Josaleigh Pollett – Radio Player
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Audio Antihero
Josaleigh Pollett cemented themself as one of indie music’s brightest rising stars with their fantastic 2023 LP In The Garden, By The Weeds, which I gushed over on this very website. Last Summer, Pollett orchestrated the multi-artist collection In The Garden, By The Remixes, which highlighted the original album’s electronic production and twisted it into a spiral of new directions. Pollett’s longtime co-conspirator Jordan Watko, aka Crowd Shy, moved to Japan between the two albums, but it appears that distance didn’t halt the two from creating music together again. “Radio Player” represents their return, and Pollett’s debut single for the Audio Antihero label, whose roster includes CIAO MALZ, Frog, and Tiberius.
The first noteworthy element of “Radio Player” is Pollett’s vocals, which have always been strong, but there seems to be a power shift since the last album. Their voice is up front, crystal clear, pristinely laid over the eerie and swirling production. On the song, Pollett states, “Radio Player is a song about memory and fear, loosely based on seeing the movie Poltergeist at too young an age. It is a journey through the hallways of childhood that we leave a light on within. A pink light flickers on and beckons the listener through, releasing them changed and covered in ectoplasm five minutes later.”
A perfect last-minute addition to your yearly Halloween playlist, “Radio Player” captures the anxious, restless feeling of a vintage horror flick, with a yearning for safety and comfort amid a distorted experience. “The house isn’t there anymore, and I don’t know if it ever was. Memory is a fickle thing when you cope with the damage like us,” Pollett sings in the third verse, which introduces an acoustic guitar line standing out amongst the largely synthetic composition. The way the song builds with each verse to that point, breaking into sparseness and culminating into its emotional finale, is nothing short of structural expertise.
When Pollett sings, “But I put my back into it, and a heart inside is gleaming. And I hear it say it loves me, but it wants me to stay dreaming,” the strain of the situation is audible in their voice as it carries each syllable rhythmically through to the ending, like tUnE-yArDs singing over a Presets track. Every note of Pollett’s melody is melded masterfully with the music behind it, making the intimidating atmosphere that “Radio Player” lives in irresistibly inviting.
To step up from an already elevated winning streak is no easy feat, but Josaleigh Pollett, Jordan Watko, and co-producer/engineer/performer Andrew Goldring have accomplished it by forming an unstoppable creative force. “Radio Player” is a catalog home run for Pollett, following their stellar showing just a couple of years ago. The measurable growth shown in this song is impressive and commendable, contributing yet another piece to an already spectacular body of work. Whenever the next Pollett project drops, I’m first in line — even if they come out of my TV in the middle of the night.
