“Back home my bruddas never had a voice / So the least I could do is sing for you” – in the central refrain of ‘Distant Man’, the opening track from ‘Forever Ends Someday’, Wesley Joseph sets out a classic debut album mission: to recap the journey so far, and pay tribute to those who shaped it. “It’s an ode to myself, to where I came from, and the people I was raised with,” he explains. “When I go back home, the communication has always been ‘Do your thing for us’. Even though I keep a dream version of myself close to me – the distant man I want to be – I’m making sure I’m true to who I started this thing as. I’m not distant from the people who see me as who I am.”
That continued connection to his roots (in the post-industrial West Midlands town of Walsall, to be precise) and commitment to documenting his onward climb are all that’s typical about the vocalist and producer’s debut. Showing a consistent mastery of texture and an understanding of light and shade that allows him to craft ambitious, cinematic pieces of music that encompass an enormous spectrum of human emotion in the tightest of spaces, this record is a staggering lesson in how to elevate leftfield, synth-heavy R&B and rap. ‘Forever Ends Someday’ takes the dreamy electronic sound presented on his previous two EPs, ‘Ultramarine’ (2021) and ‘Glow’ (2023), and injects it with a depth and precision that can only come from patient, meticulous work.
“Kanye once said, ‘Some guys make 300 tracks and pick 10, but I take pride in making 15 and working on them for two years until they’re amazing’. I’m on that side: I’m a big believer in music reaching its full potential,” he explains. “I didn’t pick being a musician to sell myself short; I picked this path because I care about it more than anything. It’s blasphemous for me not to make something the best I can.”
A glimpse at what that grind means practically: when NME meets Joseph in a pub garden bordering Victoria Park in east London, he admits he hasn’t slept properly in four days (he looks remarkably fresh for it). The burger and chips he orders at 3pm is his first meal of the day. “I’m chasing [my vision] constantly, cause I’m aware at this point that this is all I can do,” he explains. “The part of my brain that had space for other options is completely eroded. The thing that excites me, that energises me, that’s what I have to do until I die.”
That relentless creative drive is what fuelled Joseph’s impressive rise. After learning to make beats as a teenager, he made his early musical forays with the Walsall collective OG Horse, alongside childhood friend and collaborator Jorja Smith. His horizons were expanded by a move to London to study filmmaking; in lecture theatres and on tube rides home, he started putting together tracks like ‘Ur_Room’ and ‘The Bloom’, before growing his following with the release of debut EP ‘Ultramarine’.
He continued developing a captivatingly eerie, soulful electronic sound, produced gorgeous self-directed music videos for tracks like ‘Cold Summer’ and ‘Thrilla’, and dropped a hugely popular COLORS Show performance of ‘Hiatus’, an experimental track that blends fierce bars, haunting pads and jaw-dropping falsettos. “I’m not trying to compromise on the things I care about most for dopamine hits,” he says. “I’m not gonna make something that I think is great worse for the sake of an algorithm. I might suffer for it, but I don’t care.”
Joseph’s uncompromising vision saw him spend three years in the wilderness after sharing 2023 EP ‘Glow’, releasing no further music and rarely posting on social media. He spent this period making connections with musicians he admired and forming a consistent team to help him realise the kaleidoscopic vision he had for his debut album. He brought in producers Nicolas Jaar (“a supportive presence across the record”), AK Paul, an expert in perfecting vocal texture and tone, and Harvey Dweller and Tev’n, who both spent countless hours with Joseph “working out the tiny details: the corners of the room, how things transition, replaying chords with a different sound, pushing the rock up the hill”.
Much of this work was done in Joseph’s London studio, but there was also a stint in LA, where he built fruitful relationships with people like Al Shux (Jay Z, SZA) and Romil Hemnani (Brockhampton), plus a dreamy trip to the alpine Swiss village Isérables. “It was the most stunning experience, making songs in a log cabin up a mountain,” he reflects. “You see the sun piercing through the mountain, panoramic views, synths, barbecues… we’re climbing trees, going for walks, sitting under a waterfall, then coming back and cutting vocals under the stars. That trip accentuated the psychedelic, elated moments of the record, like the arpeggiated synth guitar halfway into ‘Manuka’: that’s what it felt like being up the mountain.”
A slightly less glamorous but equally pivotal creative muse was the town of Walsall, where, alongside Jorja Smith, the group recorded ‘July’, a gutsy, acoustic number on which Joseph sings “Hope you proud, just knowing I tried… it’s been a long time since you let me go“. One particular trip back to his hometown also prompted a wave of lyrical inspiration. Spending days walking around old haunts, sitting on park benches, smoking and thinking, Joseph wrote the lyrics for several tracks, including ‘Distant Man’ and ‘Shadow Puppet’, the latter a stunning amalgamation of tense piano arpeggios, distorted backing vocals, intergalactic synths, and urgent rapped verses that demonstrate his sound’s increased depth.
“Being home, in my old bedroom, spending time with family and old friends I hadn’t seen in years, and just being alone and walking a lot… you can hear that place in those songs,” he says. “I’d find myself on a park bench at 3am, just barring out. On face value, Walsall is a deprived place: it’s underfunded, it’s grey, it feels tired. But I understand the beauty in the place. It feels honest and warm, and it’s not trying to hide anything.”
“Being from there is why I’m the way I am,” he continues. “When you’re somewhere isolated that doesn’t provide stimulus, you go inwards and think bigger. Looking back, I was so delusional: music stopped me from looking reality in the face. But that same part of my brain is what produced this album. I’ve just kept being delusional the whole time, without caring or compromising on what anyone thinks.”
‘Forever Ends Someday’ is out on April 10 via Secretly Canadian.