song premiere: "What If It's All Wrong?" - Joseph Black

After a brief break from the label spotlight, Chill Mega Chill has announced their return in a big way. On February 23, CMC will release Joseph Black's new album Northern Exposure and we're bringing you the lead single - "What If It's All Wrong?"

The track is charming and dashing; radiating in the glow of bubbly keys, bold instrumentals and Black's suave falsetto. But, as the title would lead you to believe, the inspiration and statement behind the music is one of personal significance for the artist. As Black explained in a statement posted below, "What If It's All Wrong" is a reflection of a personally tumultuous time, with the sparkling synth and claps of percussion masking a meaningful message. 

Northern Exposure is an album acknowledgement of the passage of time, and "What If It's All Wrong" is a question we've all kept in the back of our minds, whether we acknowledge it or not. In listening you discover that Black's single is a beautiful, accurate representation of that question of the unknown. We have absolutely no way of knowing if anything we believe is true, but that's what makes life thrilling and magical, and Black's musical offering is an accurately mysterious but wondrous representation of that.

Between 2016 and 2017 I wrote, recorded, mixed, and mastered "Northern Exposure", my first ever solo effort, at my home in Highland Park, New Jersey. I began working on these tracks right around the time that my grandfather, after whom I was named and who has since passed, was diagnosed with late stage heart failure. The whole experience brought me out of myself in a way I can't really describe, but it made me acutely aware of both how slowly and quickly time passes. These songs are, I feel, my most reflective work. In past projects, I have focused on situations or relationships at specific points in time as they were happening, but this casts a much wider net onto the places, experiences, and people that have shaped my life with the past and present blurring together much as they do in memory.

I intentionally did not share the album with many people as I was working on it which was both liberating and frustrating; it was almost like being in a submarine in that most of the world disappears and you are kind of in this small bubble and you have an idea, an approximation of where that is, but you can't really contextualize it until you come up for air, and even then, it still feels like a guess. I found that the best friend I had throughout the process in helping shape and mold sounds and arrangements was the passage of time.

photo: Landon Speers