“At first, the imagery of the title resonates on a surface level, the Salt Lake City songwriter surveying the ecosystem of their life, assessing which parts to nurture, which to pluck or prune,” we wrote of Josaleigh Pollett‘s In The Garden, By The Weeds back in 2024. “But spend a minute with this collection of stark and glitchy songs and it becomes clear things are operating on a deeper level.” Armed with a DIY spirit and a mix of pop and rock sensibilities, the album was recorded at home with long-time collaborator Jordan Watko, and the result was something intimate, authentic and challenging. “For Pollett not only gives the weeds their due but the subterranean conditions too,” as we continued in our review. “Those places dark and elemental we so often pretend have no relation to us higher beings. Places perhaps inside of our lives or our selves we must reach down into if we are to make any real progress in cultivating the kind of environment we want to live in. Even if it means getting our hands dirty, scrunching our eyes and grasping blind.”
Their first new material since In the Garden, and a debut release on Audio Antihero, Josaleigh Pollett’s new single ‘Radio Player’ is both a continuation of this style and something of a new beginning. For one it is the first track made after Watko moved to Japan, the pair deciding to use what might have been a collaboration killer as a kind of creative impetus. “Instead of letting distance dampen our collaboration, we really tried to lean into the chaos and confusion of creating from different ends of different days while an ocean apart,” Pollett explains. “I think a lot of that anxiety and newness mixed with the dedication of friendship drives this new music.” The track also sees the project open up to wider collaboration. Nashville’s Andrew Goldring helps with production and playing extra instruments, and Pollett invited their live band to add their own stamp to the song. The result harnesses some of the energy of live performance without sacrificing the sound’s electronic dimension, and hints at a possible future direction for the project.
Inspired in part by seeing Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist as a child, ‘Radio Player’ explores ideas of memory and childhood with all the unease of a horror movie, its soundscape strange and suggestive and moving with a kind of dream logic. A place full of images, threat and possibility, the complexities of life reduced to their fundamentals. A meditation on a time we perceive as a kind of heightened experience, one which imprints itself somewhere near the back of our minds and often surfaces without warning. Something that’s a form of haunting in its own right “It is a journey through the hallways of childhood that we leave a light on within,” as Pollett puts it. “A pink light flickers on and beckons the listener through, releasing them changed and covered in ectoplasm five minutes later.”
When I fell asleep, it was dark,
Now a light is coming from the TVI told you that I saw a ghost
I just need you to believe me.
Photo by PJ Guinto