanking revellers.
A pivotal point in Bristol’s dub-informed lineage — Pitchfork compared Maximum Joy’s sound to “one of the Slits backed by the Gang of Four.” Maximum Joy is as essential to the development of post-punk / funk as Liquid Liquid or A Certain Ratio.
Musically, the group’s use of complex percussion, horns, danceable bass lines, and overtly English female vocals built a bridge between the worlds of Afrobeat, reggae, avant-garde jazz, funk and pop. PopMatters

Videos

Searching For a Feeling — live at Moth Club / Total Refreshment Centre, 2018
Can Man Conquer It All — from P.E.A.C.E.
Always With You — Janine Rainforth, Maximum Joy mix (visualiser)
Maximum Joy live

More on the MXMJoY YouTube channel and the Maximum Joy YouTube channel.

Janine — DJ sets

Janine Rainforth

Janine selects tunes for live Maximum Joy DJ sets. Recordings on her Mixcloud.

Listen on Mixcloud →