PREMIERE | Joseph Black, "Lonelier Than Heaven Knows"
The sophisti-pop scholar and orchestrator — Joseph Black; photographed by Landon Speers.
Created at home direct from Highland Park, NJ; Joseph Black presents the debut solo EP Wildest Dreams via Rumore Bianco with a debut listen to the grandiose windswept melancholia masterpiece — "Lonelier Than Heaven Knows". The former Donovan Blanc/Honeydrum artist abides by the aesthetic of cool, sweet, suave and serene 80s sophisti-pop that imagines fancy and glossy fashion magazine appearances, soft focused music videos with Vaseline-smudged lenses accompanied by plenty of dramatically aloof looks and gaudy glances. JB masters the art of expressing items and angles of angst and the throes of isolated anguish in tropes of antiquated high art that would fit snug at home in an awkward coming-of-age John Hughes throwback flick.
“Lonelier Than Heaven Knows” accentuates the depths of solitude as a singular state that extends beyond the comprehension of the celestial skies. Joseph Black employs a sultry and pouting delivery that is delivered with a glamorous grace at the forefront of a delicately crafted synth arrangement scheme. The track recalls exotic locales, foggy beaches, smoky city scenes with a metropolitan glow of neon urban advertisements set against the faint flicker of street utility lamp posts. The song revels in the traces of memory, revisiting the places that hold passionate remembrances of warm embraces and sensual interludes. “Lonelier” is the sound of being alone in the world; the act and art of picking up the pieces from what once was, reconciling the realities of time and place to the corresponding connections of the heart’s desires in the present. Black allows the listener to get lost along the boulevards of memory; wondering what it all meant anyway back then and what it all might mean now.
Joseph Black took the time to share some candid reflections on the inception of "Lonelier Than Heavens Knows":
"Lonelier Than Heaven Knows" started out as a different demo called "The Wait" which was ultimately scrapped in favor of this new song. I wrote and recorded it in one day this past August at my home in Highland Park, NJ. It was originally about how hard it is to watch life happen without you, be it for someone you can't be with or for something you want to be a part of; but still watching with a sense of hope that maybe it will somehow work out. "Lonelier Than Heaven Knows" is a perversion of that theme taken to it's next logical place; it erases that hope and explores the ennui that ensues when it does work out but never lives up to the dream. It's a study of the duality we all share for both the desire of (perceived or real) constant forward momentum and the reality that many of us, like dogs chasing cars, seek it without knowing why or what to do once we find it and that, often times, is the loneliest place of all.
Joseph Black’s Wildest Dreams EP will be available October 24 via Rumore Bianco (cassingles are limited to 25).
Lost in thought with Joseph Black; photographed by Landon Speers.