“For most of my adult life, I’ve felt terribly afraid of true intimacy with other people,” Radin confesses. “I’ve always kept and continued to build walls up around myself, not letting anyone in. This is something I’ve thought a lot about during the past year and a half, having spent the pandemic alone in my house. ‘Goodbye’ is a song I wrote about that feeling; about how I’ve met women in my life who have helped me learn things about myself, but when push comes to shove, I always end up leaving metaphorically before the sunrise.” Listen now: After 16 years, eight albums and hundreds of shows, Joshua Radin still treats music as an antidote to any ailment. On his ninth full-length The Ghost And The Wall [Nettwerk], the troubadour continues a cycle of catharsis meant to be shared among any and all receptive hearts. “I see where I need to heal, and I write songs about that,” he admits. “Like keeping a diary, songwriting is extremely personal for me. It’s always cathartic to not only write, but to also go on tour and play in front of people on a nightly basis. With every project, I get to see how the most vulnerable moments of my life affect others.” For this project Radin worked remotely with producer Jonathan Wilson [Father John Misty, Conor Oberst, Dawes). Despite both being in Southern California, they opted to transfer files back and forth, crafting the entire record through the wire. “We still haven’t met in person,” he admits. “I’d never done anything like this—even in terms of demos. We acclimated though,and it worked very well. In the past, I’d work with some legendary session players, but I felt intimidated to be exactly honest with them. It’s the first time I’ve ever recorded without any of those feelings. I could text Jonathan at three in the morning with feedback. Jonathan would listen to me, but he’d also try things I really loved as well. There was no pressure and no timeline. It was a very cool process.” Radin’s first post-pandemic live show of 2021 will be at The Stephen Talkhouse on Saturday, August 7 in Amangansett, NY. Get tickets here. Pre-order/pre-save the album The Ghost and the Wall, out July 23: https://joshuaradin.ffm.to/ghost Next, do people who are tone-deaf hear music differently?
