London-based multidisciplinary artist Joviale announces their debut full-length album, Mount Crystal, due September 12 via Ghostly International.
Co-produced by Joviale with John Carroll Kirby, Jkarri, and Kwaku Konadu, Mount Crystal, is an ascendant, conceptual album. The songs are electric and soulful, dashed with jazzy experimentation, rhythmic rock, and vibrant sound design, all realised with a cast of collaborators including Sam Wilkes, Carter Lang, and Will Miller. Initially imagined as a play, Mount Crystal brims and bursts with life — peril, humour, and the buzz of the human spirit — conjuring a metaphysical climb that transcends the audio format. With plans to further manifest the vision as a live set and more, Joviale sets the course:
“Mount Crystal‘s lore is driven by the embodiment of desire, danger, and desperation. A mirrored dimension in a distant reality where nothing is left unsaid. These chapters crave to tear apart the illusion of pleasure by alchemising the unrelenting pain I’ve experienced in my efforts to love, deny, and embrace the sweetest melodies with the sweetest friends.”
The album’s second single, the super-charged centrepiece, ‘HARK!’, crosses sinister funk with serene majesty. “Not even them mountains can stop you! Not even them angels can help you!” Joviale shouts into the horizon as records scratch, guitars solo, and voices shriek and laugh. The group leaned into an evil groove during its recording, where Michael Jackson’s Thriller was a studio playlist staple. Joviale said about the track, “some things don’t make sense, but we can still have fun in that uncertainty”.
‘HARK!’ follows the release of the album’s debut single, ‘Moonshine’, which built to rhythmic bliss with James Mollison of Ezra Collective on saxophone, and previewed an electric, soulful, and jazzy new direction for Joviale.
Mount Crystal:
- The Mountain (intro)
- Snow
- Heavy
- Crush
- HARK!
- Foul Play
- Let Me Down
- Moonshine
- Both Ways
- MC (intermission)
- Beam
- Blu
- Disappear
- Wishing
