A Glasgow-based Canadian, Josh Thorpe is a visual artist as well as a musician, known for his psychedelic installations of threads, balloons, and “a big public work of flags flying with stupid drawings on them”. Back in 2018 he released his accurately titled debut album, Scrappy Art Rock You Can Dance To, followed in February by his latest album, Love & Weather. Today he’s sharing the video to the album’s eight-minute opus, Honeysuckle Moon.

Love & Weather marked a new adventure for Josh’s music, taking the minimalist, Lou Reed-like rock’n’roll of his debut into new territory via alternative tunings and non-traditional song structures, owing much to the Toronto underground music scene that birthed him. Discussing Honeysuckle Moon, Josh has spoken of it as, “simple and open”, allowing space for sonic exploration from noisy-guitars to, “odd piano bits” and an, “old charity shop”, synth that emerges towards the songs close.

The track enters on a wash of unusual percussion, before, with a single strum of a guitar the mood changes entirely, Josh’s voice arriving with an emotional intensity, matched by the slowly unwinding instrumentation bringing to mind the likes of Josh T. Pearson or Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Lyrically, the track uses imagery from nature, be it swaying grasses or dolphins deep in the ocean, to tell a story of moments you wish would last forever, “the darkness warms the deepening of the night. The only thing I wanted more of was time”.

Check out the video below, made by Canadian contemporary artist Ashes Withyman, featuring “a magical world of encounters between people, animals, and the material world”.

Love & Weather is out now via Unusual Music Exchange. Click HERE for more information on Josh Thorpe.