For almost ten years, Chattanooga’s Joshua Mays has written and released music under the moniker Signs Following. What he describes as “a home for all of my personal musical experiments over the years,” the project specialises in a distinctive style of experimental indie rock that takes the scope and patience of post-rock and zooms in to a smaller scale, replacing thunderous crescendos with quiet and sincere introspection. What started as a solo project has begun to grow, with Signs Following now a full band endeavour. A change instigated when Mays started collaborating with a friend a couple of years ago, and one which came to inform the future direction of his work. “In 2022, my friend Ben Johnson helped me give new life to the project by encouraging me to scrap all my old songs and start fresh,” Mays describes.
Far from stymying creativity, the new collaborative approach allowed Mays to forgo the deliberate style of previous releases in favour of something newly curious. The album which resulted from this period is a testament to such a receptivity, the new-era Signs Following sound one open to outside influence to the point where the environment itself bleeds in. “Many of the textures you hear on the album are directly inspired by wildlife,” says Mays. “The hum of insects, rustling leaves, longing coyote calls.” Indeed, the run of singles which will be released to preview the record utilise references to the natural world as prisms through which to explore more complicated themes. As Mays goes on to explain:
“The three animals I chose for the titles are often viewed as pests, but in the album they visit as messengers and guides. I have a career as a wildlife educator, and I’ve found that knowledge often comes from these unexpected sources, radiating up from the natural world rather than being handed down from above. The cicada felt like the perfect symbol of that, crawling out of the earth to sing after years underground. Whatever they’re saying, I think we should listen.”
Today we have the pleasure of sharing this aforementioned track, ‘Cicada’. Rising from gentle beginnings with quiet care, the song possesses all the respect and wonder for the natural world professed above. As though there’s some essential truth in the non-human life unfolding around us, something voiced in the tymbal chorus of the cicada which brings a devotional shimmer to the ambient noise. “‘Cicada’ was the first new song we made together,” Mays continues. “It came to life in one afternoon and guided the sound of the entire record.” The spirit it leads on the record is one without bombast or ostentation, free of any grand statement of fact. Rather, it is one satisfied to reflect the quiet beauty of the world back to us. As Mays concludes: “I don’t know if there are any consistent themes [on the record] beyond being mesmerized by the mystery of being alive.”
Cover art and photo by Tori Vintzel