On his debut LP, Joshua Josué affords a road-weary spin on the American dream, its onerous classes delivered in English and Spanish. Written totally on the highway and tracked at Goat Mountain Recording close to Joshua Tree, Calif., Beneath The Sand (Electrical CholoLand) fuses roots rock, Tejano and Chicano soul.
The album options contributions from a formidable listing of gamers, together with Los Lobos multi-instrumentalist Steve Berlin, Los Tremendous Seven accordion ace Joel Guzmán, Outdated 97’s guitarist Murry Hammond, drummer Mitch Marine (Dwight Yoakam) and guitarist Hershel Yatovitz and bassist Rowland “Roly” Salley (each with Chris Isaak’s band).
The title monitor was cowritten by Salley, a 2009 Grammy winner for his writing work on Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ “Killing The Blues.” Fittingly, Josué completed “Beneath The Sand” with Salley and Ben Rice (one other Isaak collaborator) in a distant cabin within the Mojave Desert. Nevertheless it’s a singular desperation that types the emotional core of the music. After the lack of “somebody very expensive” to him, a despondent Josué wandered via Mexico and Central America for a few yr.
“I didn’t got down to write a music about grief,” he says. “However typically the music finds you and tells you the way it must be written.”
We’re proud to premiere Joshua Josué’s “Beneath The Sand.”
—Hobart Rowland
