Last week, when we first heard Josh Purvis‘ new album Ripping Yarns On The L90, we were blown away. It was simultaneously disjointed and cohesive – a bizarre and disorientating collection of songs.
It’s not too often you stumble across a musical project that feels completely fresh and unique… but that’s exactly what happened when we discovered Purvis.
From the moment we heard the first track of that new record, we knew we had to catch up with the artist to uncover the thought processes behind his favourite tracks.
Sydney outsider pop artist Josh Purvis runs us through his incredibly unique and bizarre new album Ripping Yarns On The L90.
Album the album Film
The idea for the 45 minute album film comes from my experience of commuting to uni and school and thinking about how public transport is when most people listen to music for long periods of time… so why not record myself doing just that for the album video.
The idea of uploading album videos has been rattling around in my head for a while and came about because of my awareness that the ‘album’ as a product and creative pursuit has become outdated in the internet age where most people either stream tracks or watch YouTube videos of single songs.
Considering this, my idea for the 45 minute video is that it might make people both watch the video and listen to the album all the way through which they otherwise wouldn’t do if it was just the image of the album cover.
Girl
This song, in my opinion, has the best melody on the album. The way it runs up and down the strings kind of felt like a story to me, and because at the time I was listening to a lot of Mac DeMarco I decided to make it a love story. The lyrics are based on a mixture of characters from Murakami books and my own experiences.
On a floating dream
I’ve been writing this song since high school which is when I first came up with the melody. It was basically me trying to write a slow calming song… sort of like a lullaby.
To me it sounds a bit like a Beatles song with synth layered on top and it includes my favourite lyrics on the album, “circle her eyes- then you realise… where it’s all gone.”
Towards the rising sun
The acoustic instrumentals for this song are inspired by the song Bonnie and Clyde by Serge Gainsbourg.
I have always liked the Bob Dylan-esque repetitive strumming mixed with the fast passed string instruments layered on top that Gainsbourg used on that song so I tried to achieve that momentum and sound for this track.
The lyrics are inspired by old spaghetti westerns and the overarching theme behind it is one of resilience and hope.
Vesuvius
The idea behind this song is to mix the semi real story of Aguirre, the Wrath of God with the real events of the ancient eruption of vesusvius; both revolving around the idea of the struggle against nature and the passing of time.
The song opens and closes with the sound of the rainforest which eventually gives way to the sound of synths and tribal drums representing the heart of the jungle where the song takes place.
Listen to Josh Purvis’ new album now.
