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Suburban dysfunction and the guise of perfect lives fill the dream state of Joss Worthington’s songs, just like they have been captured from a movie – or as he calls them – postcards that blinker on the horizon like Morse code to the outside world. As a producer he is accustomed to working with other musicians but his new solo project, Postcards From Jeff, is something he can claim as his own. Recorded at his rural hideaway in Yorkshire, Worthington brings his love for Scandinavian noir and Twin Peaks together for his debut EP, seeing his fondness for melodramatic narratives realised through cinematic song-scapes; something innately dark but serve as an appealing undercurrent for the themes of his songs.
To bring to life the cinematic narrative of his debut single, A House, Worthington approached music clip filmmaker, Steve Glashier (Primal Scream, The Prodigy, and Fatboy Slim), to explore the filmic nuances in his songwriting, and create a moving picture which was also inspired by the photography of Gregory Crewdson. On the horizon of his debut EP release, Worthington invites us to see his “brutally honest perspective” of his view of the world, beyond the Myxomatosis-stricken rabbits and the agoraphobic house parties.
- RECLUSION -
The benefits of working in reclusion are that it really makes you focus on achieving your own artistic vision without any outside interference or distractions. Of course, there’s always the danger of completely disappearing into a self-indulgent hole through this process, which I’ve certainly been guilty of in the past, but I always find that I’m most satisfied with the end result when I make music like this.
When I’m producing other peoples’ work it’s the complete opposite experience. It’s much more collaborative and there are other external factors, such as time and budgets, contributing to the end result, which can be a good and a bad thing. But the process is very different when I’m working on my own stuff. There’s no dialogue or map of what I’m setting out to do or write about. I’m usually just completely lost in experimenting with the sounds and textures that gradually take shape into songs.
"It’s a constant and intuitive battle until I eventually reach a point where I feel happy, or can live with, what the song has become."
- DYSFUNCTION IN SUBURBIA -
I’ve always been inspired by films, television shows and photography that seem to take place in those surreal types of suburban settings, such as Blue Velvet, The Swimmer, Rear Window, Donnie Darko and Twin Peaks. These films and shows always seem to be set in these perfect but somewhat mundane worlds, but when you scratch the surface there’s usually a dark undercurrent simmering underneath. I guess I’m continually fascinated by that from an artistic point of view. I think that it’s always influenced my music in some way or other; the ordinary clashed with extraordinary, the beauty and sadness of everyday life, relationships…
"Lyrically I often imagine the songs to be like little movies or surreal TV episodes."
It helps me to connect with them more, particularly when they are deliberately ambiguous in meaning. Also I think there’s an atmospheric element to the sound which is directly influenced by film soundtracks.
- A HOUSE -
Steve had done a couple of videos for my friend's band (Folks) and they suggested I get in contact. I sent Steve the track and within an hour he called me up and was massively enthusiastic about the song and wanting to work with me. The amazing thing was that he picked up on practically all my musical and cinematic influences just from listening to that one track. It was quite surreal, really. I didn’t send him a press kit or anything, just the track. Somehow he seemed to be able to pick out everything I was into, which was amazing because we instantly found a common ground and thinking of ideas for the video. We talked a lot about some of the films that I’ve mentioned before and also about the photography of Gregory Crewdson, who we are both big fans of. I think we definitely were both quite clear on making the video quite ambiguous in terms of its tone, meaning, location and era, which ties in well with the sound of PFJ I think. In the end though, I just let Steve do his thing and I’m overjoyed with the result. Every time I go back to watch it I see something different which keeps it fresh for me.
- DREAMING & THE SUBCONSCIOUS -
I’ve always been fascinated by the subconscious and dreams, mostly because I’ve always had pretty wild and vivid dreams. I guess I always feel like my subconscious has always got a lot to say to me and writing music seems to be the best way for me to work through thoughts and ideas which I don’t quite understand consciously. Whenever I’ve tried to consciously write a song about something specific it’s usually turned out to be pretty terrible, so I try to keep things as instinctively as possible in the lyric writing process. This can often make for some quite abstract results, but oddly, they are the ones I always seem to connect with the most. I would have to say that for me, subconscious ideas are definitely much more interesting, if not more creative.
"These songs are definitely like my little postcards to the world."
But I don’t really want to analyse too deeply what the message in the songs might be, for fear of losing my connection to them.
