Healing power of music set Joshua on journey for life

Playing folk that’s imbued with electronic and rock music, Joshua Burnside comes to Róisín Dubh next Friday, February 23. Based in Rostrevor, County Down, Joshua released his debut album Ephrata last May. The record goes from lo-fi sounds to louder ones over the course of its ten track, a deliberate strategy, according to the singer.

“I picked producers for the sound that I wanted,” he says. “Because it was my first album, I wanted to do a lot of different things, use different sounds and go to places I hadn’t on my previous EPs. I was trying bigger things.”

“It was fun to do the rockier stuff,” he adds. “Before the album, I was recording at home and I didn’t really have the ability to get big sounds. In the studio, I thought I could have a bash at doing something like that.”

The sleeve-notes for Ephrata refer to songs that involve a political satirist being assassinated and two siblings hallucinating the apocalypse. It sounds as though he’s writing plots for Charlie Brooker’s dystopian Netflix series Black Mirror.

“Well, that’s cool – I’m a big fan of Black Mirror, and Charlie Brooker in general!” Joshua says. “I like to explore emotional, psychological and dramatic themes. I explore technology as well, and it’s influence on our lives today.”

Like Brooker, Joshua is concerned by the pervasiveness of social media.

“I’m happy to use these tools in my everyday life as an independent musician and songwriter,” he says. “But I think I wouldn’t use them if it wasn’t for that. It terrifies me a little bit. I probably would have said the same thing if I was born when the telephone or the typewriter was invented.”

Joshua decided to take a thematic approach to the songs on Ephrata, as opposed to a more traditional singer/songwriter approach.

Themes include Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and his fear of technology, but human emotions are explored too

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.