Release day: We Were Looking for Someone More Youthful

Island Wastrel

21 Oct 2025 — 1 min read

Listen! Let me know what you think! And obviously: tell all your friends.

So this one is a bright, slightly surreal indie-rock bounce: upright/double-bass and acoustic guitar carry the groove while crunched Telecasters trade lines with soft trumpets, and sparkling pianos. Those noises at the start are bowed double bass harmonics put through some processing. After some electronic drums, it blooms into a bigger, jangly 60s psych-garage-beat / 90s britpop/art-rock thing... As usual, it's mostly recorded in live takes - no fixes, warm, scuffed edges by design, etc etc.

Lyrically it’s a nod to a rejection I receive frequently for my work. I even received it for this song:

screenshot from a rejection I received for "We Were Looking for Someone More Youthful"

Anyway, here are some places you can listen! Pick your poison:

Introducing the Post Folk playlist

As part of my journey, I want to bring my music to more listeners, and contextualise it as part of a wider scene. To that end, I've come up with a playlist which I've called "Post Folk" for now: Finger-picked acoustics meet fuzz pedals,

Release Day: The Haunting

Today, as a fast follow to my release of The River, I am releasing a track called The Haunting. Like The River, I had released a work-in-progress demo of the song much earlier. This one plays on memories of a village primary school, and the leap to living in London

The River - Instrumental to Finished Song

Before I wrote the lyrics to The River, I released it as a WIP instrumental. It didn’t even have a bass line written (let alone tracked!) at the time - that was overdubbed afterwards, right before the vocals. You can hear the before and after below: Island Wastrel · The

Release Day: The River

Today I am releasing a track called "The River". The track is inspired by the quiet menace of countryside rituals - especially, in this case, cricket. The song blends irregular melodies, rough-edged guitars, and reggae-tinged bass guitar. Recorded in single unedited takes in my Helsinki apartment. I will

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Introducing the Post Folk playlist

Release Day: The Haunting

The River - Instrumental to Finished Song

Release Day: The River