Joe Goddard 'Harmonics' 2xLP

Joe Goddard has been thinking about thinking. For the past few years, the producer, songwriter, and all-round polymath of UK dance and indie music has been trying to get more in touch with his own intuition. “This idea of trying to divorce your conscious mind from the music-making process – not trying to force meaning on the music or your collaborators, allowing that process to be very empathetic.”

The wonderful result is his third solo album Harmonics; set for release on July 12^th, it is a record rooted in instinct and empathy. Across 14 tracks of left-of-centre dance music – touching on UK garage, house, hip-hop, pop, and disco – Goddard opens the floor for a number of collaborators. The voice of Ibibio Sound Machine’s Eno Williams rides the afro-house groove of “Progress”, while starry-eyed boom-bap track “When Love’s Out of Fashion” features UK rapper Oranje. Former Wild Beasts frontman Hayden Thorpe lends his uniquely expressive vocal to the low-slung house of “Summon”, and Joe’s Hot Chip bandmates Alexis Taylor and Al Doyle both appear on the gleaming half-step ballad “Heal Your Mind”. Other guests on Harmonics include Tom McFarland of the London dance-pop group Jungle, Bronx-raised singer Fiorious (on recent single “New World (Flow)”), Guinean vocalist Falle Nioke, and UK jazz musician Alabaster DePlume.

For all the collaborators that Joe brings into his world, there are a handful of solo songs like “Follow Me” that capture the more reflective and inward-looking side of his music. “With all the different people on this record, I’ve been working on how to respect the contribution they make and not trying to be the one who has to lead everything,” Joe says. “That follows through into the songs where I’m singing. I tried to write words without having too much of an idea of what I’m trying to express, where I’m just writing a stream of consciousness.”

This openness towards collaboration and the acceptance of people’s individual human nuances is where Harmonics gets its name from. The history of dance music is replete with words like ‘ecstatic’, ‘euphoric’, and ‘uplifting’ – but here, those words do not describe hands-in-the-air clichés, but the spiritual and human side that Joe explores in his music. “Part of the reason why I wanted to call this Harmonics is that I was trying to create something very inclusive and empathetic, something harmonious,” Joe says. “There’s a lot of aggressive division in the world, and I wanted this to be loving, romantic – and fun.” This is the soulful thread that runs through all of Joe Goddard’s favourite music – genres from soul and funk, to house and garage, that were born in Black America and adopted by the UK. Harmonics is not just a title but a promise fulfilled – an unbridled celebration of compassion, collaboration, and creation.