Music Makers

Three Music Thingz with Josaleigh Pollett

We are so back with another rendition of Three Music Thingz, the blogseries where I ask musicians for three thingz that are essential to their music-making.

Today we have Josaleigh Pollett! Pollett is a Salt Lake City, Utah-based singer-songwriter and a longtime fave of the I Enjoy Music blogoverse. I interviewed them and their longtime collaborator Jordan Watko (aka Crowd Shy) at Kilby Block Party last year...

...and the weekly brosaleigh playlist should be saved to your personal cloud-based platform post-haste if you enjoy music...

So it made all the sense in the world to get Pollett back on the blog for a Three Music Thingz feature now that her new album If I Let It Quiet is freshly out via Audio Antihero. Another killer collab with Watko—and an intercontinental one, given Watko had moved to Japan while the record was made—this is one for the thinkers, the ponderers, those who thrive in the wee hours, people who stay staring out the window of planes trains and automobiles, and anyone who wants a comforting accompaniment to their lonesome mental wanderings. The production on If I Let It Quiet is truly stunning: electronic elements meld fluidly with earthy, grounded instrumentation, and Pollett's voice guides you across the soundscapes like a steady hand.

I love the mellow I think that I'm gonna be up for a while refrain of "Like A River." I feel seen by these lyrics from "The Witness": "I think I found what’s at the bottom of the spiral/I think it’s when there’s no witness/No one to see you at the party with your hair long, spinning in a new dress/And knowing it’s a new dress." And I love how "Radio Player" pulsates with the psychedelic thrill/fear of childhood memory:

Life has a lot of built-in darkness and sometimes it's up to us to figure out how to make the light (or at least go looking for it)...such is the vibe I get from If I Let It Quiet—it's a beautiful expansion from 2023's In The Garden, By The Weeds, already a great album. Okay no more rambling from moi, let's get these Three Music Thingz from Josaleigh, pronto!

Tascam Field Recorder

For this new album in particular, it became important to capture the sounds of our respective environments—we were recording these songs from so far away from each other, we wanted to get sounds of the rooms we were in and build them into the production. Jordan (aka Crowd Shy) got this Tascam field recorder and it came with a little pop-filter muff thing that just looked like the silliest furry little hat that we both got a kick out of. When he was in town and we were capturing demos, this little guy would just be in the room with us. When Jordan was capturing sounds outside of his apartment in Osaka or going on road trips exploring different prefectures in Japan, he had the little guy with him.

Apples

When I was a teenager, I was working with this audio engineer one day who told me the pectin in apples was really good for your singing voice. I don’t know if it’s actually true or not, but I religiously eat an apple before every show and every recording session. When we were tracking final vocals for this record, I had built a make-shift vocal booth in my tiny bedroom and would have to turn the AC off to keep it from being picked up by the mic. I’d be sweating ferociously in that hot little fake closet and taking bites out of an apple in between takes to keep my voice feeling happy. I probably ate at least 80 cosmic crisps during the creation of this record. Doctors fear me.

Band Tees in a size medium

It’s become a bit of a tradition when Jordan and I play shows together that he raids my closet first. It’s funny to me because I think Jordan has an exceptional sense of style and taste, but he always wants something special and not his for shows. We’re lucky that we wear the same size and I have exactly 1 billion band tees. It’s also convenient now that he doesn’t live in the states, because as he was packing for his trip to come spend the summer touring with me, he didn’t have to pack hardly any shirts because we can just share. Pants is a different story though. If we could share pants I bet we’d do that, too.