Far Caspian to release deluxe edition of album

The release features three brand-new, previously unheard tracks from the Irish Alternative artist, including ‘35mm’, and ‘Come Down and Waste With Me’.

His latest single, ‘Following The Trend’, arrives with the first of these new tracks, the beautifully low-key and atmospheric, ‘Sun Room’.

Opening with the quietly devastating ambience of tape hiss, lo-fi keyboard samples, and softly-plucked nylon guitars, ‘Sun Room’ offers a surprising change of pace and heavier subject matter than previous releases, finding Joel dealing with the loss of family members and the impact that can have on your identity as a person.

“Older now, in a sun room, Wishing that you were still around, Folded up in your own head, Waiting here for you to make a sound.”

With his vocals sitting more exposed than ever previously, the quality of Johnston’s voice is able to shine through on the track, which slowly builds and opens out to a lush arrangement of harmonies, delicate piano lines and various ambient textural layers, all effortlessly combining to stunning effect.

The signature hazy vocals, chiming guitars and childlike keyboard melodies of latest single, ‘Following The Trend’, produces a profound and instant sense of nostalgia, a key theme of ‘Ways To Get Out’ as a whole.

Over a looping drum machine pattern and a bed of strummed acoustics, Johnston’s introspective lyrics see him asking difficult questions of himself (“How long will I try? ... How long of following the trend?”), culminating in the intimate sound of someone working things out in real time (“We’re figuring out ... verything about”) which precedes the carefree resolution of the dreamlike instrumental outro.

Joel’s work as Far Caspian began in his Leeds basement home studio in 2018. ‘Ways To Get Out’ was written and recorded throughout 2020 at Joel’s childhood home near Enniskillen.

Far Caspian.

Success

While Joel has enjoyed success throughout the project with well-received singles and EPs, the album tracks were written especially for the project and represent a marked shift towards a complete standalone body of work; an album in the truest sense of the word.

Combining influences from Lo-Fi, Shoegazing, Bedroom-Pop and early 2000s Alternative music, a substantial musical reference point for the album was Joel’s return to the music of his teens from the early to mid 2000’s (The Postal Service, The Radio Dept, Broken Social Scene, The Walkmen), and the deep feelings of nostalgia this process invoked.

Add to all of this a keen sense of place lent by the location and the unique set of circumstances surrounding the recording and the time it took place; the combined result conveys this period through Joel’s personal lyrics and the idiosyncratic musical world he inhabits.

Along with being at the helm on writing and production duties, and performing most of the vocals and instrumentation on the record, Joel also creates artwork and visuals in-house, making Far Caspian a cottage industry in a modern sense.

Warble

The hallmarks of Joel’s distinctive production style include the quiet warble of vintage tape and fluttery guitars, buried layers of dreamlike harmonies, and off-kilter analog drum machines blended with live drum recordings.

With a dedicated worldwide following, tens of millions of online music streams, and critical acclaim, Far Caspian’s continued ascent is furthered still by an exhilarating full-band live experience which has led to sold-out shows across the UK and Europe, including a triumphant album launch at a sold-out Lafayette in London.

Talking about his song, ‘Sun Room’, Joel said: “This was the last song I wrote for the record. I have never really touched on death in my songs and I don’t think I was planning on doing in this song either, but it ended up coming out, so I went with it.

“I lost both of my grandparents within a few years of each other, and when my grandad died it was the first time I was really taken back by death.

“He was the one I felt closest with, out of all my grandparents, and naturally it was the one that hit me the most.

“I never wrote anything about the experience and then when I started to write this song it made me think of what happens when we lose important family members.

“The memories that tie us to our home towns can be disrupted by losing someone that played a role in that time in our lives, and I wanted to create a song that remembered a person both in the past and in the present, now that they’re gone and what that means for those old memories.”