Pressed and assembled in the USA at Gotta Groove Records, Cleveland OH
Includes digital pre-order of Semipermanence.
You get 2 tracks now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
shipping out on or around May 24, 2024
edition of 500
Purchasable with gift card
$25USDor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Manufactured in the USA at Atomic Disc, Salem OR
Includes digital pre-order of Semipermanence.
You get 2 tracks now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
shipping out on or around May 24, 2024
edition of 50
Purchasable with gift card
$15USDor more
Streaming + Download
Pre-order of Semipermanence. You get 2 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
Delicate hallway
Faded in fountain glass
Where we stood and watched the river
Quiet reservations
Flowing and ebbing
When you a leave a place and start to grasp it
Is it in the past?
Is it time to try?
There's so many roads
that are hard to find
Did I lose the thread
from what's left behind?
Am I right on time?
Warm heart and worn self
Growing, regaining health
The city fades in the mirror
Clearing the air out
letting the light back in
i can see it through the open window
Is it in the past?
Is it time to try?
There's so many roads
that are hard to find
Did I lose the thread
from what's left behind?
Am I right on time?
Nothing is sure
Nothing could be
Visions we all have yet to see
Growing beyond and
echoing on
Readying for
what’s meant to be
Twice Emmy-nominated composer Joshua Moshier is releasing Semipermanence, a debut solo album that knits together more than two dozen collaborators from his 15 years making music first as a jazz musician and later as a tone-defining composer for television and film (The Shrink Next Door, Baskets, Three Busy Debras, Looney Tunes Cartoons).
Semipermanence shows his vision as a bandleader: a new-classical and jazz foundation paired with indie pop and soul sensibilities—think Daniel Rossen, Big Red Machine and Son Lux. It’s a cohesive yet unpredictable journey through cinematic soundscapes, grounded by riveting improvised performances, often flowing into songs with foregrounded vocals. Each track is a beacon back to an era of Moshier’s musical history to date, with trusted contributors Macie Stewart, Jeff Parker, Sabina Sciubba, Caroline Davis, Akenya, and Marquis Hill playing key roles in defining the album’s intricate compositions.
“When you move away from a place, there’s kind of a death when you leave,” says Moshier, who has settled into multiple cities across the past decade. “I never really said goodbye when I left because I didn’t want to close the door, but it really was a goodbye in retrospect.” By working with old friends, Semipermanence is a return to Chicago, to Boston, to Los Angeles. It’s a monument to the scenes and full-on careers that built him into who he is now. “I wanted to find a way to tell the story of my experience after Chicago through these disparate connections and places. I wanted to weave that into something coherent.”
The album’s title embodies that feeling of leaving behind an entire life lived in a city, but it’s also a term that entered the lexicon over the past four years in a way that fascinated him. “I started hearing that word used to describe choices made during the pandemic: ‘I've made a semipermanent decision to go here,’” he says. It made him smile that people would hedge their bets in the process of literally changing their lives. “It’s very human to want things to be both ways, but also, everything is permanent and nothing is permanent."
Permanence became less theoretical during a period of mourning a loved one, when the composer began to unpack his individual voice without an ensemble or entertainment structure surrounding him. He decamped to Nashville to go through five years of voice memos—of hummed melodies and asides played on piano, scraps that came to him while working on scores and other projects. He picked out the best bits and solidified those into demos which he then brought to drummer and Semipermanence co-producer Jeremy Cunningham, whose deeply personal work The Weather Up There was an inspiration to Moshier.
With broad strokes of the music laid down, Moshier began to think about his dream conspirators. Chicago trumpeter and bandleader Marquis Hill, whose early band and records featured Moshier, was a no-brainer to shape the sound of the title track. Jeff Parker’s electric guitar soloing elevates the soulful “Canceled Plans.” One of the first people he approached was Macie Stewart, his collaborator on the song he calls the album’s thesis, “Fountain Glass.” It’s the album at its most kaleidoscopic, the song with the biggest cast of characters, the track recorded in as many as five cities. “There can be a monochromatic effect when you make a piano record, where it’s like showing somebody a black and white film. I wanted to subvert that—it’s based around the piano, but it’s full of color and unexpected orchestration.”
The final words sung in “Fountain Glass” impart Semipermanence’s overall thrust: “Nothing is sure.” As the album winds to a close on “The Present Hour,” as Cunningham’s drums and the strings and pedal steel all wash away, all that’s left is Moshier’s voice quietly singing and the sound of birds. He was recording those vocals in the final moments of working on the album, when suddenly, weeks of clouds gave way to sun and cacophonous birdsong. “I opened up my window and put out a pair of microphones,” he said. “As soon as I had recorded one minute of the birds, a dark cloud rolled in, and it started pouring.” A surefire sign if there ever was one: Nothing is sure, and nothing is permanent.
Notes by Evan Minsker
credits
releases May 24, 2024
featuring Macie Stewart, Jeff Parker, Marquis Hill, Sabina Sciubba, Caroline Davis, Akenya and more
produced by Joshua Moshier & Jeremy Cunningham
mixed by Chandler Harrod
mastered by Dave Cooley
photography by Sandy Honig
design by Morgan Hauber
drums • Jeremy Cunningham
bass • Paul Bryan (1,5) Matt Gold (3) Lane Beckstrom (4,7,8,9)
acoustic guitar • Casey Foubert (2)
electric guitar • Matt Gold (3) Ric Hordisnki (6) John Szymanski (8)
mandolin • Jacob Means (2)
pedal steel • Rich Hinman (9)
alto flute • Amy Pardo (5,6)
tenor saxophone & flute • Mike Lebrun (9)
trumpet • Will Miller (2)
bg vocals • Katie Ernst (1)
violin • Caitlin Edwards (1,3,6) Rhea Fowler (2,5,7,9)
viola • Danny Lai (1,3,6) Lauren Baba (2,5,7,9)
cello • Katinka Kleijn (1,3,6) Karl McComas-Reichl (2,5,7,8,9)
piano, synths, sequencing, additional mandolin & bg vocals performed by Joshua Moshier
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