Permanent Damage is out now!
Image: Nathan Dunphy
Glaswegian soul star Joesef has unveiled his highly anticipated debut album, Permanent Damage. To celebrate the release, the musician is taking us behind-the-scenes of their recording process whilst creating the album.
"I've always found it quite difficult to find peace in myself. Always moving, always thinking, always dreaming, always searching. Until I started making music it was the more destructive aspects of my personality that took over in order to cope with an ever changing landscape of feeling I couldn’t maintain control of." Joesef shares.
"Permanent Damage is about fighting in the street on the way home, kissing in the taxi, having nothing to say in the morning. holding grief in your hands and carrying it with you indefinitely. There is a permanence in what we went through together and it’s affected the way I carry myself and the way I see the world. It's about grieving for a version of myself that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get back.”
FOOD IS FUEL
We went to middle farm studios for a few sessions where me and barney made east end coast/last orders/all good together. I kept us going with bacon bagels and bolognaise.
BARNEY AT THE PIANO
This is Barney Lister, who co-produced/wrote the album with me. For the piano sound we used for some of the tracks, we had a strip of neon tape in-between the mallets and the strings, which made a really interesting sound. Like a sorted of palm muted guitar sound, it can be heard in the intro of east end coast.
AT THE KEYS
Barney is an incredible keys player, he has such an incredible ear for interesting melodies. He has a prophet synth which can be heard across the record, and at first I was apprehensive to use it as I wanted more organic sounds for the album but the combination of electronic and natural textures ended up giving some of the more vintage sounds a modern feel.
THE DAIRY, BRIXTON
The bulk of the album was written and recorded in Barney’s studio in The Dairy, in Brixton, London. This is us the day we finished the record.
STRINGS
The strings were the final touches to the album before mixing and mastering, we send a few sung and played string ideas to Rosie Danvers for some tracks, and she composed some of the most beautiful string arrangements I’ve ever heard for the album, it was such an incredible moment watching her in action and being in the room watching all these incredible musicians play on my songs.
BACKING VOCALS ON APT 22
We recored Guy Garvey, lead singer of Elbow doing some backing vocals under the chorus of Apt 22. He has a space within the Dairy of his own, and working their over a year and a bit we all got to know each other really well. It was a dream to hear his voice like that, and to have him on this track as I’m obviously such a huge fan of his work. A really special moment during the final days of working on the record.
AT THE DESK
I recorded most of my own vocals, and harmonies on the album, I really enjoy comping and editing vocals, I find it quite therapeutic in a weird way. Coming from producing all my music alone to being with Barney in his space, it was important for me to maintain a level of control in my own production, while also knowing when to let go of things and let barney take over. I learned so much from Barney over the course of creating the album and my confidence in myself as a producer has definitely increased as a result.
CLAPS
Recording claps for It’s Been A Little Heavy Lately.
GUITAR ON ALL GOOD
Recording guitar melodies which we then layered with synths I’m sure
PIANO FOR EAST END COAST
The muted taped piano sound we used for East End Coast.
Permanent Damage is out now!