Joviale – Mount Crystal
Joviale releases their debut album, Mount Crystal, today 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 realized 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.”
In conjunction with today’s release, Joviale unveils the video for album highlight, “Blu.”
“Blu” was Joviale’s first experience “writing in communion with someone,” they explain. Jkarri’s sweet-toned signatures meld with Joviale’s heady cadence as John Carrol Kirby holds down the keys. The soulful pop ballad is a testament to the collaborative ethos that guides the album: surrendering oneself to music-making, and letting the process lead you somewhere new.
Commenting on the track, Joviale says: “Blu comes at a point in Mount Crystal where it’s time to reckon with one’s delusions, which is not something I’d delved into before…my awareness of my own delusions. Poeticising pain, heartbreak etc. will always be something I can pull out of my back pocket. Blu, I guess, was my attempt to lighten that horrible feeling of rejection and humiliation especially if I had a big part to play in the breakdown of it all.”
Joviale Tour Dates:
Thu. Nov. 13 – Berlin, DE @ Säälchen *
Sat. Nov. 15 – Utrecht, NL @ EKKO *
Sun. Nov. 16 – Antwerp, BE @ Trix *
Mon. Nov. 17 – Paris, FR @ Petit Bain *
Wed. Nov. 19 – Bristol, UK @ Lantern Hall *
Thu. Nov. 20 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton *
* = supporting Nourished By Time
#jovial3