Josh Mease

Josh Mease, originally from Houston, Texas, lives in Brooklyn, where he can often be found exploring the abandoned corners of the city, finding peaceful solace in cemeteries, empty swimming pools, and abandoned waterfronts. His debut LP, Wilderness, is the result of these wanderings. It was patched together from various recording sessions in Texas, Connecticut and most notably the closet of his Brooklyn apartment, where neighbors’ loud parties, clanking pipes, and the sound of traffic on the BQE were par for the course. But even amidst the constant noise and distraction just outside his window, Josh Mease has found a space inside his music to daydream. He’s found a safe haven in his own imagination, and luckily Wilderness takes us all there with him.


Besides a trip down to Denton, Texas with bandmates Bill Campbell and Alan Hampton to pitch in basic drums and bass, Mease also took a trip to New Haven for a few weekends to record in a top floor (and possibly haunted) attic studio. Besides this out of town tracking, the songs “Days Like This,” “Neon Ghosts,” “Eleanor,” and “White Diamonds” were all bedroom recordings top to bottom. The result is layer after layer of quiet yet lush and poignant melodies that really make Wilderness the gem that it is.


Wilderness is a testament to Josh’s mind for fantasies. Each song evokes a scene from an imaginary world. The album takes us from the front porch summer swing sing-along “Days Like This” to the day-glo world of “White Diamonds” and ends with the ambient and beautifully strange “Tall Trees.” Mease also shows a talent for love songs. “I See You,” a duet featuring Jess Martins (Via Audio), is a lovely campfire stargazer about finding your other half – and “Eleanor” evokes silent movie imagery from the past. The topics of each song are diverse, but the theme remains that world of Mease’s mind where the music and listener are safe from the daily hustle.

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