Jan Johnston is an English professional singer, best known for collaborating with some of the world's top trance music DJs and producers.
Career
In the early 1990s, she was signed to Columbia Records as part of the pop duoJJ, which gained some recognition while touring the UK with the #55 minor UK hit "If This Is Love". However, when the band project failed she continued as a solo artist; turning down the opportunity to sign to Deconstruction Records and instead signing to A&M Records. In the mid 1990s she came to the attention of trance producer Brian Transeau, when he purchased one of her singles from a bargain bin in Manchester. Impressed by her vocals, he decided to collaborate with her recording the track "Remember." Following this, Johnston was in demand to vocal for many other trance tracks, notably for Alan Bremmer and Anthony Pappa's "Freefall" project. Upon being given the instrumental, Jan came up with the lyrics resulting in "Skydive " which despite being a club anthem, never translated to a commercial hit, finally hitting the top 40 at No. 35 on its third release in 2001.
signed her to his Perfecto Records label in 1999, with Jan initially recording three dance tracks with Jamie Myerson: "Religion"; "Flesh" - a track Johnston had previously written with BT - that
Post Perfecto Records
Following the cancellation of the 'Emerging' project, Johnston continued to write and record with trance producers, contributing five tracks to Paul van Dyk's Grammy Award nominated, Reflections album, amongst other projects though once again the majority of them went unreleased. In 2008, new solo tracks by Johnston began to emerge, with two of them "Sleeping Satellite" and "Obsession", released digitally in 2009 by Perfecto however there have been no further solo releases since. She continues to provide guest vocals on a number of trance music tracks, most of which have been released. Notable tracks include "As It Should" with Tenishia in 2012 and "Skysearch" with DJ Feel in 2015.
Digital re-issues and release of unreleased material
In 2016, a previously unreleased album of Jan's entitled "When Everything Was Possible" that was recorded with Jamie Myerson in 1998 ahead of her signing to Perfecto was released on Jan's Bandcamp page and a few months later Johnston's music as part of the duo JJ was digitally re-issued by Sony Music. A digital re-issued of "Naked But For Lilies" followed in April 2017 by Universal music and the "Flesh" and "Silent Words" singles by Warner Music in August 2017. In June 2017 Johnston released the song "Falling Away", the first song from "The Travelling Vixen", a collection of previously unreleased material written and recorded with DJ Manolo following the "Emerging" project. In 2018 Johnston signed to Solar Storm records with new remixes of her singles "Calling Your Name" and "Flesh" released. In November 2019, it was announced that Johnston's "Emerging" album would be released by August Day Records, almost 20 years after its initial planned release date. The cancelled 2001 single "As The Cracks Appear" was released on 22 November on Solar Storm along with "Religion", with the "Emerging" album on 29 November with plans for the release of old singles "Superstar" and "Am I On Pause" to follow.
