Joseph Futak has been a fixture of the London music scene for several years, lending his talents to a number of bands in the capital. As the latest of these projects wound down in the spring of 2019, Futak took the opportunity to focus on his own music. At first, these songs were just shared with friends, but with some polish and a few lives shows to hone their form, Futak found a potential release emerging, and went into the studio with producer Nathan Ridley that autumn.
The result is Pigeon Songs, a six-song EP that’s being released this September through Fox Food Records. Built around the sincerity and authenticity of Joseph Futak’s writing, the EP is a lesson in unguarded candor, its tone balancing movement and stillness to conjure a genuine intimacy. All pretension is dropped in favour of something more modest, the baritone vocals imbuing everything with a sense of meaning in a manner reminiscent of Devon Welsh.
Lead single ‘Scrambling Around’ showed off just how powerful this could be. At once languid and mournful, the song achieves an ambiguous tone, where tenderness and wry self deprecation swirl into one. The effect is one of direct communication, Futak appearing to speak to you and you alone, a message from one small room in the lonely hours for whoever needs to hear it.
Today sees the release of a brand new single, ‘Gone Before’, a track that builds upon this style. Again there’s a simplicity to the sound, a utilisation of space, and Futak’s vocal drawl lends a sluggish quality. But beneath this lies a curious urgency too, the gentle peaks in the delivery hinting at the intensity of feeling beneath the haze, as though his very soul is there to see, if only this lethargy could be punctured. Check out the video by Ola Arent below:
Pigeon Songs is out on the 4th September via Fox Food Records and you can pre-order it now from the Joseph Futak Bandcamp page.
